Lengthen Your Stride

I have been writing this blog on and off for more than ten years.  This year I committed myself to making writing a priority. My writing is a way to force myself to ponder, to challenge myself and to live out my desire to evolve as a human being and reach ever so timidly for the One who created me.  I am really only writing for myself and you, those few who find yourself in my musings, you are my accountability.  For words spoken to oneself create nothing.  Words spoken to others create our world.  God spoke the world into existence in Genesis and dozens of other creation stories.  And so I am attempting to speak into life a different reality, a different me.

You might wonder, why now?  Why commit to writing now?  Let me take a moment and write more for you than for me and explain.

On September 25^th I suffered a stroke.  It was at the base of my brain stem, in the cerebellum.  My neurologist described the cerebellum as Grand Central Station for our mind-body connection.  Every nerve and function in our body flows through this part of the brain.  And I had five small explosions there, leaving me blind in my right field of vision and numb on the left side from the top of my head to my toes.  I was lucky: strokes in this part of the brain can be major explosions.  Those are the ones that leave the patient locked in: fully aware but unable to move anything but their eyes.

So, though the stroke was mild the complications were serious.  Where we have two large arteries feeding blood to the back of the brain.  I was born with one.  And this lonely highway of life giving blood had developed a plaque and a clot right at the point where those that artery, the vertebral artery, meet the basilar artery, the main artery into the brain.  The usual simple procedures weren’t an option due to my being born with only one of two vertebral arteries.  And thus I found myself being airlifted less than ten miles from Emory St. Joseph’s to the Stroke Clinic at Emory University.  I spent a week in the ICU, my body being flooded with Heparin to gently loosen the clot without causing any further strokes.

Fast forward.  Within a few weeks I recovered full eyesight.  Over the course of a few months I recovered my balance, my strength and my agility with the help of some phenomenal physical and occupational therapists. Over the holidays I began to recover my sense of balance emotionally as I spent time differently than I have with my family and friends. 

But the whole experience had stripped me bare.  I felt vulnerable in ways that I had never felt before.  I had my first real glimpse at my own mortality.  For the first time truly understood how much I am loved by my family.  And I ultimately had to face the fact that I was not centered spiritually and that true joy in the third chapter of my life was going to come from finding that connection.  And writing is a huge part of how I am wired.

I’ll end this post on a cold, rainy Atlanta winter morning.  I was tempted to get on the stationary bike but Birdie gave me the look only a Springer can and I suddenly remembered that I grew up in Seattle.  We went for our usual 3.5 mile run, just like we had the morning of the stroke.

As we hit the half-mile point Birdie gave me a look that said, “this is colder than I anticipated and I think I regret my decision.”  Rather than pulling me along with her poorly functioning adenoids causing her to heave breaths like the Tasmanian Devil on those Looney Tune cartoons, she was trailing slightly behind me.  I was surprised by the cold as well.

So I made a decision to get this over as quickly as we could.  I lengthened my stride and ran like I hadn’t before the stroke.  We ran those hills at pace and Birdie had to at points actually run rather than trot (and if you know Springers you’ll know how rare that is).  First the in months I was running rather than jogging.  I was lengthening my stride rather than limping through he motions.

And that has been my choice for this year.  To lengthen my stride.  To hit the road not just in spite of but because of the cold and rain.  Lengthen my stride in my career, in my writing, in my life.  And most importantly, lengthen my stride toward God.

Which leads me to ask: how are you lengthening your stride this year?  Is it with your family?  Or your job?  Or your physical health?  There are no answers too small or big to the question.  The important thing is just to choose.  And lengthen your stride.