Renewal
CRACK! oh, no....that did not just happen...
.Shock.
An expletive exploded from Lily’s mouth as she jumped wildly on one foot around the kitchen. The intense pain was the only thing she could feel – she didn’t even notice the salty tears streaming down her face. Her world narrowed down to the splitting feeling in her left foot – felt as though all of her toes were falling off, breaking at the joints. She almost screamed, but some force stopped her. Lily took a deep, calming breath, trying to realize that the pain was coming from her brain; if she could somehow control her mind, she might be able to dull the throbbing slightly. She was deathly afraid of looking at her foot, knowing exactly what had happened.
Lily’s mother, Susannah, ran into the kitchen as soon as she heard the profane word from her daughter’s mouth; she was ready to ground her 16 year old child for a month. The scene that greeted her, however, made her stop the angry shout that was going to come out of her mouth that very instant.
Instead she asked, “What happened!?”
Lily replied through hiccupping sobs, “C-c-case of water--i-is the culp-p-p-prit,” pointing to a 24-pack water case on the floor near the kitchen table.
“Guess I didn’t push it under the table enough,” Susannah muttered softly. Helping Lily to a seat, she grabbed an icepack from the freezer.
“A broken baby toe isn’t the end of the world, honey – although there isn’t much they can do for toes,” her mom continued, rubbing her daughter’s shoulder softly.
Thinking it was the end of the world, Lily pouted while sitting in the chair. Her body was slowly edging down the chair as she slumped, the motion echoing her growing despair at her current situation. She refused to look at her left baby toe, which was quickly becoming the size of a small walnut.
“Mom!” She exclaimed harshly, “What the heck am I going to do all summer?!” No tennis, no running, no biking, no horseback riding, no swimming...this summer was completely ruined in the worst way possible! Her life as a sixteen-year-old was suspended for a whole four to six weeks – what an awful summer...
“I called the doc, so we’ll go in tomorrow. Good thing we kept those old crutches of yours, huh?” Susannah tried to say brightly, while Lily continued to be gloomy.
“Yeah, I guess. But when I sprained my knee, it healed quicker.”
Susannah sighed slightly, thinking that whatever she said, Lily was simply going to refute it in a negative manner, not seeing that new and exciting possibilities potentially awaited her throughout those four to six weeks of slow walking, slight limping, and a small, blue shoe.
--
There is only one solution to a broken toe: tape.
Doctor Wellington seemed to wrap the baby toe so tightly against the other toes that Lily felt as though her circulation was being cut off; she cringed and squeezed her eyes shut, mostly out of nervousness.
--
“Mooooom! I’m sooooo bored!” Lily sounded annoyed.
“Lil, it’s only been a week. You can walk on it with the little shoe that the doctor gave you, and eventually, you’ll be able to wear your regular sandals. You’ll remember this summer for a long while,” Susannah replied patiently.
Pouting again (all she did was pout!), Lily said, “But the sun hasn’t been out and it’s raining. Has been for the whole week.” She was acting pathetic, really – Susannah wished her daughter could see the good in this – she might even become less materialistic and egocentric, but that was probably wishful thinking. She knew that Lily was going through a phase, the teenage one, the one that was full of “end of the world’s” and “my life is ruined.” Hormones running rampant and tears falling at the thought of a boy who broke her heart after a week of “dating.”
Lily hung out in her very dark room for most of the weeks of rainfall – it seemed as though once her toe broke, the sun refused to shine. The gloomy weather made for a gloomy Lily for three whole weeks – she despised her broken toe:
Toe hurts, can’t go outside, friends don’t feel like visiting, can’t walk quick enough, can’t play any sports. I was right, this is really not cool at all. Worst. Summer. Ever.
--
“Rain, rain, go away, come back never,” she muttered sulkily as she curled up on her bed trying to listen to her music.The rain was so loud and wasn’t letting up. It made for an awful sound against the window panes and roof of the house, like a freight train barreling on down the tracks. Her bedroom practically shook with the intensity of the precipitation. Huffing in irritation, Lily sternly pushed the “off” button on her CD player; the rain was too loud to hear anything.
Laying back on her comfy bedspread, she simply listened to the noise that seemed to surround her, penetrate her deepest self. Her mind was racing – this is all my toe’s fault. The fracture, size of a small splinter, caused all this misery! As she listened to the rain, the noise stopped and it was though she were listening to silence – a silence so severe and yet at the same time, so deafening, that for a moment she couldn’t think at all. A switch went on or off, she couldn’t figure out which, in her mind. All of a sudden she wasn’t angry at the fact that she was just lying there with nothing to do. Listening to the rain in that place encompassed silence even though it was physically loud. The noise drowned out everything else, so the end result was one of calmness and wholeness in her head. Listening in this way was a way of meditation and she continued to do it throughout the rest of her 4 to 6 weeks; she would take time to be alone in her room each day and listen to her breathing, relaxing as she did so.
She got up from her bed and looked out of her window over the wet ground; the sunlight only came out in the morning these days. Squinting, she looked to the right, into her mother’s garden. It hadn’t sprouted anything last summer due to the drought that swept over the region. Now, however, the rain soaked earth produced tiny, green sprouts. Lily smiled, her face lighting up at her discovery.
If she hadn’t taken time out of her day to practice meditation, she never would have realized that wonders are abundant all around her. A simple glance into the garden revealed the new life growing there. Lily, though only 16, felt older than her young, teenage years in that moment. She derived joy and contentment from seeing the sprouts and budding flowers just outside her window.
--
Stepping lightly on her feet, Lily said, “Hi, Mom. Ready to plant more today?” Susannah smiled at her daughter, who changed so much ever since her garden discovery. She was almost euphoric over the fact that Lily took interest in gardening -- at least for this summer.
Copyright April, 2009 by Alicia
Next installment: The Body -- Finding Wisdom