Slipping, Falling, and Finding Love in the Pain

 

As I slipped, I knew exactly what lay ahead for the next three months. But what I didn’t anticipate were the endless questions coming at me from all directions. Honestly, if I had known I was going to slip, I wouldn’t have been foolish enough not to prevent it! But would anyone listen?

— How did you fall? 

— I slipped on a wet staircase. (As you can see, I was trying to keep the questions to a minimum and allow myself more time to enjoy my pain.) 

— No! We mean, are you sure you slipped and didn’t fall because you blacked out? 

— (Damn! You’re wasting my time, guys.) I am absolutely certain this wasn’t caused by a blackout. I wasn’t drunk either. Now, please do something because I know I have a case of broken vertebrae—not just one, but multiple. 

— How do you know that? — (I was about to cry out in frustration.) Because this is the third time! And I know how it feels much better than you do! 

— How many stairs? 

— It didn’t give me time to count! Next time, I’ll try to fall in slow motion so I can get you an exact number!

As I lay in the emergency room, telling myself that this too would pass, the pain refused to let me forget.

For those uninitiated, I recently slipped on a rain-soaked staircase and fractured four vertebrae. It’s a record—apparently, breaking vertebrae more than once is a rarity. I’m writing this blog post because, despite my friends and family claiming my accident should be newsworthy, not a single news channel covered my story. Yet they show a cat getting run over as breaking news! Blame my luck.

I hadn’t actually planned to write about this. I had a different topic in mind. But life rarely follows our plans—just like my unexpected fall.

But, boy oh boy! Did I enjoy the attention? Maybe it’s age that makes you more aware of things beyond yourself. Like love.

Love is a strange thing. It’s felt the most when you’re confined or unwell. It works both ways—when you see someone you love in pain, your heart aches, and you instinctively reach out, wanting to share their suffering. And for the one lying helpless in bed, a simple touch becomes a renewal of life, a reassurance of existence. Love is a connection that, at times, mimics an umbilical cord. It transcends everything—it’s maternal, romantic, and the deepest bond we experience. And it is entirely gender-neutral. Love is the most precious gift we are blessed with.

That was a serious paragraph. But how true it is. Lying in the emergency room, all I longed for was a caring, loving touch. Isn’t it strange how your body’s very cells transmit your emotions? Even in the hands of professional caregivers, I could sense the empathy in some of them. It was a wonderful feeling—to be cared for, even in the absence of familiar, loving touches.

But when I first sat down to write, I had a completely different story in mind. Perhaps I wanted to talk about my interaction with DALL·E and how it reacted before generating the image you now see as the cover. But then, should I? I hear DALL·E is omnipresent on the internet. And who knows? Maybe it wouldn’t take kindly to my criticism and retaliate—just like the hospital stretcher-puller who was annoyed because he had a couple of dead bodies to transport after me. He didn’t care how he handled me. No, he didn’t have the touch of death. But he certainly lacked the touch of care!