My Opposable Thumb Is On The Bum

The thing about falling—especially from a short distance—is that you don’t know you’re falling. One second you’re standing, and the next you’re flat-faced on concrete, an extremely unforgiving surface.

It wasn’t a dark and stormy night when I tripped while walking up the front porch stairs. No, it was last Saturday, a beautiful, clear evening. And I was especially happy (and perhaps more than usually distracted), having just returned from the wedding of my friend, Mary.

Mary is my role model for what I’ve taken to calling “late-life love.” We are the same age, as is her new husband, and like me she was married before, but then widowed. OK, so I wasn’t exactly widowed, though Philip LaChapelle did die, even if decades after I divorced him.

Anyway, back to the fall. 

Because I’d landed on concrete—and on my left side—the swelling and the bruising happened instantaneously, starting right above my eye, then skipping over my eye and landing on my cheekbone, which seemed to have taken the brunt of it. So in addition to the swelling and the bruising, there was also the scratching and the bleeding.

It wasn’t until at least an hour later, after getting up from the concrete, rushing into the house, into the kitchen, and into the freezer for ice, that I saw that my lip, left-hand thumb, and left knee were also swelling and bruising—a light blue-ish color that kept spreading.

Now according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as reported last year, “[f]alls are [the] leading cause of injury and death in older Americans.”  This shouldn’t be news to anyone who’s either old or who know people who are.

Fortunately, for me, though, I’ve been falling for a good portion of my 70+ years, so I’m kind of practiced at it. Even as a kid, I was clumsy, prone to walking into tables, half-opened doors, and other stable objects around the house. The falling thing happened with some frequency starting in my early twenties, usually on sidewalks, and often resulting in injuries, including a fractured wrist and broken toes.

Then things got really interesting when I took up biking in my early forties: a number of falls off my bike, and once over the handlebars, resulted in a concussion and fractured ribs.

So, yes, I’ve sustained my share of injuries from years of falling, but you know what they say: that which doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger. Not sure how that applies exactly to all my bloody scratches and spreading bruises, but I’ll give it some deep thought.

Just not while out walking or biking.