Wednesday (Fiction) Story Tellin'

Learning to Walk Again

It started on Valentine's day with a pink patterned paper heart.  The therapist thought it would be a creative exercise to initiate coordination of her fingers again. "Origami kind of simulates changing a diaper," she reasoned. "Or a fancy kind of swaddling." Rumi had a difficult time considering the twenty week old baby nesting in her body. The past three weeks had been all and absolutely nothing about the baby and Rumi found it difficult to mentally go there as she lay in a transitional unit in a nursing home. Instead of her usual evenings spent at business dinners in the river north neighborhood with executives and creatives, she now shared a dinner table with Betty, Vera, Gladys, and Hubert, all at least 50 years her senior, who clucked when they believed she was out of ear shot. "Can you imagine? A stroke happening to someone so young. And pregnant!" 

Rumi occasionally tried to retrace the steps of her sudden medical journey as Fox News blared from the television speakers of her neighbor's room. She felt as though she had been sucked out of her twenty something life and was replaced by the ninety year old version of herself. She almost laughed: the first ninety year old to be with child. It was biblical. The therapists and nursing staff tried to respect her youth, minding that she did not wear hearing aids and did not need to be spoken to with booming voices. One nurse knit a small infant blanket and later, just before her discharge, they threw her a small baby shower. But that Valentine's day she was unaware of any discharge date and was beginning to worry she would deliver and raise her baby among the Vera's and Betty's of the world.

The doctors were optimistic. Rumi was able to stand and start walking in increments of ten feet and although her right hand felt as if it was buried in a ski glove, the fingers were moving consistently albeit clumsily. Her husband burned a motivational cd for the therapists to play in the gym during her physical and occupational therapy. The seniors at first were stunned by the Foo Fighters but the lyrics of Learning to Walk Again and the chanting of " I never want to die/ I never want to die/ I'm dancing on my grave/ I never want to leave/ I never want to die" seemed to inspire them and they increased  their repetitions of sit to stands and distances walked in the parallel bars. The baby, the doctors assured, was fine. Rumi remained skeptical though. Nothing seemed fine. 

Rumi's family and husband were supportive but in their absence time dragged slowly. The therapist left a book featuring 365 origami projects and several sheets of thin patterned papers purchased in Chinatown.  She began to obsessively fold and rotate the little papers first into hearts and then cranes, penguins, crowns, and boxes. The folds were challenging with her thumb and index finger awkwardly making contact but eventually her fingers began to coordinate. The intensity of her brain power used to flex and extend her fingers decreased and she triumphantly displayed the folded masterpieces on the dresser next to an unused bed pan. 

After her discharge (and the baby shower thrown by the medical team featuring Betty's Texas sheet cake recipe prepared by Betty's daughter), Rumi returned home to find the baby room painted a calm shade of gray with magenta blankets and pillows accenting the crib and rocking chair. She delighted that her husband hung each and every origami piece from the ceiling, hundreds of little creatures descending and twirling above the rocking chair and crib. Their shadows danced as she rocked her 30 week old baby still in utero as she hummed - can't you feel it growing stronger/ little conquerers.