All trauma needs time, healing tonics

It’s an interesting thing, the way our bodies react to trauma, be it physical or emotional.

Several years ago, I suffered a heart attack while cutting up trees to help a friend clear part of his property. Even though I felt better after surgery, I learned that trying a mile-long walk three days after being released from the hospital wasn’t one of my better ideas.

On the other hand, within weeks of leaving the hospital for the second time, I truly understood that recovery would take longer than I thought and involve changes in my routine.

My favorite breakfast of grits with butter, bacon, and eggs has now been relegated to an infrequent treat whose portions are much smaller. Oatmeal, berries, and flaxseed meal (wherever in heck that comes from) became a staple.

Too, simply moving about has become an ingrained habit. Having a Springer Spaniel helps with this because, for him, any day without a hike in the local woods is a disappointment.

More recently, I had carpal tunnel surgery and, again, after a bit, I felt better. Of course, I completely screwed things up by splitting two cords of wood six weeks post surgery.

Chastened, I wandered the Internet looking for exercises to get me back on track. I found them and, now, after the better part of a year, things have improved and I leave wood splitting to my son, Jason, whenever I can entice him to come by. Those are physical examples. Emotional ones, I now understand, are a bit different, but require every bit as much effort to get back to what we consider “normal” life.

As I wrote several weeks ago, my daughter and granddaughter were involved in a very serious automobile accident. Both could have been killed. They weren’t and both are now well, if still a bit sore.

A minor aside: My sincerest thanks to all who wrote offering prayers and well wishes. You helped my wife and I more than you can know.

The thing is, their accident was an emotional blow to us. A shock to our systems. And, as others who’ve experienced similar or more serious incidents have told us, it will require a period of recovery too.

My wife responded as a mother and grandmother would. She packed up and headed down there on the first flight available. I stayed behind to close up the house and follow her. Shortly thereafter, she called — and I could tell that she was doing just fine in full grandmother mode — to say that I needn’t come nor worry. They were mending. The house was full of help. There’d be nothing I could do but stare at walls. So, she told me to head off to the woods.

Which I did — though I still checked in every day and had a bag packed in my truck.

But, there, while hiking six or seven miles a day in the hills, sleeping in a tent next to a stream, building and watching a fire at night, and simply talking with friends I’ve known and trusted for almost 20 years, I found that I began feeling better. “Healing” perhaps.

There were still moments when my emotions went raw — even in company — but they became fewer and farther between. Too, the times when I couldn’t stop thinking about the “what might have beens” were more frequently replaced by the better “what is — thank God.”

Further, I found that the crap that we’re bombarded with still — and will for a long time — takes a place at the bottom of the list of things that I worry about. It has to, because I don’t have the time to think about them and still call my granddaughter with updates on my search for “Bigfoot” — an individual she truly wishes to meet.

I’m back from the woods now, but I’ve already found another elixir. The World Series is on and I’m a baseball fan.

I don’t have a dog in this fight. Neither Detroit nor San Francisco are my favorites, but the Series is a ritual for me. Something that I can turn to. Something that has a pace to it and a tranquility that’s almost as relaxing as the sound of that stream behind my tent.

And I think that, rather than being as dumb as I’ve proven myself to be as regards physical injuries, I’ll use these things and, then, find others to serve as the emotional tonics we all, at times, need.

For sure, they can only help.

Larry Simoneaux lives in Edmonds. Send comments to: larrysim@comcast.net