I hated those shoes. The ones with purple edges. They reminded me of a geriatric patient.
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The Pink Room: Thoughts About Intentional Living
Chapter 3/ Magical Coincidences.
Part 2 (Previous post contain the previous chapters.)
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People talk about growing up all the time. My siblings and I have lots of aunts and uncles so we heard about it all the time, especially the part where you are physically getting bigger. In 7th grade I started thinking about growing every day, my knees wouldn’t stop hurting. Instead of pumping me full of painkillers my mom took me to a chiropractor to see if there was anything that could be done. She was enlightened, I had never heard of a spine cracking doctor before, or known anyone who had seen one.
“Growing pains.”
The conclusion was clear as day to
this doc. He said, “…it is growing pains.” At that point he made some inserts
for my shoes and I got ugly clunky white tennis shoes because of them, the next
week. They were square-ish and had purple edges on everything; I grew out of my
purple phase in first grade. I found them distasteful but my knees felt better
so I wore them.
I remember wandering back into the chiropractic
office late the night after I met the doctor.
The phone rang after dinner.
“We didn’t get the right exposure on
one of the x-rays, would you come back so we can re-take that image?” He asked.
It was a strange request, but we were
accommodating people so we went back. The office should have been closed. All
the way there Mom and I spoke about all the different ways an x-ray might get
screwed up. Neither of us knew much about them so we didn’t come to any good
conclusions. Going back into the office was strange and I was feeling self-conscious,
I was wearing flats and told him I didn’t wear them that often just a few hours
earlier. The office was near a McDonald’s, the one we often went to after
church nearly every Sunday when I was in elementary school. The pavement was
newly tarred; it was hard to breathe it in, it smelled like petroleum and all
the red berries were falling off the trees, and the parking lot was covered in
squished red blobs.
We were warmly greeted and went
through the process of re-taking the x-rays. The doc stared at my shoes. Darn
observant doctor. He assured me it was okay. We were not there long. We went
home--a little baffled.
The next day the doc called again. But
he had puzzling and not-so-good news. He talked to mom and asked if we could
come in again, again. We got in the van and drove past the McDonald’s. The
berries were gone.
“Do people actually sweep parking
lots?!”
Mom was worried so she just ignored
me. Strange x-ray results at twelve years old are concerning. We went in and
talked to the doctor again. He recommended that I see a bone specialist and
then showed us what he wanted a clearer view of. The other x-ray was fine after
all, he lied to us! But it only showed the bottom edge of what was puzzling to
him. When it was re-shot he aimed the film higher and got the whole area he
needed to see. It appeared as though there was something like a slice of polished
agate stone in the middle of my left thigh bone. It was disturbing. THAT was in
my leg. My leg felt fine in that spot, inside and outside—normal. How could
there be something that looked like that in my leg!?
Now, Mom was really worried. I’m not sure
why, or came over me, but I was worry-free. I didn’t know what it was and
neither did the doctor. He couldn’t say if I had anything to worry about, so I
made up my mind to wait to see if it was worth it to worry.
Mom asked, “Are you okay?”
“Sure, I guess.”
“You don’t seem worried.”
“I guess I’m not. I don’t know
anything yet.”
And we waited. She worried for both of
us. Within a day or two we went to the specialist. This story ends well. A grey
haired, cologne drenched man, who strutted, came into the exam room. There were
pictures of spines and skulls, legs and hands all over the wall, the skeletal
ones, no skin to be seen anywhere. That is normal in some settings but it
wouldn’t work in others. He talked about the x-rays and how it was a calcium
deposit, which is seen but not often and not expected but okay. And then, for
the first time, in actual words, there was the refrain I would begin to hear
for the whole of my life: not normal but okay. Or variants such as: we’ve never
seen this before, or that is unusual. Like magic, the worry melted away for my
mom.
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God was gracious to me and made a
rather scary event into a bump in the road. I was glad I didn’t worry about
that situation but I’ve not been so successful since. Little things can derail
me for days. I will wring my hands and pace literally or in my soul over stuff
that doesn’t matter. Looking back I see God in it, moving things around and moving
people to take action. And if I pray, if I am quiet and meet Jesus, he can
bring peace and calm in the midst of everything. He says all that in the Bible,
but it is hard to remember.
I think if Jesus talked to us about
worry he’d say, “Watch this,” and he’d drape it in Harry Potter’s invisibility
cloak.
