Please Weed the Herbs

Digital art collage by Stella Kalaw

A full moon beckoned through the maples. I stepped outside to take a closer look and fell flat on my back on the ice-slicked deck. Pain shot through my left leg. Jesus, I thought, I am 75, this will surely kill me.

I heard someone shriek my husband’s name, then realized it was me. Grasping me under the arms, he inched me along the freezing boards into the house. What’s the date, he asked me, checking for a concussion.

A pair of paramedic angels placed my leg in a protective cage. Aided by two hefty firemen, they hoisted me onto a rescue chair and carried me up our steep driveway to the ambulance. Shock had masked the pain, leaving me free to observe myself from outside my body. Swaying high above the ground, like Cleopatra riding in a palanquin, I looked down and saw two curious deer peering at me from the woods. A clutch of concerned neighbours huddled against the March cold.

Outside the hospital, the pain came roaring back. I looked up, and silently swore at the fucking moon. The X-ray showed two fractured ankle bones, which required surgery and a metal plate and a bunch of pins to align the bones as they healed, and six weeks of having to be in a wheelchair, and months of physiotherapy, and my husband was forced to build a costly emergency ramp in a snowstorm. Exhausting.

The worst part was having to ask him for help 100 times a day and into the night.

Please turn off my light. Sleep in the guest room. Pick up my medication. Do my laundry. Drive me to medical appointments. Water my plants. Cancel our long-planned trip to Finland. Stand by to catch me if I stumble learning to walk again.

At first, I was grateful for his care. But as time passed, gratitude soured into resentment. My pride was offended, my dignity insulted. I fretted about what would come next. “Why me,” I whined, as if bone-breaking falls on ice rarely happen in Quebec in winter. I slept poorly, haunted by the fear of never fully recovering.

But, as I slowly adapted to a walking cast, my mood shifted to one of hope. I saw myself back on my sun-washed deck in June. There I would watch a pair of industrious robins build a nest in a hanging basket, while crows gathered at the top of the trees to settle disputes.

I would listen to bird song, and the water cascading over rocks in our pond. I would breathe in the scent of the honeysuckle trailing along the fence. I would watch pillowy clouds slow dance across the sky. I would forget about being old and sore and scared.

I might even tentatively ask my husband to please weed the herb patch. No need to keep saying please, he might respond, heading to the shed for the tools. “I know you would do the same for me.” I like to believe I would, except for maybe building a ramp.