I suppose I fell an uncountable number of times in the days of my youth, but to these floppings I paid no mind. I started to take note during my first year in Ithaca, when, a creature of sidewalks and "gutters," I fell splat on my face in the slopes and snows far above Cayuga's waters at least a score of times. Lithe and springy, I did not a whit of damage to myself.
Falling became a real issue in my life only when my father, at age 74 in 1978, took a header down a flight of basement stairs at 539 East 9. From that moment, his life changed rapidly for the worse. Whether his arthritis was a consequence of the fall, as his doctors claimed (they called it "traumatic arthritis") I cannot say, but from that time until his death eight years later he was crippled with pain. His once athletic body wasted and shrunk, and his lively step devolved into a sad shuffle. For me, it was a warning and a precedent. Don't fall.
Nowadays, even though I'm older by several years than my father was when the arthritis finally took his life, and am most definitely marooned in what he liked to call "extra innings," I'm most aware that it is a fall that could do me in. I take precautions: not paranoid, I hope, but sensible. Some years ago I moved to a building with an elevator -- no more second floor bedrooms or basement washing machines for me. For our West Bradford summers, I've put up rope banisters where the ground is steep or irregular. I carry a stick when I walk on the paths or in the woods. "Three legs good, two legs bad." Even so, this past summer I fell twice. The first time, because a cemetery groundhog had dug a burrow next to a gravestone and grass had grown to conceal his hole. I'm glad the fall was a gentle one, because I would have hated to have gone down in local lore as the guy who died when he cracked his head on an old, lichen-covered tombstone. Too much irony, too much black humor.
My second fall was when a rope snapped -- so not my fault at all. The ropes that we used for a banister on a steep path leading from the dike to the waterfall garden had simply rotted out. I tumbled slowly and gracefully. We've now replaced that old rope with a new one so massive that it could secure an aircraft carrier.
Moreover, I've stopped going up on ladders -- not even kitchen step ladders. If a ceiling light bulb needs to be changed, I'll hire someone or beg a favor from a young person. I'm aware of the tragic story of a friend of a friend who lived in a house with a two-story entrance foyer. Though seventyish, he climbed a ladder to straighten a wall hanging and lost his balance. He lingered for a few days, but never regained consciousness.
Some friends of a decade or so younger than I came visiting yesterday. In the course of a lively conversation, I revealed that I shun step stools and ladders. One of the guys said, "I'm not ready to give up climbing on ladders." I said, "Why not, it's dangerous -- you can hurt yourself." He said, "I'm too young. It's a matter of self-respect." To which I responded, "Fuck self-respect."
I asked my cardiologist what was going to kill me. She said, at your age, and with your state of health, the most likely cause is either an infection or a fall. Which I take to be good news of a kind. I can be vigilant about infections and I can be very cautious about where I set my feet. Especially so if I remember my "mature" vulnerability and if I keep in mind my father's history.
Nevertheless, I'm beginning to feel that I may not be immortal.
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