I stood precariously balanced on the kitchen counter, trying to put the summer screen into the kitchen window. It has a mind of its own and tries my patience every spring. At last it fits. Carefully I step back onto the chair I have placed beside the counter. I miss it and start to fall.
A strange thing occurs.
I float down to the floor. Impossible, you say. But like the song says, “I will bear you up on angel wings.” It was exactly the feeling I had at that moment. My whole body was gently laid on the floor and my head bumped back a bit. I sat up, then stood. Amazingly, I felt fine. To make doubly sure I phoned a friend who had a key to the house.
“I just fell off the counter. I don’t think I’ve hurt myself, but if I don’t phone back in 10 minutes perhaps you should come and see if I’m okay.” Ten minutes later I called and assured her I was just fine.
Later that week my doctor phoned. My osteoporosis test was not good. She explained that my bones were that of an 85-year old woman and I was only 65. I thought back on my fall in the kitchen and I had a vision of myself lying shattered on the floor. Had there been a guardian angel that gently let me down? It was a bit of a mystery. But I believe in guardian angels. Ten years later I was to learn about another kind of osteoporosis.
My husband died.
Oh yes, life continued but behind closed doors I wept. Sometimes quietly, sometimes sobbing till I was weak. I handled the big events but it was the little things that knocked me down. One day I stood crying over the egg beaters. He wasn’t there to lick them off. Another day, my begonia bloomed. “I’ll have to show him when he gets home,” I said to myself, then realized he wouldn’t be home. More tears.
It was a year of emotional osteoporosis. Like a piece of cheese, my life was full of holes. But like my bone problem, there was help and that help came through many earthly angels. There is kindness and love in this world and I experienced it. It carried me along and eventually there was laughter in my life again.
My recent bone test was okay and I jokingly asked my doctor what would happen if my medication made my bones younger than the rest of me.
He laughed and assured me that probably wouldn’t happen.
God continues to help me with my emotional osteoporosis. And like a good patient, I take my medication, drink lots of milk and hope both types of osteoporosis are under control.
