I love my job. I love the people. I love the multitasking. I love the joking around. I love the aprons for some reason. I work at Starbucks if you didn’t already know. I think it is a combination of the fact that I walk and stood all day for the past 9 years and loving shoes too much and my feet too little that an old foot injury came back into my life this past week. What luck, just in time for Black Friday and one of the busiest weeks of the year at Starbucks. So I went to see a podiatric physician. It looks like I have 2 cysts that have been growing on the bottom of my foot and they probably have been there for over five years. So once I get the inflammation down, I get to make a decision…
surgery or just live with it. I guess it can be common to just live with cysts in your feet. However, under the circumstances of oh, ya know, going around the world with one very large backpack, that lends me to consider the surgery. I must admit, being able to wear whatever shoes I want is also a good reason for surgery in my mind. I wasn’t impressed when I went to purchase a pair of very expensive shoes today that the doctor recommended. Doesn’t he know how much it hurts my heart to purchase ugly shoes?
Six years ago, Laura and I went on a fabulous trip to NYC. We walked everywhere in four days. I got to meet Apolo Ohno and Beaver Cleaver. We saw Wicked, ate some amazing food, kayaked in the Hudson, appeared on TV, went up the Empire State building, saw Ground Zero, visited the Statue of Liberty and conquered the subway system. I did all this in a pair of flip flops. One day we were walking the length of Central Park to the Metropolitan Museum of Art because I didn’t realize how huge that park is. My foot started searing in pain. I had to take a rest on each bench of the sidewalk all the way down to the museum.
Laura offered to push me around the museum in a wheelchair. I agreed to it since I was almost in tears. For the next few hours, I began to notice something about my situation. Every single person that walked by me looked at me and then looked at my legs to see what was wrong with them. I don’t know if I generally look sad, but I had several attendants come up to me to talk to me. One even walked clear across from another part of the museum to tell me a message. She said, “You must go to the rooftop! It is so uplifting to the soul.” So we consented and decided we needed a photo for this ridiculous day. A lady kindly offered to take the picture. She was very compassionate to cut out the entire wheelchair I was sitting in. Little did she know, it was the wheelchair that I really wanted in the photo. I think she was being sympathetic. When we got home, I humbly broke down and bought the ugliest shoes I’ve ever owned which have corrected the problem for the past 6 years. My danskos. I hate them because they are hideous, but speak highly of them to everyone.
The only difference about being in a wheelchair is that the handicap is noticeable. We all have handicaps. We like that the majority of us get to hide them from view. If you could see plainly each of our handicaps written on our faces, you would see people whose faces said, I’m struggling with with addiction. I’m dealing with a cheating spouse. I can’t seem to get a job. I’m thinking about suicide. I am dying from cancer. My daughter died from a drunk driver last year. I was abused when I was a child and can’t find healing. I have an eating disorder. I hate myself. If these handicaps were in plain sight for all to see, people would do one of two things, look at you and then what is wrong with you and make a judgement or they notice your handicap, show compassion and offer help. There’s a good chance you didn’t want either of the types of attention. That’s why it’s a secret.
I guess I don’t really know what I learned from a wheelchair. I just know what I observed and I don’t know if I liked it. However, I did find it funny. I think I half played it up to make myself look pathetic sitting in my wheelchair with my pashmina wrapped around my poor, cold shoulders. I felt like people expected or even wanted me to be sad in my situation. Is that really how it has to be with a handicap?
My dad is currently living life in a wheelchair. All of his handicaps have been laid out in front of the world and his family in plain sight. This Thanksgiving he said something I prayed would happen and believed could happen. He said, “It’s better now.” Things were once in the shadows. He’s now finding healing, restoration and redemption right in the wheelchair.
I can’t quite put my finger on what I learned, but my dad helped me recognize that in a strange way, it can be better there.
2 Samuel 22:29
You are my lamp, O LORD; the LORD turns my darkness into light.
Job 33:28
He redeemed my soul from going down to the pit, and I will live to enjoy the light.'
John 3:18-20
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
