Three Graces

There is an old saying that until you lose something, you don’t really appreciate it—even though there are things like a lousy friend, a cold, or a broken-down car that you might be glad to be rid of. Two of my favorite things were walking and hiking, things I lost the ability to do when I had a stroke nearly three years ago.

In addition to a daily walk to my mailbox, rain or shine, six tenths of a mile round trip, I had enjoyed hiking in the Catskills in upstate New York where I have lived for sixteen years. The forests, streams, and even more magical waterfalls lured me outdoors until that moment which has forever changed my life.

I began using a walker in acute rehab, followed by a rollator (a walker with wheels and a seat), and then a cane. One of the goals of physical therapy, which has become an ingrained weekly routine, has been to walk independently of any device with a normal gait. I yearn to attain that goal; my body, frayed from the constant slogging, rebuts with pain and fatigue.

Last fall, as the leaves were turning into their glorious show and the air was crispening, Dan, a physical therapist, spontaneously suggested we grab a rollator and go to a nearby rail trail. I was walking short distances in my house, but an actual walk outside? Despite my doubt, I was game. I walked for brief spurts without the rollator, sat on its seat and rested, then walked a bit more. Disbelief turned into belief, and a surge of joy and confidence grew in the remaining time before winter blew in.

I continued to long for daily walks on the private road where I live and set some goals to get me through the second dark winter. I would walk to my closest neighbor’s driveway in the spring, to the next by summer, and finally to the mailbox in the fall.

When I shared my goal with my daughter, she said, “I bet you could make it to the first driveway right now.” I murmured that I didn’t think so and screamed inside that it was impossible now, and probably would be whenever I attempted the walk.

On an especially brisk and brilliant January day—no snow on the ground—I was lured to take a walk, aided by my regal gold cane. The decline outside my garage is ever so slight, yet it seemed as though I was plunging down a mountainside. I panicked. A slip on the gravel could flip me to the ground, break bones, and send me back to the hospital where I would have to begin rehab all over again. Pain, my constant companion, would ramp up, too.

I considered giving up, gazed at the sun, and gingerly stepped onto the gravel. I walked at an unimaginably slow pace for a few feet, picked up speed as the driveway flattened out, and focused on the neighbor’s driveway. When I arrived, I leaned on my cane, soaked up the sun, and shivered with pleasure.

Spring came around, and the longing to be outdoors and watch up close Mother Nature’s greening coaxed me outside again. I wasn’t using any devices to aid my walking and my balance and strength were slightly improved. Nevertheless, when I nervously stepped onto the gravel, my fear was greater than ever. The mantra “no falls, no falls, no falls” rattled around in my head. I was filled with glee when I made it to the first driveway, and I turned around and headed back home.

I eventually extended the length of my walk to the next neighbor’s driveway. Soon it was summer, and I got the scarily bold idea to place three plastic white chairs along the road. Since there is common access, I asked the four families with whom I share the road if they were okay with my scheme. All said yes. One woman said she might use the chairs for rest stops when she walked. She also clucked a warning to be sure and carry my cell phone.

I typed large signs to explain why the chairs were there, requesting that they be left in place (a polite way to ask they not be stolen), and tagged each chair back. Loading them into the back of my car was a major project. I finally succeeded by nesting and then unnesting them and placing them at strategic spots along the road.

I was finally ready for the adventure to begin, to walk the road now less traveled. A cell phone dangled from my neck, though I wondered if any neighbor would answer my SOS or want to share their car with me during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Getting to the first chair became a piece of cake, comparatively speaking, because in actuality walking is painful and exhausting; however, reaching the second one took enormous daring and courage. The downgrade is serious and filled with protruding bedrock that shouts an irritating poem:

I’ll be happy to trip you up (or down)

send you flying to the ground.

And, you won’t be able to get up.

Now, I mostly walk to the second chair and have gotten to the point where I sometimes have the stamina to skip resting at the first. I have even ventured a little beyond the second, though lacked the courage—and perhaps the strength—to go to the third chair. That one is firmly anchored to the ground by the husband of the neighbor who said she might use the chairs, because he is concerned someone might appropriate it on a drive by. As the summer ends, nary a chair is missing.

I brace myself for the return trip, and, in particular to face the uphill grade. I am happy to rest when I get to the top, amazed that I have made it one more time. If I don’t mutter grunts or moans on the middle stretch of the road, I definitely begin while footslogging the last section, thighs thrumming, ankles burning with pain. Each time I walk into my garage, I would (if I could) leap into the air, filled with joy and gratitude that I am walking my beloved road again.

Recently, when my daughter visited, I asked her to accompany me to the last chair. The walk seemed to go on forever. We chatted on the way down, but came back wordlessly. I needed to conserve every breath of energy for the trek. Once inside, I silently raised my hand, greeted hers with a high five, and collapsed into a comfy chair.

Indeed, it was a high-five moment, another milestone and another moment of elation in my snaillike recovery. I am not sure I will be able to muster the moxie to give it another go; however, knowing I have done it once is a nice carrot to have in my pocket.

Meantime, the “three graces,” as I call my chairs, sit ready to embrace me whenever I push off for a walk. Like the Greek Graces or Charities, goddesses of beauty whose role was to attend festivities, my three graces spread joy and friendship among gods and mortals.

-Fay Loomis

Fay L. Loomis lives a particularly quiet life in the woods in upstate New York. A member of the Stone Ridge Library Writers, her poetry and prose have appeared in print and online publications, including Peacock Journal, Postcard Poems and Prose, Watershed Review, River Poets Journal, Breath and Shadow, Celestial Musings: Poems Inspired by the Night Sky, Finding the Birds, Love Me, Love My Belly, and Rat’s Ass Review.