Samurai

My fall on our wooden bathroom floor was surprisingly benign.  Bruised a knee. The problem was that it landed me flat out on the floor at 3 AM in the morning when I didn’t want to wake anyone up to help me. So I was stuck. And my stuckness only increased when my bowels decided to unload on me at that moment. Still, I decided to wait it out, to stay on the floor until at least 6 AM so Lisa and the kids could get a full night’s sleep. It may not have been the best plan.

Lying on the wood floor, I played a game with myself. I imagined that I was a samurai sleeping across the threshold of his Lord. Samurai slept on wood without anything else, I thought.  So “samurai! Bonsai!”“ Whatever. I was still stuck.

Finally the clock struck 6 AM, and I couldn’t take it anymore. So I called out to Lisa, but she could not lift me off the floor. I had no legs and was completely stiff from lying there for so long. She lovingly cleaned me up and then called for her oldest son Sam to come and help me get up. It took both Sam and his younger brother Joey to get me off the floor. The bathroom smelled like you might imagine. They had to help me move my legs to get back to bed. I started to cry.  Lisa started to cry, “This is so sad. It’s just so sad,” Lisa said.

Finally, they got me back into bed. Later, Lisa told me that as she was putting soiled clothing into the washer, Sam came up to her and said, “How are you doing mom?” Lisa started to cry once more.  As this happened, Sam put his arms around her and said, “We can do this, mom. It’s going to be OK.” He held her tight for a long time. There was the real samurai that day. A perfect combination of presence, strength, and grace.