A short dissertation on a word

 

Celebrating another birthday on that path to old age
note the walker I'm sitting in

The word that’s on my mindtoday is resilience. The dictionary defines it as the capacity to recoverquickly from difficult circumstances. I think of it as the ability to bounceback. Several years ago I was in the hospital with stage four acute kidneyfailure, caused by an antibiotic that I should have known better than to take.I had already within recent years been hospitalized for a hip reconstruction (afractured hip so bizarre that people in the hospital looked at me and said, “Oh,your ‘the hip’” and a diagnosis of atrial fibrillation. By this time I wasfeeling a bit down when a medical resident, a woman, came in to talk with me.

I said, “I guess this meansthat my health is going to change forever.” I was having a pity party, but I sawvisions of dialysis three times a week dancing in my head. She replied, “Oh, Idon’t know. You seem to be pretty resilient.” Right then, right there, thatwoman, probably unknown to her, gave me a great gift. I began to think ofmyself as resilient. I was in the hospital for six or seven days, but every daymy creatinine (high is bad, low is good) came down. Eventually I went home andover the next months my creatinine came down almost to normal levels. Thenephrologist saw me every three months, but my triumph came when he said, “I’llsee you in a year.”

I think so much of resilienceis in our minds, and once I began to think of myself as resilient, I began to bounceback. Christian says I’ve been resilient about other things, like moving intothe cottage. There are lots of things I cannot do these days, between theconfines of the cottage and the limitations of my mobility: I cannot give thebig parties I used to love or even the elaborate dinner parties for six that Iloved. There are some recipes that I’d love to tackle but can’t with a hotplate and an toaster oven—those that boast of a skillet dinner you start on thestove and finish in the oven are beyond me. I have a closet that isnonfunctional for me—the hanging clothes are so high that I cannot reach them,even standing, and have to plan ahead so that I can ask Jordan to get thisshirt or that down. But I love my cottage. Christian says I have made it work.

This is not to brag about myhealth or resilience to my friends who are walking the eighties path with mebut to suggest that it helps to give yourself a message of resilience. When Iposted about life in a tiny house yesterday, one friend wrote that she didn’tknow if she could do that or not, but then concluded she probably could. Mymessage is that we can do almost anything If we set our mind to it.

It seems to me a companionword to resilience is flexibility. It’s too easy to cling to the old ways, theways we’ve always done things, from cooking to child raising. Living with oneof my grown children who is raising an adorable seventeen-year-old son, youhave no idea how hard it is to keep from saying, “When you were his age, youhad to be home for Sunday supper.” Or some such. A long-time friend was herethe other day and mentioned how angry she was to be quarantined at a daughter’shouse for Thanksgiving because she developed covid. “But I apologized,” shesaid, “Their house, their rules.” That’s flexibility. And perhaps apologizingis resilience.

To my friends walking with me,think about those two words: resilience and flexibility. How do they apply toyour life?

Okay, sermon over.