That Sad Looking Old Woman Can’t Possibly Be Me

Facing the Toll of Four Hard Years

One of my Facebook friends recently posted a selfie, with some flippant comment about how she was still hot even though she had just turned 50. She also said that black & white filters are our friends at this age.

We went to school together. My 50th birthday is just around the corner. The years have certainly been kinder to her than have been to me.

I haven’t really allowed many pictures to be taken of me these past few years and I am certainly not a fan of selfies. I can never make them look ‘natural’.

I decided to give her tip a try and took a few in black & white. It really didn’t help that much. I still look old. I would imagine her use of makeup may have tipped the scales somewhat.

I decided to take a little stroll down memory lane and see if I could pinpoint the moment that the aging process really started accelerating.

👆👆👆👆 April 2018 👆👆👆👆~

I see this picture and can’t help chuckling at the fact that a couple of years before this Grandma had lectured me about how smoking was accelerating my aging. I don’t think it’s smoking that’s done me in.

I had some fine lines on my forehead, and around my eyes and mouth. By looking at it, you wouldn’t know that I was 5'2" and 183 lbs. According to the Body Mass Index, I was technically considered obese. Hiding underneath those PJ pants were well-muscled legs, that would put in over 12,000 steps before 7:00 am. Beneath the sweater were arms that could easily drag and flip a 100 lb calf or goat if needed.

I had no idea what life had in store for me.

👆👆👆 October 2018 👆👆👆~

One month before this picture was taken a 500-lb steer calf had knocked me to the ground and stood on my back. There were hairline fractures on my pelvis, every rib on my right side was broken, and all the soft tissue down that side of my back had torn, from twisting to kicking the calf off of me.

Twelve days later my sister passed away unexpectedly.

This picture was taken the day that we held her Celebration of Life on our farm. It was the first time I had seen my son since 2010.

This was when I started to discover that I had been very disillusioned about some of the most important relationships in my life.

Even though my body was literally battered and broken, my mother, brothers, and nephews had left everything to me. Thank God I had a couple of good friends that stepped up to the plate and brought us meals, tidied the house, and prepared food for the luncheon after the service.

Up to that point, I had merely considered those friends as no more than acquaintances. Some of my closest friends didn’t even bother to show up or call to check in on us.

Over the months that would follow, I would choke on my anger every time my so-called ‘BFF’ would call. She would cry that she missed me and wanted to do coffee. She simply couldn’t grasp the fact that I couldn’t physically sit with my fractured pelvis. I told her that I’d love to have coffee, but it would have to be at my house, where I could sit in my recliner, with my heated blanket. She never did come and four years later, I still can’t sit upright or lie flat for very long without suffering excruciating pain.

👆👆👆👆 May 2019 👆👆👆👆 ~

This was my 47th birthday. I was in awe of God’s grace. I thanked Him daily for the simple fact that I had survived that run-in with the calf. Even though I was still in pain, I was getting around, albeit slowly.

My heart was broken by how people had let me down and I sought solace in the simple things that are so abundant here on the farm.

👆👆👆👆 March 2020 👆👆👆👆 ~

None of us knew what lie ahead.

For the most part, I had recovered from the accident with the calf. Although I think there will always be a pain in my pelvis as a reminder to be more careful.

I was already isolating myself from society, disgusted with people. It seemed most were so self-centered.

Thankfully, I had my animals and God. I had a plan and was focussing on expanding my small animal breeding programs. I was working hard to renovate shelters, cages, and pens.

Then our province announced that they were shutting down schools. I had to start homeschooling my special needs granddaughter. Days were consumed with desperately trying to meet her emotional and educational needs. Nights were spent trying to move forward with my business plan. Sleep was a scarce commodity.

Another farm accident, in June of 2020, left me without the use of my right arm. I couldn’t even wiggle a finger. Internally, everything from the base of my neck to my wrist was mangled, soft tissue and nerves severed, spiral fractures of the long bones, and a cracked funny bone. The muscles looked like ground meat and were completely detached from the joints.

The orthopedic surgeon said that I would need at least 4 surgeries to rebuild it. One of those involved taking a piece of my hamstring to rebuild the tendon from my neck to my shoulder. I wouldn’t be able to walk for at least 12 weeks.

I told him that wouldn’t work for me. All I could really do is walk. I’m right-handed and was fumbling to learn how to use my left hand. He said it would likely be a two-year wait for the first two surgeries, then 12 to 18 months between each of the following ones to allow for healing and physiotherapy.

He put me on the waitlist anyway. He said severed tendons don’t heal on their own without surgical reattachment.

Thankfully, those same acquaintances that had stepped up when my sister died, were back with meals and helping to clean the house. Another had come, seemingly from out of nowhere. She arrived morning and night to milk my goats and tend my chores.

Again, my ‘friends’ and family reinforced the fact that they only loved me for what I could give them. They gave nothing back.

I prayed for guidance and healing. I remembered reading the book ‘The Miracle Man’ by Morris Goodman. He had been in a plane crash that resulted in a crushed spine. Doctors said that he would never breathe on his own, let alone walk or talk. Through faith and determination, he proved them all wrong.

If God had seen fit to heal him, surely He could do the same for me. I literally taped myself back together and devoured healing foods and supplements. I forced my arm and fingers to move. At first, I had to manipulate them and it was excruciating.

Eventually, though, I ended up with my own miracle! Slowly but surely, I was able to move. I now have almost a full range of motion. Fine motor skills and strength are still somewhat lacking, but the surgeon said he didn’t feel he’d have been able to restore as much as I had done on my own. He has said surgery would do more harm than good.

👆👆👆👆 May 2021 👆👆👆👆 ~

Sometimes, life, or maybe it’s God, has a funny way of teaching us important lessons.

I took this picture on my 49th birthday. That old goat and I had been on a lifelong journey together… for her at least.

I was there the moment she was born. Her mother was having a particularly difficult labor and had trouble delivering the first, very large kid. I’d had to pull him. As Mom and I were getting him dried off, she coughed, and another tiny baby flew out of her and across the barn. She was so small and the delivery was so fast that the amniotic sac hadn’t even broken. I had to work quickly to break the sac and clear the fluid from her lungs.

Her mother didn’t even realize that she had delivered another baby and wanted no part of her.

Although a full-size meat/dairy cross goat, she was only a little over two pounds. Her twin had tipped the scales at just over ten. I named her Pinty (pronounced like a pint of beer, with a long ‘e’ at the end).

I hand-raised her and we developed a deep bond.

A few years later, her first baby died just a few weeks after being born. Pinty was inconsolable. She wailed day and night, searching for her lost baby. Whenever I went into the goat pen, she would bury her head in my chest or lap and cry. It went on for weeks. My heart broke for her.

After a couple of months of watching her grieve, I finally sold her. It was a conditional sale, to a friend. She’d actually come to me looking to buy two goats to provide enough milk for her grandchildren. Ironically, Pinty produced well over a gallon of milk every day. The one condition of the sale was that if they were ever to sell her, I had to be given the first chance to buy her back.

That call came just after my accident in 2020. Pinty and her owners had both gotten old. They could no longer milk her and she was still a heavy producer. She was in pretty rough shape due to the fact that they hadn’t been able to milk her properly. If I didn’t take her back, she would be going to the meat auction.

I was crushed since I wouldn’t be able to tend to her either. I talked to my husband and the friend that was already tending my goats for me. They both told me to bring her home.

My friend and I worked together to nurse her back to health. When this picture was taken, we were both almost a year into our healing.

One of my brothers had passed away just a month or so prior to this picture. I had once again been slapped by the realization that my family doesn’t really consider my feelings or needs, they just count on me to do whatever ugly jobs need to be done.

I hadn’t spoken to my brother in 14 years, but in the end, my mother had told the hospital to list me as his next of kin. It was up to me to make the hard end-of-life decisions for him and to make his final arrangements. I’d had his ashes sent to her, but his Celebration of Life was put on hold because of Covid restrictions.

Once restrictions were lifted I got a call informing me of when the service would be held. I was also told that it was better for everyone if I didn’t come. Some people might be made uncomfortable by my presence. Where were those people just a few months before when his doctors decided, against his wishes, not to put him on life support?

March 2022 ~

I look at these recent pictures and I see the toll that the last four years have taken. My hair is almost completely grey. Those fine lines have turned into some hardcore wrinkles and they’ve invited some friends to join the party.

I do my best every day to find something to be grateful for, and there really is plenty, but life has been heavy, too.

The world seems to have gone to hell in a handbasket, between the pandemic and now the war in Ukraine. I just thank God that I live in the sticks and don’t have to work with the public on a regular basis anymore.

I try hard not to worry, but there is a lot one could worry about and it’s sometimes challenging to throw those burdens on God sometimes.

I was talking with my granddaughter a few weeks ago. We were trying to agree on what music to listen to on a road trip. I’d wanted to listen to my sister’s thumb drive. I told J that it brought memories of dancing with my sister and made the memories made me happy.

She told me that she didn’t believe that I had ever danced! My breath caught in my throat.

It might well be time to bring back the simplest of things… music, dancing, laughter, … and joy!

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