Gratitude for Bones

A friend of mine is looking at knee replacement surgery sometime in the next year. She is predictably wary and anxious, but she wrote a FB post about all the things that her knees have done for her.  I've decided to take a page from her book, as I finally reach the point of more-or-less full recovery from my broken ankle, and say "Pffft!" to the toe I broke 10 days ago.

 

Some of what my ankle and feet bones have done for me:

 

Carried me and my backpack into the wilds of Glacier National Park and Algonquin Provincial Park, throughout Isle Royale National Park, and along the trails of western Pennsylvania.

 

Taken me on beach walks and long hikes from Prince Edward Island to Key West and from British Columbia to the Virginia Shore.

 

Helped me wander Iona and the Cinque Terre, Paris and Rome, Boston and Chicago and Washington, D.C. and Vancouver and Portland, Chautauqua and St. Augustine.

 

Pedaled bikes and hung onto horses and skied through the snow and danced through numerous dubious concert venues.

 

Walked babies at 3:00 a.m. and accompanied clients to court and ran after troubled students and paced through sermons and retreats.

 

And for years and years, excluding most of this one, taken me on the long walks so essential to my physical and mental and spiritual health, around the Shaker Lakes in Cleveland and to the Highland Park Reservoir in Pittsburgh and alongside the fields at the Wernersville Retreat Center.

 

It turns that that that break on January 2 was a really bad one.  But you can see why I have been so determined to make my plate and screws work like real bones.  I can't run yet ~ I've tried and it's as if I have a stack of bricks in my ankle ~ but I am really grateful for bones and spare parts that walk.