CATEGORY: Writing, Community, Language

CONTRIBUTORS: Pamela Hines, Macarena Gardetti

DATE:  Ongoing

The Year That Hurt

It’s April 2021. We’ve just finished THAT year. The year that stopped the world, ended and disrupted many lives, careers and livelihoods. The year that trust and hope were hard to grasp. As if the Covid19 Pandemic were not bad enough, as if the raw scab of this country’s seething divisions were not bad enough, one of us fractured a hip.

It happened October 1st—2020 (there I said it.) Macarena had fallen from her bike, hobbled to her apartment, and could no longer move. Over the next week she’d have surgery and be recouperating on my couch because, after hip surgery, you STILL can’t move.

Over three months, we watched movies, writing classes, seminars and read books. I learned how to (almost) cook steak the Argentinian way. Empanadas became my new addiction. She learned abou soul food. I realized good coffee did not come from a K-cup.

My two little Maltese mixes, Daisy and Scout, soaked up the constant attention from the captive audience. They also gave no small measure of comfort. Who doesn’t feel better cuddled by two warm furballs?

Physical therapy oh so slowly got her up from the couch, up to the the guest room, toward a sense or normalcy, and eventually home.

Friendship shows up in many ways. When you expect it, it’s there. When you least expect it, it’s there. I found the strength in my painful back to carry her to my car and to the hospital. I know that were it me, she’d have done the same, if she could. I also know that if it were me—she of 60+ years— I’d still be on the couch.