Bolt

Is it an irony that for all that I endeavor to keep my life a little on the natural hippie side of the tracks, I am also counting down to the day that I become more metal than I already am? 

Pun totally intended, in case you were wondering. 

Last week we met with my ortho-surgeon Dr. Hoover, to officially mark myself ready for cyborg initiation and start the paperwork. In typical fashion I both blotted a sudden leak from my eyes and laughed nervously as I asked every possible question from my oh-so-patient surgeon. We looked at scans of what my joint looks like and he explained the difficulties of slicing through a graft, the possible complications, how his method of entry varies from my previous surgeries, how we will prep in the last 3 months leading up, as well as what recovery could look like. 

I mostly want to know if the pain will stop and if I can get him to preserve the cut ball joint in a jar for me. Morbid I know but cmon. Would YOU feel comfortable with a discarded piece of your body just getting put in the incinerator?!? 

"So we can get you booked today if you want."

"We're still waiting on Bolt"

"Ah that's right! Good. My secretary can book you when he's ready."

Bolt had his own pin removed the day prior. I got to see him being led off to surgery after waiting the better part of 2 hours for a decision. When his vet met with me and Bolt's foster, he mentioned PT and a concern with limited movement of the injured wrist as well as a 70% healed fracture. It short: It's gonna be a while. 

"When you check out, we'll give you some reading material and lab work papers."

What he really meant was:

I'm basically assigning you to scrub in as my assistant so you've got 6 years of Med school to catch up on in this 300 page 'booklet'. 

Oh. And a little workshop put on by the hospital for Total Hip Replacement patients where you'll basically be the only one there that isn't retired since forever ago. 

I asked Ian to remind me what the surgeon expected me to attend at the hospital and he said: Surgery. Good thing he remembers so well otherwise I might have sent someone in my place. 

GRAND. 

Sitting through the labs the surgeon ordered for me I get a sense of relief knowing that it's official. For the last 10 years I have been facing this procedure and likewise avoiding it. 

There are a few medical concerns to be ruled out through blood work and a good deal of mental processing to be done so in anticipation I asked Ian if I would be allowed to volunteer at the D.C. Temple in the gardens. Through a little bit of networking, I find that there's a group traveling up from Virginia to work in the garden the same Saturday Ian has scheduled for his own Temple trip and sign myself up. 

Ian and I, though vastly different in our religious views, are both deeply spiritual. Worship brings us both a sense of calm and centering. For Ian, the most holiest of places for communing with his God is in the LDS Temple. If you're from this area and traveled through 495 outer loop towards silver springs, you've seen the white castle-like structure that seems to suddenly arise from the horizon with its golden spires and singular Angel, trumpet at the ready. 

When I first moved to Maryland it intrigued me but I could never figure out what it was. There was no cross. No signs. No visible way to make it to the palace in the sky. I have since learned that the Angel is called Moroni, always facing east to the sunrise as though he calls it forth. The Temple, a holy and sacred place for the Latter Day Saints and a building I will never enter whilst it is sealed 

See I am not Mormon. Nor do I plan to be. 

My church surrounds the temple in the greenery and plants and soil that make up the beautiful Gardens that LDS Temples are also known for. Being the beginning of spring I looked forward to planting flowers or bulbs.  

Brother Amaya hands me gloves....and  giant hedge clippers. 

"Today we will prune the trails!"

Brother Amaya is excited about pruning away months worth of growth and collected dried tree limbs because alas...it's not yet time to plan the flowers. 

First he sets me to break down large limbs that will be taken to the dumpster on little gator-trolleys. When he sees me struggling with bigger limbs he hands me a saw. A nasty curved thing that eats at wood like it's nothing. I cut limbs and branches and large logs. Each time thinking: This isn't what I WANTED to do...

Which is quickly followed with the Buddhist idea that manual labor is a chance to meditate. Quiet the body and open the mind. 

"Why don't you move over here, and help me prune away the bushes? There are plenty people carrying and breaking down sticks."

Brother Amaya is originally from El Salvador. So is Brother Castillo. He's further up the trail spraying down stumps. I suspect Brother Amaya enjoys speaking Spanish with someone new for a change. 

"Am I to cut down even these lively bushes??"

"Yes. There are not needful here. They choke up the tree that we want growing big and strong."

I'm not one for pruning because I am not one for culling away the plants. 

Children do not see a weed when they pick dandelions, they see a flower. 

I still see a flower. Each plant, is still one to keep. I silently chat with the Earth and thank the bushes for their temporary greenery. 

And I wonder why Brother Amaya keeps pushing me to prune more varied things. 

"You see this offshoot branch on the tree? It's unnecessary. It does the tree no good. Cut it with the saw, close to its bend up and diagonal."

I slice away a limb off the tree we are clearing space for and I run my finger over the jagged slice I've made. 

"It's a good cut for a starter! In time the tree will heal over this cut, and it will not even show a scar."

As we continue down a hill, cutting away and stacking bush and upon bush, thorns through my gloves no longer bothering me, Brother Amaya talks to me about Immigration, the Book of Mormon, and difficult but righteous choices. 

He's aware I am not a member of the church but I am a member of his clan...Hispanic immigrants. 

"Your family made a difficult choice in order to ensure your prosperity and in order to do what is right. They left their lands and risked a long voyage to a new country. It is sad that many of the new generations forget the sacrifice."

"I don't. I honor them as I can, always choosing what is right although it is hard.  Standing up for others who may not have that voice."

"It reminds me of Moses. Do you know his story?"

"The Prince of Egypt. I do."

"Before they knew he was a Jew they took him in and he was like them. He was a Prince. But when he found out who his people, his ancestors were...he gave up his inheritance so as to do what was right. Can you imagine giving all of that up??"

We pruned away a while longer before Ian made his way down from the Temple and caught up with me. As he and Brother Amaya chatted down the trails, I hung back to watch the small swarm of caterpillars cling to the side of a sappy tree. I stooped to run my fingers through baby ferns and dewy moss. In the nursery I read the labeled on what would become jasmine and what were the different types of Japanese Maples, a tree I favor. A variety of which I have many in my yard at home. Their leaves are soft and supple, they change colors and become vibrant for their summer.  

In the gardens I can hear the steady heartbeat of Gaia and the humming of the green things that grow. I can listen to the universe and Deity best in this temple of earth and it was whispering to me while I strayed behind the men. 

I met with the Trainer that will be helping me certify Bolt as a service dog that same afternoon. 

I pulled out my journal with all my notes on Bolt from when I've seen him at the vet and then closed it again. 

The whispering became clear. 

"With what we know about Bolt, his need for recovery, and the training he is facing with you.... do you think that it would be more harm than good for Bolt? I want to know now, before I further fall in love with him, if this is the best kind of home for him. Bolt deserves the best family, one that will let him grow fat and lazy and not require him to work. As much as this family loves him...this would be a home where he would have to work. A home where he would walk more than most dogs and be less able to seek out the petting of all the humans he encounters. I want to know, now, sooner rather than later if he would be better served in a home where he is not a service dog."

See while I was out pruning away live things striving to lean into the life force of those trees, I was being given a lesson. 

Those vines and those bushes love that big tall tree. They love the safety of its embrace. But they stifle the tree, and they're kept from much sunlight. 

Keeping Bolt I would have been the vines and bushes keeping Bolt from his best life. 

So, because I love him so, I let him go.

He deserves so much that I cannot give him. Even if he has my whole heart. 

Sometimes I wish the gears were in my heart and not my hip and when it hurt to turn and chug I could just oil it instead of waiting for it to cry it all out. 

Being Bionic sometimes doesn't keep you from being wholly human.