Nobody saw it coming. The March 1, 2007 edition of the Lexington, Missouri Express reported that a 10-foot sinkhole opened on a local street. I doubt anyone even noticed that section of asphalt before it was done in by a steady trickle from a leaking water main. One day an unblemished thoroughfare—the next a gaping black hole.
On the last night of the last storm of that same winter, I took one last step toward my parked car. When I fell on the ice and broke my wrist, splat—a sinkhole opened in my life.
Unfamiliar terrain loomed ahead. Orange cones blocked the route through my usual habits. With the use of only one arm, I stumbled through my mornings like a 9-month-old learning how to walk.
Left-handed tooth brushing by formerly right-handed people ought to be outlawed. I don’t know how I smeared so much foam across my face and down my stomach. After all, very little toothpaste wound up on the brush, when I laid the tube on the sink and squeezed it with an elbow.
Dress myself each day? I thought I could do that with one arm tied behind my back. A splint from fingertips to shoulder proved me wrong. It left me tangled in my delicates, like the deer whose antlers trapped him in the neighbor’s back fence.
By noon I usually made it down to breakfast. The peaceful Quaker glared at me when I opened the kitchen cabinet. I wrestled him to the floor with a one-armed headlock, to get at my favorite cereal.
One icy misstep destroyed my pristine roadbed. I worried that activities I took for granted might wash away forever. Driving. Typing. Shaking hands. How much gravel would it take to fill this pit?
The physical therapist looked at my immobile wrist and frowned. Her eyes narrowed. She muttered “mmmm” in that way that doctors have that only means trouble. I tried to make her laugh, because I suspected I’d heal faster if she liked me. But I heard the faint gurgle of a broken water line, its steady drip working at the earth beneath my feet.
Even as I fret about regaining the full use of my hand, I know this sinkhole is relatively small. The headlines shout of deeper, darker craters. Tornado destroys Alabama high school. Iraq vets come home with brain injury. University’s chartered bus plunges off highway overpass.
Sweet lives travel through their daily routines. All the while unseen forces are at work eroding them. Then one day a big black hole swallows up a friend, a loved one, or a promising baseball career. Nobody sees it coming.
The next time I think the waitress didn’t smile warmly enough to earn my 20% tip, I hope I’ll remember to send kind thoughts in her direction. Maybe a ten-foot sinkhole just opened up in her life.
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