The Power of Walking - Part Two

Continued from May 4 post –

The Power of Walking

          The power of walking manifested in my experience isn’t, however, an exemplary epitome. The inspirational model is that of a man I observed walking ten years before my attempt in 2007. I looked out the window from my home one day to see a man I didn’t know walk past on the street. Well, he wasn’t exactly walking. He looked like a broken grasshopper with one of its legs straight out, dragging itself across a field by thrashing the air with its arms and pushing with the other operable jumping leg. The man had suffered a stroke and was trying to recover to what extent he might with exercise. His right leg was strong enough to carry all his weight. His left leg was weaker, extended straight and slightly behind him, and could support some of his body weight for only a moment while he took a forward step with his good leg as his left leg came forward to balance the body. That awkward sentence fails to describe the man’s awkward gait. One of his arms hung limp and the other was slightly contracted. He was slow and cautious. I watched this man in wonder as he dragged himself down the street and around the corner to wherever he lived.

          I saw that man the next day at the same hour. And the day afterward. I don’t know whether or not he walked every day because I wasn’t home to look for him every day. But he walked by the house on days in the following month. And the month following that one. His determination had been proven, and his gait had improved. With each passing month, the man who had at first resembled an injured grasshopper dragging his body began to look like a man walking. I wish I had possessed enough sense to talk to him, to learn more about him. But, probably knowing him would not have added anything to what his experience and example taught me. For one year, he regularly walked around our neighborhood past my house. And at the end of a year, he was walking briskly, swinging both arms, positioned straight and upright, and bearing his weight evenly on both legs. There was no trace of the infirmity he had a year earlier. He was healed.

            – to be continued in the next post