{"id":287,"date":"2012-01-28T18:55:19","date_gmt":"2012-01-28T23:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/?p=287"},"modified":"2012-01-28T18:55:19","modified_gmt":"2012-01-28T23:55:19","slug":"transition-bridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/2012\/01\/28\/transition-bridge\/","title":{"rendered":"Transition Bridge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one’s self, the very meaning of one’s soul. ~Edith Wharton<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what made me look at my phone when we got to PF Chang’s.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how many calls I\u2019ve ever gotten that start with: I\u2019m ok, but I\u2019m about to go into surgery. I don\u2019t know how long I held my breath, I don\u2019t know why I listened to Sandra when she said no don\u2019t come I\u2019ll need you when I get home.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how I enjoyed my meal, except that I was with my sister. I don\u2019t know how I just opened the gate when I got home and let my Toto pull me off the deck and get away.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how she just decided to come right back.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to believe that she turned around and saw I wasn\u2019t there and came looking for me.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how I escaped with only bruises from the fall, maybe because I really don\u2019t mind being compared to an eight year old.<\/p>\n

I do know that when she called on Wednesday with her words caught in her throat I would be there by lunch the next day.<\/p>\n

Through whatever unfolding of the universe my best friend found herself in Adirondack Medical Center with two broken legs.\u00a0 I say this because she had been lamenting her excessive travel, her deep need for balance, her concern for things missed, her family making due without her for probably two years and I really feel like White Face heard her.<\/p>\n

The emergency surgery on Sunday was highly successful with a prognosis of full recovery.\u00a0 Luckily AMC is well in tune with the care and anticipated recovery of athletes and practices emergency sports medicine.<\/p>\n

Originally Sandra was to be sent home to arrange the surgery on her other leg.\u00a0 It was some knee related, tibia cabling, meniscus adjusting blah blah blah, that I still don\u2019t really understand, but it could wait.\u00a0 There is something very important that happens in an emergency room, it\u2019s an immediate trust connection that Sandra had no intention of letting out of her universe. So strings were pulled, schedules adjusted and the second surgery was to be handled later in the week.<\/p>\n

Sandra\u2019s husband David took their daughter home on Wednesday resting assured that Sandra\u2019s mother would be there the next day for the second surgery.\u00a0 God knows what circumstances stood in the way of that but Sandra\u2019s call to me was panicked, fearful and raw.\u00a0 Can you come?\u00a0 Like I said\u2026.<\/p>\n

I did indeed arrive by lunchtime on Thursday in plenty of time for the second surgery.\u00a0 With hugs and tears and hand holding and recounting and reliving we spent our first couple of hours exhaling.\u00a0 Off to surgery she goes and off I go to do what I do.\u00a0 There were groceries to buy, she wasn\u2019t eating.\u00a0 There were clothes to buy that could accommodate her braces and boot and soreness.\u00a0 There were websites to explore.\u00a0 There were Facebook posts to put out.\u00a0 There were phone calls to take and make.\u00a0 There was the hand ringing and praying.<\/p>\n

Again, another highly successful surgery with another highly confident prognosis of perfect recovery was performed.\u00a0 What we didn\u2019t realize was that this was a more difficult surgery that would result in more pain, more new physical therapy, and more anxiety more soul searching, and just plain more.<\/p>\n

Friday was not going to be the best day.\u00a0 I\u2019ve known Sandra a very long time.\u00a0 This year it will be twenty five years to be exact and I know how she thinks and what makes her respond to the adversity that is thrown her way. \u00a0She knows the same about me.\u00a0 She thinks differently so when the physical therapist is telling her to do\u2026.whatever this new two legs broken thing is\u2026.she would instinctively look to me for the translation she could use.\u00a0 I love that about us, a wordless glance can instantly translate that all will be well.\u00a0 I can stop her brain from running away and redirect it; it\u2019s just always been that way for us both.\u00a0 We got through Friday, we learned more, we did better, we cried, we shared and shed all the toxins that would impede healing.<\/p>\n

Saturday would prove to be the sunny encouraging day we had hoped.\u00a0 Sandra spent the morning getting ready to go home.\u00a0 By afternoon we were seated side by side in the \u201clodge room\u201d\u00a0 Ipads in hand comparing tips and websites (told you I had homework to do) and how the hell to use Facebook and Twitter once and for all.<\/p>\n

All the arrangements had been made for her departure in the morning.\u00a0 And each of us vowed to get a good night\u2019s sleep.\u00a0 One final hug and I left her in good hands excitedly waiting for her journey home to her family in sound mind and peace.<\/p>\n

How much of this she will remember in years to come, I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 What I know like I know is that a warm hug and the scent of Miracle by Lanc\u00f4me will bring back memories for her of a friend that is no longer a separate person but part of her very being.\u00a0 We will laugh about much of this one day, the much that I didn\u2019t document here and we will share our friendship for at least another twenty five years.\u00a0 Prognosis: perfect.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one’s self, the very meaning of one’s soul. ~Edith Wharton   I don\u2019t … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-company-of-women-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p27hQ5-4D","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":290,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions\/290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ordinarylegacy.com\/word\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}