• woman on cane
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    Learning to Lean Hard–AGAIN

    Walking with God. The scriptures talk a lot about how we walk, which is biblical language for how we live. But walking itself, beyond the analogies, has a special meaning to me. As an infant, polio paralyzed me from the waist down, but little baby helper nerve cells sprouted up and gave me some use of my leg back. I needed a full-length brace to be able to stand and walk at all for my first years. And every step of my life has been a rather noticeable limp. So to me, walking = limping. So when I hear words of wisdom like, “Don’t trust any leader who doesn’t walk…

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    Leaning Hard

    I wondered when it would happen, when the pain and weakness from post-polio, exacerbated by hip arthritis, would set me up for a fall. And now I know. The other day I took a tumble. I forgot to have my husband put my walker in the back of my mini-van. At some point this year I discovered that leaning on a cane for stability wasn’t enough, and I need a walker for literally every step. But this level of loss and disability is still new to me; sometimes I forget that my “new normal” demands things like taking a walker with me. When I got to my destination, all I…