Duck and The Hunchback
It was afternoon when I took my trike and headed over to the newly found bike shop. I found the shop accidentally, a couple weeks earlier, while looking for a newly opened bakery. I was hoping the bike shop’s services would prove to be as good as the bakery’s caramel pecan rolls.
I had, for some time, been wanting to find a new bike shop - ideally within walking distance of my home. I didn’t know if this new-found bike shop met the distance criteria as I didn’t know how far I could actually walk. The walks I took generally took place within a few blocks of my home. To go a longer distance, I would ride my trike or catch a ride.
What complicates my walking distance is Parkinson’s. As the disease progresses, one gradually loses one’s ability to move one’s feet, to walk. One’s legs “freeze”. One’s walk becomes a shuffle. While the meds, when they are working, can work wonders, when they are not, life can grind to a halt. When they will work and when they won’t is not always predictable.
I concluded the best way to find out if the bike shop was within walking distance of my home was to walk the distance. I decided to test my abilities, to find out if one with advanced Parkinson’s can walk home unassisted from a bike shop.
Today was test day. After riding my trike to the bike shop and going over a list of things to fix, tighten, check, replace, etc., with the shop, I headed out to take on the day’s great adventure.
It did not start well. Before I reached the street at the end of the bike shop‘s drive, I was already hurting. My body was stiff and it ached when I moved. My back hurt. I was walking about half speed taking half steps, and my balance was off enough to make one wonder what I had for lunch.
I stopped to rethink what I was doing. The meds had not fully kicked in. There was no way to know if they would. The sixteen city blocks back to the apartment might as well be sixteen miles if the meds are not working. It’s hard enough crossing a room when this happens. Shuffling sixteen city blocks would be both exhausting and painful. I doubted I could do it.
While the questions were many and the excuses plenty, I wasn’t in a give-it-up mood. I decided to follow the voice saying, “Go for it.” I turned and headed down the sidewalk that led to home.
There are blessings to walking painfully slow – there’s time to smell the roses without having to actually stop.
There’s time to take things in, to be enraptured by the inescapable joy of black-eyed-susans basking in the sunlight. There’s time to appreciate the way the old hydrangea bushes have been pruned to accentuate the beauty of their form. There’s time to compare the architecture styles of the century old homes and the meticulous and masterful detailing of the churches.
It’s a chance to wonder. To wonder why the painter was setting up his two ladders on two different houses. Did he know?
I had now walked a few blocks and, while I was moving better than at the beginning, I needed a break. I began to look for a place to sit down. I came to a church with very comfy looking stone steps. I took a seat next to railings - just in case I needed help getting up (experience).
The church was across from a park where the light from the evening sun filtered through the majestic oaks leaving the scene saturated in golden hues. It was rich.
I listened for the sounds. I could hear the “ponk” of a tennis paddle hitting a tennis ball. I tried to listen as two friends across the way shared stories. I heard joy in the laughter.
While I could have sat there for hours, it was time to go if I was to make it home before the light called it a day.
Getting up and moving again was not easy. Sitting had given my muscles opportunity to further stiffen. Moving hurt. I looked down at my feet as I tried to get my legs to move them. They seemed disconnected. Slowly one of my legs moved a foot forward. The distance moved could be measured in inches. It may have not seemed a great accomplishment compared to most leg-foot accomplishments, but compared to not moving at all, it was great. I continued to look at my legs as they continued to move my feet forward one step at a time. They began as shuffle steps. They were gradually lengthening to half steps.
I marveled. Legs are amazing. They allow one to walk. Walking allows one to move to a new place. They are freedom.
I thanked God for legs - for the legs He gave me.
Less than a block later, the unexplainable began to unfold. Coming down the street that intersected with mine was a man - the top part. I could not see a bottom part. He did not appear to have legs …yet he “walked”.
We were both heading for the intersection of our streets about the same speed. As we got closer, I saw he had legs, but he wasn’t using them. His legs connected his body with his feet but appeared mostly useless. They did not move. They just lay there, folded at the knees, somehow held off the sidewalk. His butt barely cleared the ground. To “walk” he turned his lower body side to side which had the needed result of placing one foot in front of the other. The best I can explain it is his walking was more like a duck’s waddling. It was both weird and wondrous. I’ve never seen anyone walk like such.
As we both neared the intersection of our streets, I slowed my pace to let him cross before me. Instead of crossing, he turned and headed down my sidewalk the same direction I was walking. We were both now “walking” the same sidewalk the same speed - I a couple paces behind him.
I had to smile as I thought of what our little freak parade had to look like to others. Duck, not having legs to stand on, was about half my height and walked with a waddle. I, bent over in the Parkinson’s hunchback posture, shuffled more than I walked. Our pace was about half that of normal. We were a parade of two – a duck and a hunchback.
There’s nothing like following a man walking without his legs, waddling like a duck, to take your mind off yourself.
My shuffle step took a lot of work. I could not imagine the work involved in walking as Duck waddled. I decided to ask if he needed help …even though I didn’t have a clue how a hunchback who could only shuffle step was going to help a legless duck waddle.
I picked up my pace and got beside him. I asked the question biggest on my mind, “Why do you walk that way?”
He seemed a bit surprised. Looking up at me he said, with a thick Spanish accent, “No English.”
He was clearly not a street person. His clothes were neat and clean. His hair was cut. He was well groomed.
After several attempts to communicate and not finding any English he understood, and I no Spanish, I smiled a good-bye and continued down our sidewalk. He also continued, a few paces behind. I kept glancing back to see how he was doing. He was struggling.
Then I saw it. I was probably too focused on his legs to notice his back – specifically the backpack that kept falling off. Because of how he had to throw his body from side to side with each step, it was hard for him to keep the backpack on his back.
I sat down on a rock (my legs and back thanked me) and waited for him to catch up. When he had, in theatrical form, I offered to carry his backpack.
He replied with an amazing smile and, surprisingly, without hesitation, handed over to me - a complete stranger, his backpack. It was not light.
As I now did not know where I was going, I let him lead. Relieved of the backpack, he seemed to have renewed energy. He walked a zig-zag route down the sidewalk. He kept getting distracted by things he had to see. We stopped on a bridge and watched a train roll under us. He was enjoying his unburdened walk. He seemed unexplainably happy.
As we came up on the street I needed to turn on if I was to head home, we had another theatrical discussion. Duck needed to continue down the street we were on. I told him I could continue with him, carrying his backpack. He approved the plan and took off down our street that was now downhill (“taking off” is a relative speed term).
We came to the city’s street and sidewalk reconstruction project. I wondered how Duck could get through this torn up mess. I looked for a way. Before I could find one, Duck waddled out into the intersection seemingly unaware of the traffic and the danger it posed (like a typical duck).
I sprang into action. I caught up and positioned myself between him and the traffic, waving down the traffic to let us cross (a hunchback running cover for a duck).
We were now jogging in and out and around construction cones, piping, electric lines, piles of jack hammered concrete, barricades, and construction equipment. Jaws dropped as drivers came upon the duck and the hunchback waddling and waving through the torn-up streets.
We soon came to an alley where Duck stopped and started making multiple gestures. I concluded we must be close to the place he was struggling to get to. He ran his fingers through his hair and did some prepping. He was obviously meeting someone he wanted to impress – legs or no legs.
He was now visibly anxious to get to where he was going. I handed him his backpack. With his best English and brightest smile he looked up and said, “Thank you.” And with that, he turned and headed up the alley.
I headed up the street.
As I walked, I thought. My mind was racing. My heart overflowing. How insanely rich and beautiful this adventure walk had been. And how impossible.
What were the chances such would happen? What were the odds Duck and I would both get to the intersection of our streets, our lives, at the same time, that our paths would cross, be joined, with such impeccable timing?
How could it happen that just after I thank God for legs to walk, I come to walk with one walking with no legs?
I thought on how what I gave Duck was what I had least of to give. Those who have been around me when I’m struggling to move my feet, to walk, know one of the first things I do is hand off anything I’m trying to carry. With Duck, instead of handing off, I took on. I had born another’s burdens, not in my strength, but in my weakness.
It wasn’t me.
Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”?
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth
He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.
Is 40 v27-31