Fallen Glove

Larry and I were taking one of our many walks at Devil's Lake State Park one recent Saturday when we came upon a like-new woman's glove that had fallen to the sidewalk.  Being the Sherlock Holmes that I am (ha), I deduced that the glove had been dropped by one of the two women walking several paces ahead of us.  They were at such a distance that I couldn't very well yell to them, so I started to walk faster.  Larry urged me to go ahead and catch up with them and he'd eventually catch up to me.  So I ran after the two women.  I hadn't run like that in a long time, but I caught up with them and, indeed my dear Watson, the glove did belong to one of them.  I then retraced my steps back to Larry and we finished our walk together in happy silence.  I couldn't help but be grateful -- really, really grateful -- for that experience of running after those two women, for two years ago, I had an extensive neurosurgery to remove a large benign tumor that had blocked off 95% of a portion of my thoracic spine, smashing my spinal cord into the shape of a smile and rendering me spontaneously paralyzed from about the chest down.  With the help of a great medical team, I was healed and I learned how to walk again (it's funny how one can forget how to do something you've done for so long).  Two years ago, I was still working at putting one foot in front of the other, mastering the heel-to-toe maneuver of walking.  I couldn't even fathom being able to run again, but run I did recently, with a glove in my hand after two strangers, all the while with an incredibly grateful heart.  As I say, I take daily walks -- because I can.