Where I Stand

"Where I stand. Admiring my new shoes before sitting down to lunch."
(These are the words I paired with my photo when sharing it on Instagram a week ago.)

This is actually a much bigger deal than it looks. Because of complications from bone cancer in my left hip 37 years ago, my left leg is 8" shorter than my right and my crutches are permanent. So when I stand, while my right foot sits flat on the floor, my left foot is up on my tippy toe. "The way I come" makes buying shoes tricky and something I *really* struggle with... My first thought at the prospect is "I *hate* buying shoes" and it's probably been 5 years since I last found some I liked and therefore kept. 

So. To find a new pair of shoes that I actually like and think they're going to work out because they aren't bending uncomfortably over my left toes (yay!), is a *very* big deal for me.

And this is the part where I say thru tears that it's not just about the shoes and trying to get some that fit right. It's also about the big grief in how my body is so different now . . . from what she used to be (and from what I would want). Having had 30+ surgeries on my left leg alone and with most of my femur removed, it's not the prettiest of legs ever. 

I became aware several years back that, feeling my body had betrayed me, I had basically moved out of "her," taking up residence in my head and heart. Coming back down into the full part of me has been something I've played with.... not an easy prospect to consider when you've been "gone" for more than 30 years and one that needs to be taken slowly, care-filled-ly and ever-so-tenderly. 

Tears well again as I add, my body could've given up on me a long time ago, having had several opportunities (she and I have been thru a lot together) but "she" never did, even when I moved out.

There was a time, she adds quietly, when, very briefly, I considered amputation. But in the end, just as I couldn't do it when my cancer was discovered ("If I'm dying in 6 months, I'm taking my leg with me!" I defiantly said at 15), I couldn't do it when I was fighting such a big infection 10 years later. (This was 3 weeks after we were married (almost) 27 years ago and I had been in the hospital for 3 months with another *huge* infection). 

I have loved Liz Lamoreux's mirror meditation so much.  I first learned about it in her original Water Your Soul e-course and it's been good to come back home to that practice thru selfies.  (Fyi - she isn't currently running that e-course right now but she also talks about mirror meditation in her book, Inner Excavation.)

While I did abandon my body, she has never abandoned me. Instead she has simply, quietly, faithfully been waiting for me to come "home" to her. It's moments like these that bring home for me that fact that I believe she continues to patiently wait for (and with) me.  And, as they usually are, not far away are Mama Grace and Auntie Mercy, Enough, Hope, and now Peace blessing, tending and loving this reunion back into to being as well.

Perhaps I'm ready to go a little deeper by "looking (back) with love" at my sweet leg who has been thru so much? 

Ah, yes. 

Perhaps indeed.... 

♥

(grateful for your witness)

.             *             .