Not the Memorial Day Memory I Expected

 

Woohoo! Class of '72!

I already was planning to write a blog post about the Memorial Day weekend. Truly! I knew there would be a ton of things to discuss and it's been months since I checked in.

It was, after all, my 50th year class reunion. (How? Just how?) I had waited 50 year to be in the class that sits smack-dab in the middle of the main intersection of Tiny Hometown while the firetrucks and decked-out horses and antique cars drive by for the honor class's approval. 

Somehow I'd become part of the organizing committee for this grand event and after looking at old yearbooks and scanning pictures  and compiling lists, I'd gotten excited about seeing the Class of '72 after a half century. (And I repeat, how did that happen?) 

And it was also the first time since before the pandemic that all of the Boys who live within driving distance of where I grew up would be back on The Farm. Even though we'd be sad to be missing the #Two family, I couldn't wait. The stories I'd be able to tell about Baby Wonderful #1 meeting the feral sheep!

I got within half an hour of living that imagined post. That was when, on Saturday morning, my 95-year-old-father came in the back door with his hand dripping blood. He had fallen in the basement and the resulting skin tear was more than dripping--blood thinners and tissue-paper-thin elderly blood are a tricky combination. While Dad's wife applied pressure I stepped out on the deck to try to get cell phone reception, something the pioneers forgot to include when they were building the limestone house 150 years ago.

I started a text to my Youngest Brother, who lives just a couple hundred yards down the road from Dad and would know how to proceed. He's a farmer and a volunteer firefighter and what he doesn't know about emergencies probably isn't worth knowing. That's what I was thinking, anyway, as I was walking across the deck looking for those elusive bars and stepped off the edge, swan-diving face-first into my mother's iris bed.

It is a most disconcerting feeling, and one that provokes an amazing array of reactions during the literal split second between the right foot missing the deck edge and the right hand/arm/shoulder/sternum/lower extremities hitting the ground. I mean, the drop is two feet. How was I able to do so much internal processing in this amount of time?

"WHAAAAT?" I thought.

 "Oh, crap," I thought.

"That was stupid," I thought.

"This is going to hurt," I thought.

And then I hit the ground and it did hurt. A lot. 

I allowed myself a few seconds to relax and reflect there in the irises. Was I alive? Yes. What hurt the most? Definitely the sternum to shoulder route, where a Game of Thrones  assassin was stabbing his war sword straight through from front to back. I started to lift my right arm to check for blood, and what do you know! There was something more disconcerting than pain, and that was the clearly discernible grating noise coming from my forearm.

At that moment, like a knight in shining armor, Youngest Brother appeared through the iris leaves in my peripheral vision. He was (and I'm not kidding) carrying a big pan of biscuits and gravy and for a second episode of split-second multiple thoughts, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.  I mean, can you think of a better way  for St. Peter to welcome you in? But no, YB was just bringing breakfast for the gang and he set the pans on the deck before dashing over to assess the situation.

Within moments he was doing triage. Boy#4 had arrived on the scene and (still not kidding) THOUGHT I WAS DOING SOME GARDENING. (Later Four admitted that he doesn't know of many kinds of gardening that are done face-down and crumpled on the ground with skirts barely providing dignity.) Youngest Brother dashed inside for a magazine (without staples) that he rolled up and taped to my arm, and the improvised splint made life worth living again. He and Husband carefully rolled me to a sitting position, then lifted me to my feet and got me into the front seat of the car. Dad was bundled into the backseat, and 10 miles later we were in adjoining rooms of Tiny Hometown's excellent emergency room.

There it was confirmed that my right arm was indeed broken, but I had managed a nice clean break. The assassin's war sword was diagnosed as stretched and abused muscles/tendons/whatever and would heal without intervention. Dad got a few squirts of Super Glue For Skin and made it to the parade in time to be honored with the rest of the veterans.

I, sadly, did not make it to the parade but dropped into one of the day's later events where I discovered the rumor was that I had broken my nose. 

Later, as reunion participants Facebook-gushed about how much fun the day had been, I was sad to have missed it. But I realized I got much out of the day that my classmates did not. A sweet navy blue cast, for example. The brand-new knowledge that  putting on underwear and earrings are both jobs for two hands. The realization that I may have been remiss in my sons' gardening education.

But also, a deep, deep knowledge that this could have been so much worse. I'm boundlessly grateful for the relatively soft landing strip of iris, and especially that Youngest Brother was there within literal seconds of that landing.

It wasn't the memory I expected, but it's the one I have, and I'm grateful.

My mother's irises may never be the same.