Drinking more water, eating all the spinach and bananas I can consume and taking shots of apple cider vinegar do not seem to be curing the pains I am experiencing in my legs. Sometimes they hurt when I’m walking, sometimes when I’m doing absolutely nothing. And yes, I’ve told my doctor about it (I have to say such things or I get calls from concerned family members).
Nothing is showing up in my blood work or x-rays, but I know we will figure it out sooner or later. From time to time, they just hurt.
The other afternoon I was cutting the grass with instructions from the “hole-punching” fellow to cut it low and get all of the clippings picked up. The hole-punching fellow? You know, the fellow with the loud machine that pokes holes in your yard so they can plant more grass and give your grass room to breathe. After he is finished, your lawn has those dirt cylinders all over it and it looks like a flock of ginormous geese have had a big party in your yard.
While cutting the grass, I was shutting the lawn mower off every once in a while to unload the bagger, talk to the dogs and sit down for a minute or two in an effort to keep my legs from hurting.
I was going over the same places more than once trying to suck up all the clippings and give my lawn a “flat top” haircut. In the distance, I saw a mother and a toddler walking up the road toward me, with the toddler crossing back and forth and wobbling. It’s not uncommon for folks in the neighborhood to walk in the middle of the road, but not wanting the lawn mower to throw anything towards them, I cut it off and sat down on my crew-cut grass.
The mother and child got closer and closer, I saw that it was a little girl in what looked like pink pants or leggings and she kept wobbling and going from side to side almost like she was on stilts with her mother chasing her. As she got closer, she got the biggest smile on her face as to say, “Look at me.” I smiled back – I had no choice, those types of smiles from children are contagious.
When she got even with where I had sat down in the grass, I noticed she had little pink leg braces on each leg. I didn’t know the reason for the braces, but I know I would have had a difficult time walking with them attached to me. She kept looking at me and smiling…
She passed by and without any prompting from her mother, told me, “Bye Bye.” I said, “Bye Bye” and waited for them to get a couple of more houses down the road to start the lawn mower again.
You know where I’m going with this…
After seeing those little pink legs, the wobbling almost like someone who had gotten into the back of their grandmother’s canning shelves (and found the hard stuff) and the big smile, my legs kind of perked up and said, “If she can do it, so can we.”
I didn’t stop anymore and I can’t say that my legs stopped hurting all together, but I can say thinking about the little girl’s smile and pink leg braces make me thankful and happy to see a little one go after life with such gusto.
I was even happier to see the mother and little girl coming back about a half hour later. They stopped and the mother introduced herself and the little girl, she had resorted to carrying her by this time. She put the little girl down in my yard to play with my dogs.
I’ve tried everything from pickle juice to this miracle salve stuff for my leg issues, but I have to say a smiling little girl with “pink legs” has helped the most.
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Cranks My Tractor
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I'm BN Heard and I like semicolons, dogs and children who smile at me.
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