His Dogness

At the Fat Cat gallery in Madison, Garnet and I met a woman in – I’m guessing – her 70s. Back in the spring, she was crossing the street when a pickup truck hit her.

This would seem like a bad thing. And it was. Her injuries included a cracked skull.

But it turns out that it was also a good thing. While they were scanning her to determine the extent of her injuries, they found – uh-oh – a spot on one of her kidneys.

Further testing showed that it was the sort of thing that could kill you if left to do its work. But they had found it early enough that the prognosis was more benign. They removed it by surgery, and, as far as they know, she is going to be OK. Her injuries are healing as well. The trip to the Fat Cat was her second excursion out into the world for fun since the accident.

They told her that the thing on her kidney was the sort of thing that often goes undetected until it’s too late because it doesn’t produce symptoms in its early stages. So being struck by a pickup truck may have saved her life.

“There are no accidents” is one of those sayings that you hear from time to time. And, in this instance, that would appear to be a distinct possibility. The accident served a purpose.

It would have been nice, though, if she hadn’t had to pay such a high price for the life-saving information. It’s too bad that angels in charge of delivering such messages can’t just send a card with a nice illustration and a brief message inside. “You might want to go get your kidneys checked. Signed, Gabriel.”

A lot of times, though, you not only don’t get a card, you also don’t get any discernable sign that a higher purpose is being served. The accident just seems like an accident.

Recently, I was standing on the sidewalk by the parking lot at work talking to my friend Betty. When it was time to go, I looked left. No cars there. I looked right. No cars there.

I stepped into the street. I should have looked down, too, because I failed to see a pothole. I stepped directly into it, twisted my left ankle and went sprawling. Cracked my left knee on the asphalt. It hurt. A lot.

Vying with the pain for my attention was embarassment. Aieee! I had just fallen down in public. I got to my feet as quickly as possible. A guy on a motorcycle pulled over to make sure I was OK. I’m fine, I said and hobbled across the street.

Other people I didn’t know asked after my health.

The truth didn’t make for much of a story so, after the first few times, I took to telling people that Betty had pushed me.

Hearing about the Madison woman’s accident brought my accident to mind. When I told Gwenn Lance, who owns the Fat Cat, about it, she said that she had once fallen down five times within a period of days. One thing about it, she said, she had gotten much better at falling down.

Who knows? Maybe getting better at falling had saved her from being seriously injured in one of the later falls. And maybe stepping into the pothole on that particular day kept me from stepping into it on another day when I was pressing my luck with traffic. Maybe, on that day, I would have fallen directly into the path of a oncoming car.

Betty would have really had a story then, eh?