A Leg to Stand On

by Colleen Haggerty

  An hour later, when we were in bed together, Tessa nursing contentedly, I looked down into her eyes. Are you the other one? Did you come back to me? I won’t know until I am dead whether there is a world beyond this where aborted children’s souls wait for their mommies to be ready for them, but I desperately hope there is. Tessa’s deep-blue eyes looked up at me knowingly, and I decided her answer was yes.

  25

  TRULY SOMETHING SPECIAL

  Mothering Tessa was a sweet experience. I loved her light, fairylike energy, loved watching Luke make sense of her presence, and loved knowing that my little family was complete. By the time Tessa was three, we were living in Bellingham, nearly two hours from Lynn, who had been so important in my healing over the years. I continued to drive down to see her on an as-needed basis. She’d kept me grounded for so long, and I sometimes still needed to hear her affirming mantras: Ride it out. Just breathe. I am whole.

  During my visit to see her in December 2003 I talked to her about my desire to commemorate the upcoming twenty-fifth anniversary of my accident. Years ago, shortly after I’d met with Harvey, she had encouraged me to celebrate the anniversary of the accident as if it were a second birthday. Instead of latching onto morose feelings about the accident every winter, she wanted me to think of the date as the beginning of a new self—which it most certainly had been. So on the sixteenth anniversary, I’d started a new tradition: I went to the store and bought myself the prettiest cake I could find. When I first started this tradition, I was still single. Then Mark entered my life and though he wasn’t a big cake eater, he understood the annual ceremony and indulged with me. As Luke and Tessa joined our lives, they joined me in loving this tradition, too, especially when I served the cake a la mode.

  But I needed to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary with more than just cake. I was a completely changed woman from the girl I’d been when I first lost my leg. My healing had taken nearly a quarter of a century. And although I knew there would always be situations that would hook into my trauma, I also knew that I was over a hump I once thought I could never conquer. I was a grown, centered woman with two small children living a life that I had well in hand most days. Not perfect, but good. I needed to acknowledge the time I’d put in to get here. And I wanted Lynn to be a part of that because she had been my mentor and cheerleader along the often-rocky trail.

  Lynn offered to drive up to Bellingham and share in a ritual with me that she would design especially for the occasion. I agreed whole-heartedly, and with blind faith. I had no idea what she had up her sleeve. I realized this went outside the traditional boundaries of a typical patient/therapist relationship, but I had been through a lot with Lynn and appreciated her offer. I trusted her implicitly and said, “Yes!”

  Lynn couldn’t make it up to Bellingham until the third week of the month, so my family and I still enjoyed my store-bought cake on January 3rd, the actual anniversary. And then on January 25th, Lynn drove up in her van and we met at a Park and Ride at the south end of town. She opened the back doors of her van to reveal a bright bouquet of helium balloons. Lynn dug into her purse and fumbled around until she found what she wanted. “Here it is,” she said with enthusiasm. She pulled a black Sharpie pen from her purse and held it up like a torch. She invited me to sit in the back of her van.

  I looked around me at the cars scattered around the parking lot, wondering if we were going to do our ritual right here. “What are we up to?” I asked.

  She just smiled. “I want you to take this pen and write positive statements about how you are going to walk into your life from here on out,” she instructed. “Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan.”

  I tentatively took the pen from her, unsure at first of what to write. Just breathe, I said to myself. I knew how to listen to my heart by now. I knew that when I relaxed into the moment, words would come flooding in. And they did. I grabbed the bright-red balloon and wrote my first “Walking into Life” statement. Then I handed the balloon to Lynn for her to hold. Next I reached for the blue balloon and repeated the process. Lynn grinned as she took the balloon from me and saw what I’d written. Next was the yellow balloon and then the kelly green one. I wrote what came to mind without hesitation. “Great,” Lynn said, when I handed her each of them. “What else?” I had one more statement to write. I took the orange balloon and closed my eyes to wait for the right statement to come to me. When it did, I printed it in large letters and handed the balloon to Lynn. She nodded, satisfied.

  I watched as Lynn stuffed the balloon bouquet into the backseat of my Geo Prizm and instructed me to sit in the passenger’s seat. I did as I was told and waited to see what was next. After we buckled in, I handed her the keys and Lynn started driving. As we drove south on the freeway, through hills covered with fir trees and the bare deciduous trees of deep winter, Lynn explained what we were going to do, “We’ll drive beyond the site of your accident and then turn around so we’re on the north side of the road. When we start driving by the section of freeway where your accident happened, I want you to take each balloon, one by one. Read the message you wrote out loud and then release the balloon out your window. Let’s send your intentions flying, shall we?”

  Before long she exited from the freeway south of the accident site, drove over the freeway and took the northbound on-ramp.

  I unrolled my window and the balloons jumbled around in the backseat like a pile of leaves in a windstorm. The skin on my neck prickled not with fear, as had been the case many times on this stretch of road, but with excitement. I reached behind me and grabbed the closest balloon.

  “Here’s to Walking into Life, Colleen,” Lynn said. “Read it like you mean it.”

  Kelly green balloon in hand, I read what I’d written on it and called out:

  “My beauty is about who I am on the inside.”

  I stuck my hand out the window, clutching onto the ribbon attached to the kelly green balloon and then let go. The balloon frantically whipped away from me and then started slowly soaring up to the treetops. “Woohoo!” Lynn shouted above the din of air rushing into the car and the balloons hitting against each other in the backseat. “Grab another one.” I reached into the backseat and grabbed the yellow balloon.

  “This is my life’s work, to become me,” I shouted. I stuck my hand out the window and let go. Another intention soaring to the sky.

  “I walk into my life with courage and joy.” The red balloon floated up and away.

  “I accept and love my body as it is.” I felt the truth of this as I belted out the words and watched the blue balloon be taken by the wind.

  Lynn whooped and hollered after each balloon.

  And then I reached for the last balloon, the orange one. When I had the ribbon in my hand, I kissed the balloon for emphasis, held it out the window and yelled loudly:

  “I am stepping into my wholeness.” After I released that balloon, I started cheering right along with Lynn. She unrolled her window and then leaned on the horn and sent out a blast of shouts from the car.

  We shouted and hooted with joy and declarations all the way back into town.

  After twenty-five years, I was, truly, Walking into Life.

  I didn’t see Lynn much after that. She had been my partner in healing for so many years, but after that ritual I felt confident that I could figure my life out on my own.

  Two years passed. Luke was eight and Tessa was five. Life marched on the way it should with school-age children: busily and happily. January rolled around again and I bought a cake as I always did. Ever since Harvey and I had connected in Victoria after the fifteenth anniversary of the accident, he’d called me every year. We didn’t often talk about the accident; we mostly caught up on each other’s lives. When he called this year, I could hear in his voice that he was hurting. As our conversation was winding down, he blurted out, “I’d give you my leg if I could, Colleen.” I had heard him say this before many times and, just like every other time, Harvey’s guilt was palpable. As he said it
this year, I wanted to reach through the phone line and hold his hand and assure him I was okay. I wanted to give him permission to be okay, too. Maybe if he saw how well I’m doing, he would feel better, I thought.

  “Harvey, do you want to see each other again?” He did. We agreed to meet, but I insisted that this time we meet on my turf. I wanted him to see more than just my physical self. I wanted him to see my life.

  Harvey was hesitant, “Oh, Colleen, I’m pretty tight these days. A hotel room isn’t in my budget right now.” He had already explained to me about being on a short-term disability leave from work.

  Without thinking about it, I blurted out, “That’s okay, you can stay with us.”

  “Really? That wouldn’t be an inconvenience?” he asked.

  “Not at all,” I assured him. In fact I felt like it was just what he might need.

  “But I’ve never driven that part of I-5 since the accident. I don’t know if I can,” he said, revealing just how vulnerable he felt. “Maybe I can find someone to drive me.”

  I hoped he would.

  Sure enough, within a week, Harvey had found a friend who was driving to Seattle in a few weeks and could drop him off in Bellingham on the way south. Harvey would stay with us for two nights before his friend picked him up and took him home.

  I was well aware that inviting the man responsible for the loss of my leg to stay at my house was unconventional, but I had learned to trust my instincts. Every cell in my body was telling me that Harvey and I needed to see each other again. I felt strongly that Harvey needed to come to me this time and if that meant staying at my house, then so be it. I trusted that this was the right decision.

  The day before he arrived, after the kids went to school, I rolled up my sleeves and got out my cleaning supplies. I was compelled to clean my house top to bottom. The event that had changed my life was something I considered sacred now, and welcoming Harvey into my home felt like a holy act. I cleansed the house as if purifying a temple for a sanctified guest.

  I thought this visit was to help relieve Harvey of his guilt, and perhaps it would help with that, but as I cleaned I came to understand that this visit was peeling away another layer of the onion for me, too. Throughout the day I thought about my journey since the accident. In reflection, I realized that I didn’t focus so much on why this happened to me anymore. I understood that living the answer was more important than finding a concrete, stagnant answer. The meaning of my experiences would change and morph over time. What became as clear as my freshly polished coffee table was that my attitude and response to adversity mattered more than anything. I knew I would continue to walk through life with anger and sadness as my companions, but as I scoured the house, I also released my negative judgments about that. While I cleaned the bathroom mirror, I saw with crystal clarity that I lived inside the paradox of life. I understood that joy and sadness could coexist in the same moment. And I hoped Harvey would see that reflected in me.

  The next day I put clean sheets on Luke’s bed so Harvey could sleep in his room. I made some scones and readied a pot of tea. I prepared a place at my table for him as I had a number of years ago when I invited my sadness to the table.

  Harvey arrived in the late afternoon while my kids were still in school. We drank the tea and ate the scones at the kitchen table and talked about how we were going to spend our time together. I said what had been brewing in my mind during my preparations, “Harvey, I think it’s time you went to the site of the accident. By avoiding it all these years, you’ve given it a lot of power.”

  “I know you’re right. I’ve thought so, too,” he said as he wrung his hands.

  “It’ll be okay. We’ll do this together,” I assured him. We decided that we would go the next day after I dropped the kids at school.

  That night Harvey took all of us out to dinner and then taught us a fun card game as we sat around the kitchen table. My children accepted him without judgment or criticism. He was mommy’s friend. That’s all.

  After the kids went to school the next morning, Harvey and I got in the car. Harvey, an avid hockey fan distracted himself as we drove through town to the freeway entrance by explaining some of the rules of the game. I was only half listening. I was distracted by the power of what we were about to do. Once I merged onto the freeway, Harvey stopped talking. He could tell this was too momentous for idle chatter. A heavy silence filled the car. I started sweating and shivering as I drove seven miles south. I could feel Harvey’s anxiety build beside me, too.

  I exited at the same place I had with Lynn two years before, drove over the overpass and turned left onto the northbound on-ramp. There were no other cars around, so I stopped the car before getting onto the freeway. I pointed, “So there’s a speed limit sign up there about half a mile, see it?” Harvey looked ahead and nodded his head. “The accident happened just before that. I’ll pull over when we get there, okay?”

  “Okay,” he said. My throat ached, and my eyes started watering. This was important; I could feel it in my cells. I had driven this stretch of the road hundreds of times. In order to protect my heart, I had to develop distance from the feelings that were essentially left on the roadway. Harvey had just kept his distance by never returning. And now, here we were together, going to the place where our souls met. And we weren’t just going to drive past it; we were going to pause and linger there, to really be there.

  I drove the half mile to the accident site and pulled over to the shoulder on the right-hand side of the freeway, which abutted a hillside. The cars rushing past us created a din and my car rattled as the semitrucks passed by. I pointed to the guardrail on the left shoulder of the freeway. “See that dent there? That’s where it happened.” Harvey let out a sob. And then another. He couldn’t stop. His big shoulders drooped and shook as he let out twenty-seven years of pent-up sorrow. I cried right along with him.

  I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a tissue for each of us. Harvey grabbed his tissue and my sweaty hand. We held hands and looked out the window at the dent in the guardrail; and we cried. “If I could give you my leg, I would,” he said once again.

  I looked at him directly and wiped my tears. “Harvey, I don’t want your leg—or anyone’s leg. I am full and complete the way I am. I am okay.”

  He looked up at me with hope in his eyes.

  “Really,” I said as I squeezed his hand. I looked over at the guard-rail again. “This is just a spot on the planet, but it’s our spot. And we’re okay, Harvey. We’re both okay.”

  “This is crazy. I can’t believe we’re here together,” he said through his tears.

  “Yeah, this is ludicrous, isn’t it?” I replied, through my own tears.

  I looked at him and he looked at me. Before we knew it, we both started laughing. Deep, hard belly laughs. We laughed with the realization that in that moment we could release our mutual pain. We were both there together, insanely justified in our existence. We didn’t necessarily know where we were going from there, but in that moment, we understood how absurd and genuinely powerful life could be. We laughed until our bellies ached and our cheeks hurt.

  I was acutely aware of the sound of my car rattling as the cars and trucks passed us at sixty miles an hour; eventually, I felt we’d faced danger enough for one day. I couldn’t sit idle on the side of the freeway any longer. I had learned to normalize my fears by honoring my needs. I turned on the car and got us home safely.

  After Harvey left the next morning, I took a slow walk around the neighborhood, but instead of walking, I felt like I was floating on the waves of the sea cresting at the shore’s edge. Waves of insights crashed over me. Through hard work and intentionality, I had shifted my focus from what I had lost to what I had gained. I didn’t just survive my injury; I had put my arms around it and made something of it for me and my family—and maybe for Harvey, too. I understood that I had found something with more meaning than my loss: acceptance and love. I had been aching my whole life to be someone special. It
turns out, I always had been that someone.

  EPILOGUE

  I had wanted to take my kids backpacking ever since Luke was born, but I wasn’t ready until Luke was ten and Tessa was seven. A friend recommended a “one-mile flat trail” to a beautiful lake in the North Cascades. I can do a mile, I thought. That’s walking to school and back. My friend loaned us some backpacks for the kids, and Mark and I bought a couple of two-man tents, one for the boys and one for the girls.

  The drive to the trailhead took longer than we expected, so it was after two p.m. when we parked and got our hiking boots on.

  Entering the trail from the parking lot was like stepping into a different world. Suddenly, we were enveloped in green of all kinds: the dark green of the fir needles, the chartreuse of the Solomon’s seal, the deep waxy green of salal, the bright kelly green of bunchberry. The clean, musky smell of pine trees encircled me. We walked along the beginning of the trail, and I wanted to weep with joy to be back amid this beauty. I was among long-lost friends.

  At first, the trail was flat and relatively easy. After about a quarter mile, I found my stride and became used to the weight of the backpack. Then the trail became a maze of roots lying just on the surface. I kept my head down, deliberately placing each step. I walked slowly to avoid a fall and to soak in this emerald paradise.

  We came upon some steps built into the trail by a work crew. They were well made but steep and unexpected. After the steps, the trail evened out, then rose. And then the trail presented more steps. Mark was there for each one. He was a step ahead of me and offered his hand to help pull me up. Ten steps, then trail; five steps, more trail; twelve steps, more trail. They just didn’t stop. My knee started to ache.

  Luke walked quickly up the trail and was soon too far ahead of us to hear our calls. Mark took off his pack and ran ahead to find him. Luke, still looking fresh as a daisy, walked back to where Tessa and I were waiting. I could see he had plenty of energy to expel, but we needed to be able to keep track of him.