The Flourishing
of decaying bones
I have been writing the story of my bones since I was quite young.
My grandmother died in wretched pain from bone cancer at the age of 42. I wrote about her here.
My dad ached from a rare form of shoulder pain in his bones from the time he was 11 years old. Just a little boy…
and I received his pain in my early 20’s.
The pain of inheritance, whether emotional or physical is difficult to ignore and comes in many forms. I realized, early on, that my example of physical pain was to watch as pain worked itself through. Pain never stopped until the evening. Pain accompanied the joy of working, creating, staying busy, rarely landing except for a meal, then sleep. The ceaseless motion lessoned the pain. I saw this as my father’s torch.
He carried it well.
As evening came, dad would sit down and pain would remind him that it was there. As a teenager, I’d often quietly sneak by dad’s chair, his back facing, and I’d hear him say, “Deb, would you rub my shoulders.” Stopping in my tracks, I’d rub his shoulders as he gave out exhales of pain, hoping for relief, and the comfort of small kneading hands trying to relieve pain. “I’m sorry dad, I have homework.”
Not long after leaving home, I would begin to ask the same question, “can you rub my shoulders. “Harder!” “I don’t want to hurt you.” “You will, it does, oh God it hurts. Please don’t stop.” “I have to stop, I feel like I’m breaking you.”
Standing with baby number one on hip, followed by number two, towing a toddler, then baby number three, with two young children staring, with me, at the array of analgesics in the pharmacy, I’d pick a “new one” knowing it wasn’t new. I couldn’t take anything that would knock me out while raising children. Knowing dad’s history, the only possible method was to have stomach pain and work through the pain. Average pain meds eat away and I learned to eat for that, if I wasn’t queasy from doubling up.
During this time, dad dabbled with an addictive pain prescription and it naturally did a number. The time was very short but had the potential to change more than pain. I will never forget his will to wean off. I had no clue until he came for a visit, on his own, delivering a few of my memory boxes. The kids were playing outside when dad pulled out a thermos of herb tea (or erb tea if you’re British). He told me he had sought the help of a Yugoslavian herbalist in Ventura, Ca. What? my 6’2” tough guy dad going to an herbalist in the early 90’s? I think I giggled.
This was the art of self-control that I had already witnessed in dad’s quality control career. Little did I know I would toe the line with my pain from this point on and take up a small, and rare for the time, vitamin/herbal “supplement Bible” so to speak. I drove a few cities over to our “natural shop” hidden away in a strip mall to buy this gold. I’d refer to it for everything.
At the same time, all the way to the change of life, I had terrible migraines, so it was never an option for me to be knocked out. I had to learn to live with pain.
I had to learn the absolute joy of living with pain. Everything I did was a blessing. A gift. The pain that came with joyful things was what reminded me “I lived.” I live.
My pain tells me I am living.
I was in the grocery store over Easter and let a man, with a few items, go ahead of my pile. I made smalltalk, “how are you today?” “my mom died a few weeks ago.” “I’m so sorry.” "yeah, she was hit by a drunk driver over 30 years ago and was living in a lot of pain. Soooo, yeah. She’s out of it now.” My heart sank as his sadness spoke. Her pain did not come from joy. She’s one of millions whose pain was a reminder of a terrible affliction, a suffering cast upon her by someone or something horrible.
After the herbalist swung a crystal pendulum in front of dad’s body (dad would have called that “quackery”) he was told “your body is poisoned.” Dad left with an herbal tea concoction and was told to drink it everyday for several days.
That was it.
When I was six I remember dad looking at me in the drug store as he purchased cigarettes and gum. I loved going with him for a stick of Juicy Fruit. He went home and quit smoking. For good.
That was it.
I would grow to learn in my later years, from an accident that froze one of my shoulders, despite doing all I could to “get through” the pain, my personal shoulder pain was “episodic.” I had never looked at it that way. It comes on level 50 10 and then calms down ever so slowly as it extends its unwelcome visit. Ice has become my best inanimate friend. Although ice melts, I revive it again and again and have the blessing of comfortable ice packs, including an ice cape, oh my.
When birthday and Christmas come around I whine ask “can someone please make me an ice bed? John, my husband, usually responds with, “I’ll get you a new trash can, like the pro cyclists have.” That doesn’t sound comfortable and little does he know, I’m not joking! I want to lie down like Elsa and push back those who would have me loose my magic powers of feeling frozen and numb pain-free.
One can usually catch me sound asleep dressed in my ice cape… every few weeks. Often another ice pack will join us on my low back where I have a crushed L4 and 5 or on my bone-to-bone knees if I’ve pushed myself too hard walking or…. honestly, how could one leave that little caped crusader alone on a trampoline?
Years of dance, a ski accident and a wonderful photography career, with a bad fall from a ladder, thrown in for good measure, have added to the nonsense of my shoulders. Insult to injury they say.
This past week John was in a car accident. A driver ran a red light at high speed, spinning John’s small old car, ripping off the entire front bumper. Glass everywhere, out of breath in the street, he called the police who said they wouldn’t come if no one was hurt. What? Oh how my bones ached when he called to say he was okay. I selfishly, for a split second thought, had it been me my bones would be done for. I would have become his official cripple, living that life of pain.
My husband is a real life Popeye. He woke the next morning, 6 a.m., no pain. Just a scrape on the head. He never took Motrin. He went to work. Nothing he does in industrial electrical construction, from pulling wire relentlessly, carrying heavy equipment, pouring concrete slabs and constantly hammering his body leaves him in physical ice-pack pain. He plays music three times a week and often gets a bike ride in. Movement is his magic, an often tough childhood choice, good genes his blessing. Not to say this didn’t shake him to the core. He “chose” to keep going.
Guess this apple I chose didn’t fall far from my own dad’s tree.
A few years before dad passed away his knees were killing him, crunchy like mine. I asked him if he should stop using the stairs. He said, “I’m gonna keep going until I’m crawling to my grave.” Then I watched him die, as cancer ate him away, in so much pain. “Never going gentle into that good night” to get himself to the toilet at the hospice. He made his nurse cry.
During these last two weeks this also happened:
A dear friend of John’s was in a terrible car accident. Life support was pulled. This man was as tough as my husband and a long time short hauler of hardscape. He was taking a holiday. Two weeks later John was spared.
I was given the blessing and challenge of working my bones again with an engagement shoot. I lost my editorial contract work during the pandemic, however had stopped doing weddings/engagements in 2016, after the ladder accident. The days, the hours, the bending. I decided to go for it. Joyful pain. I loved every minute.
The day after John’s car accident, our beautiful niece gave birth to her first baby, a little boy. Twenty years ago, she spent a year at City of Hope. Osteosarcoma. She was 12. There is so much family joy in our bones over this. Here lies the celebration of overcoming what could have made this beautiful event impossible. Oh yeah, she also became a speech therapist. What a gift.
and… two days after John’s car accident we stood outside in the pouring rain at a small venue in Los Angeles, for a concert he bought $35 tickets for… months ago. Nothing was going to stop him. The man who lives. I didn’t want to go. I was nervous. The accident. Driving in SoCal is *%!^%$&! Cold seeps into my bones wa wa. PLUS, it was standing room only, which meant short stuff had to stretch her neck to see for a few hours and that means level million pain (most of my shoulder pain radiates from the neck that crunches like rice krispies).
We met a young man in line around the corner about a mile away, but seriously, coat-less, no hat. We got to know him fast as we sheltered together under our umbrella. It was pouring! He was a dental assistant in San Diego!! Working hard, full of joy. Drove all that way alone.
Finally, we entered the old venue, built by the hands of durable bones and creatives in the turn of the century and swayed the night away. We made it. He’s got this. The plan, you know?
I was given a joyful life, despite its obstacles.
The room was a happy mix of America, no politics, protected by the faith that screams something better is coming for the world.
Moving back and forth in our two foot circumference, to a cool band my husband discovered on YouTube ten years ago, all of us, young and old dancing in the flourishing of decaying bones…
Here’s an Instagram Highlight of the evening with opening band “Wake The Wild,” a super talented groovy 80’s funk “best friends since childhood” band and “Dirty Loops,” headliner. Childhood friends as well, a jazz fusion, gospel, funk, electronica, pop, and disco through-the-roof band. 90% of the fans were musicians, (Henrik asked!) including my bass player husband. Henrik Linder is probably the greatest bass player in the world right now. Lead singer/keyboard, Jonah Nilsson, has the soul and vocals of a young Stevie Wonder and Aron Mellergard, drummer/vocals is absolutely remarkable. Here’s a short write-up, in No Treble, of the announcement of their first North American tour in ten years. But yeah, you wanna see living? Go here. Or go see my 62 year old husband busking his bass tonight on Colorado Blvd. or next month when he plays. A lot. Man, am I a lucky girl to be around such energy.
Oh my goodness. That is a wild legacy of pain. Thank you for sharing your joy and zest for life, through all the painful and hard things that come at you. Makes me glad to be alive, too ☺️
💔