For a woman who felt you needed to be on your feet and on your way, being on her feet was a larger order than most people knew.
All the years of taking prednisone to keep her asthmatic airways open had taken an osteoporotic toll on my mother’s bones. When she took a step, she would sometimes say “It’s like my legs aren’t even there.”
This wouldn’t be easy for anybody, but for a woman who felt you needed to be on your feet to accomplish anything, it was a hard lesson to learn. She really needed to use a wheelchair the last few years of her life, but she insisted she didn’t need one, and instead rolled around the house in her office chair. Medical professionals did not approve of her office chair as an assistive device.
On the few occasions when a wheelchair was absolutely necessary, she would straighten her lips in this tight smile, like she was biting back a flood of refusals with every muscle in her face, and then she would carry on.
The last time I saw her in person, she was in the hospital after a surgery to repair a leg fracture caused by one of these office chair falls. The physical therapists were trying to get her on her feet to walk down the hall, and she kept trying to explain that she hadn’t just “walked down the hall” for a very long time. And then that smile of hers appeared, and she carried on.
She was none too happy with those physical therapists, but I don’t think they noticed. I bet Mom had a good laugh up in heaven when our oldest son married a physical therapist.
I’ve told Amanda to watch for the tight-lipped smile, because I’m sure Mom isn’t the only one employing it when “those physical therapists” come to call.
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