~upon learning from "old lefty"

"It was on the playground yesterday that the little boy approached me.  For some reason in the last few days he has "bonded" with me, it would appear.  He saw that I had playground duty and came off of the bus and headed my direction as quick as his little legs could get him there.  While we were talking, he reached down to hold the hand of "old lefty" for some reason and as he did, that little guy could not help but to notice the 6 inch long, zig-zag scar that runs up and down the inside of my arm.  While running his tiny fingers over it, he had the strangest of looks on his face.  Finally he looked up at me and said, "Teacher, that looks like a scary monster's arm."

The late and great Art Linkletter had reality shows already figured out many decades before the world of today began to make them so virally popular.  From 1945 until 1969, Art entertained his audience of folks on radio and television.  One of the popular segments of his TV show, usually at the very end, involved a time when he would interview live on the air a group of little children.  He would ask them each a couple of what most people would refer to as  innocent questions and see where they would go with their answers.  When he coined the phrase, way back then, "Kids Say The Darndest Things!",  he knew what he was talking about.  The innocence of children.  Their candid responses.  As a teacher for nearly 4 decades now, I have heard enough of those kinds of statements to have written a book, or two or twelve.  It happens all the time.   My new and dear little friend on the playground yesterday was a good example of that.

Even though it's been now over 3 years since I got hurt in a bad bicycling accident, that stupid "woman versus the curb" incident,  I've tried to get used to the idea that my left arm will never look the same as my right one does.  My entire left side, from shoulder to finger tip managed to atrophy a bit during its 9-month long confinement.  The left hand is smaller than the right one and looks, well at least to me, about 10 years older than the other.  I wear long sleeves a lot, some because I want to keep the scars covered up and yet other times because it just feels better to do so.  I laugh as I look at pictures taken of me from time to time because I can see that the shoulders of some of the shirts that I wear fit differently.  I remember always what my own three  children kept reminding me, especially in the early days afterwards, when they told me to remember to be thankful that at least the doctors could fix the damage enough to have a usable arm.  I try to keep their sage advice in mind always but I must admit that sometimes vanity rears it's ugly head and I feel so very self-conscious about the way it must look now.

I think I have grown a bit in the years that followed that day in August of 2011, the day that I made that split second decision to jump the curb in front of my house as I was riding my bike home that morning.  My body changed that day.  The good arm that I was born with was replaced with one that was filled with scars, a bushel full of "Red Green" hardware and a bone segment from a man named Darryl.  My hand (now perpetually half-asleep) and wrist had to learn all over again how to do the simplest of life's tasks.  It was a struggle at first and one that caused me many times to wonder if things would ever get better again.  They did.  I had to learn to live with the look that I now would have forever.  As I type these words to you I am so thankful that the fingers of "old lefty" relearned the fine art of keyboarding.  I kept on blogging during my 9 months of having a cast and I can tell you for a fact and with certainty in my voice that it sucks to type one-handed.

So it felt good yesterday to hear the little boy say that my scar looked like a scary monster.  Not that I wanted to hear those words in the minutes before our school day began but rather to see the look on his face and to sense the feeling of his heart.  That little guy was not being mean or cruel when he said what he did.  He delivered them with a feeling of concern to me, a teacher on the playground.  His little fingers rubbed over the scar, tracing each little line and crack that he could find.  That little guy is right.  It does look like a scary monster.  It is what it is.  I reached over and gave him a hug and told him the "60-second" version of what happened to me that day.  With the final minutes left on the playground, we walked around together as I wished for him a lovely day at school.  That's what I pray for him and every other kid that walks into the front doors of Olathe Elementary each and every day.  

I am sure that the 6-year old kid that I used to be said her own share of things that made my parents cringe inside.  All of us were little at one time or another.  I have stored up 37 years of wonderful memories, of cute sayings, and of the smiles and hugs of the children I have been blessed to teach.  I probably won't ever write a book about it all but if I do, it may just be a best seller :)  I have loved them.  Each of them.  All of them.  I give thanks to God above for the blessing of being called "teacher".

"Old Lefty's" picture taken about 3 weeks after my accident.  It was after the second surgery that was done in Wichita, Kansas.  Two more surgeries would follow.

This was what it looked like, four days after the first surgery with the external fixator device attached to it.  The doctors in Hutchinson, Kansas patched me up as best they could before sending me on to specialists.

Dr. Chan and I, between the third and fourth surgeries.

Even here at Olathe, Colorado "old lefty" continues to tell the story.