The Other Side of Good

 It was September.

Back to school was in full swing and the bookstore was swarming with students and professors, all chattering and positioning for the next space at the counter, all in an anxious, academic hurry to buy their books and make their escape.  There were dorm rooms to claim, classes to be registered for, roommates to meet and appraise.  I was doing my best to oversee and contain all this marginally well organized chaos when I felt the pain.  It was sudden and shocking, extending like a stocking seam from the back of my thigh all the way to my lower calf and in an instant, I found myself on the cold, dirty, cement floor, in tears and having trouble breathing.

Lynn, my assistant manager, was at my side in moments.  "What is it?" she demanded urgently.

"Some kind of charley horse," I panted back, thinking that the wrenching agony would surely pass, "Give me a minute."

"Can you stand up?" she asked, and as it turned out, I couldn't.  It seemed as if the muscles in my leg had turned themselves inside out, gathered together and reversed in a clawlike spasm. Lynn signaled to two of the young student workers and as they lifted and carried me to the office -  just before the pain began to subside slightly -   an image of being drawn and quartered flashed through my mind.  The next morning, as the two volunteer firemen tramped up our narrow stairway and strapped me to a backboard for the ambulance ride and the demerol daze that was to follow, this would strike me as comical.

"It's sciatica," the young and harried emergency room doctor diagnosed confidently, "And you've neglected it, haven't you."  There was no question here, I realized, just a flat statement of fact.  "Bed rest, heat, and something for pain.  It's likely to be worse before it's better.  Do you know a reputable chiropractor?"

And so began the road to recovery.

The chiropractor - a sandy haired, chubby little man named Rosen - had blue eyes that radiated kindness.  I liked him immediately, even when he sat me on the cold, metal examining table, grasped my heel and started to lift it. I grabbed the edge of the table with both hands, pure reflex in anticipation of pain, and he smiled broadly.

"Good for you!" he said with an approving nod, "That settles the question of your malingering!"  He gave me an encouraging pat on my knee.  "Now, let's talk about The Plan To Make You Better.  What do you do for a living and how long can they do without you?"

I started to explain about back to school, about how I managed a college bookstore and was essential to its operation, how I was needed and relied upon, how this was the height of our season.  He listened calmly and impassively, now and again making a note on his clipboard and tsk tsking.

"Yes, I see, I certainly do see," he said finally, as if I'd never spoken, "Most impressive.  But my dear child, this is going to take some time.  I imagine three to four months should do it.  Your bookstore must learn to do without you."

"You don't understand....." I protested, "I can't possibly.....three to four months?"

It began with two visits each day for a week - heat therapy, electrical muscle stimulation, spinal adjustments.

Since I couldn't walk, my husband picked me up in a fireman's carry and delivered me each time.  The second and third week it was one visit a day and by the fourth week, it was every other day, mostly under my own steam.  Terrified and convinced I'd lose my job, I'd made the telephone call to my district manager, filled out the disability paperwork and lay back to wait for the inevitable.  I read, I slept, I watched old movies and I panicked at the thought of being unemployed.  The pain came and went, a constant reminder to worry.  Some days I could almost get comfortable, others the ache stayed for hours and reduced me to tears and grimly realistic nightmares.  In October, Dr. Rosen produced a shiny, curve handled cane with instructions to begin a walking regimen.  

"Around the block," he advised, "Once a day, no more.  Slowly and at your own pace."

November came and the weather turned overnight.  Our little corner lot was littered with red and orange leaves and the skies seemed to be perpetually gray with woodsmoke.  I was now walking twice a day, alone or with one of the dogs who had been my constant companions since that miserable September day.  The disability checks came with depressing regularity and every couple of weeks there was a call from the corporate office, upbeat and encouraging and reassuring - I was missed, I was wanted back, I was not to worry, everything was going to be just fine.  My manager job was now in the hands of someone else but I wasn't going to be abandoned, not by a long shot.  I was to continue getting well and not concern myself with the trivial details of where I might end up.

"Try driving, " Dr. Rosen suggested one day, "Just a short trip to get the feel of it back."

In December, with the first real snow on the ground, an early Christmas gift - I was released, cleared to go back to work, mended and pronounced healed.  The last corporate call came and a meeting was arranged to discuss my future.  My district manager, perky and handsome in a flashy New York kind of way, met me at his office in Boston, a modern and somewhat elegant suite overlooking the harbor.

"There are no manager openings at the present time," he began and my heart took a misstep. "So we've created a job, something we've thought about for a long time.  A liaison position between us and the local stores.   Salary increase, of course, and a mileage allowance plus expenses.  You'll be a floater."  I was so startled I said the first thing that came into my mind.

"A floater?  Like they find in the East River?"

He smoothed his tie and smiled.  "Exactly!  Except that you'll be very much alive and reporting directly to me.  Maybe we can think up a slightly less colorful title though."  He leaned forward, refilled my coffee cup and offered me a sugar covered doughnut from a white china plate.  "Your first assignment is Salem State and it starts on Monday.  What do you think?"

I floated for the next three years, traveling around New England from Maine to Rhode Island - small schools,

big schools, and everything in between.  It was carefree and diverse and best of all, I thought, like minding someone else's kids - you always got to give them back at the end of the day.  In time, an assistant manager position opened at an university and it was offered to me.  Ready to settle down once again and start the next chapter, I accepted and fell in love immediately with Maine, its people, its scenery, its ocean.  But for a nasty bout of sciatica, I realized, none of it would've happened. 

Until then I'd always thought that the other side of good was bad, that I was what I did, that life was work and work was it's own reward.  What I learned is that the other side of good is better, that more often than not, good things come out of long, lonely times and that with patience and trust, bitter can be turned to sweet.