On Mother's Day, I tripped over a board in the garage and ate cement, almost literally. I scraped and bruised my chin and wrecked my knee! (But I hurt my pride the most.)
As I hobbled in on crutches to the doctor's office to get a CT scan, I looked around the waiting room at all the other crutches, canes, and wheelchairs. We were all certainly a beat-up lot. Being injured brings out vulnerability in people. I felt my own weakness and that of the other ladies in the dressing room as we prepped for our tests.
I was glad for the two gowns they had given me to put on back-to-back. Having my fanny hanging in the wind would not help the feelings of vulnerability that were ready to overwhelm me. As I stumbled out of the dressing room, a slight-of-frame middle-aged woman commented, "They only gave me one gown," as she struggled to find the tie in the back of her gown.
"I can get that for you," I offered. She was grateful, and we sat down as a well-dressed older lady with a cane joined our posse of wounded women. At that moment, it dawned on me that I left behind my clothes in the bag they had given me. As I struggled to get up, leaning on my crutches, the well-dressed lady figured out I was heading for the dressing room and kindly offered to get what I had left behind. I thanked her, then we all got into a caring conversation about our wounds and woes before the nurse called my name.
As I finished my test and changed back into street clothes, I noticed another lady had joined our group of fragile females. She was a very tiny older woman in a motorized wheelchair who looked like she had been through a tough time. As I got close to the heavy door and struggled to open it, the tiny little granny in the wheelchair motored over to it and held it open for me. I let her know how appreciative I was.
As I wobbled to the car on my crutches, I realized what an eye-opening moment I just had. Here we were, a bunch of hurting, apprehensive, even frightened women and the first thing we thought of is how to be helpful and make things easier for others around us.
As a nation, when the pandemic hit, we all felt vulnerable, apprehensive, and even frightened. But instead of reaching out to help each other, it became all too easy to build walls and not bridges.
We allowed ourselves to be polarized with online opinions that we embraced whole-heartedly without room for decent discussion with those of opposing views. Our fear made us less than kind and helpful to each other. We resorted to name-calling and belittling and even hating on people who thought differently than us. We pitched a fit about wearing masks as though it was an oppression like not being able to vote rather than an inconvenience that would protect those less vulnerable than ourselves. We had a chance to shine, Christians, and we biffed it as badly as I biffed it on the garage floor on Mother's Day.
When given a choice, and we will be given those opportunities for the rest of our time on earth, I want to allow my vulnerability to help me recognize and help the fearfulness in others. I want to reach out in my own frailty to make things better for other people, like the fragile females in the waiting room that day. I don't want to polarize or pitch a fit. I don't want to hide behind a screen and criticize. I'd rather look someone in the eyes and empathize.
As the Covid crisis draws to a close, may we learn from it and be better as a people next time. I sure learned a lot from a beat-up bunch of caring women in an orthopedic waiting room.