WhatFinger


Why You Have Never Really Had a Bad Day

Hooks and Pincers



There are times in your life when you feel depressed and sorry for yourself. Then God sends you a special person to remind you that, really, you have never had a bad day at all.

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I open doors for people—the elderly, the infirm or anyone else who might be approaching the door at the same time. Call me old fashioned, but this is how I was raised. Most people appreciate it; some clearly do not need my help at all. It was that way with the lady in the wheelchair. I followed her down the street slowly. I took my time and did not walk at my normal pace. I pretended to look in a store window. I sensed she was heading for the old hotel—the one they converted into low-income housing for the disabled. I intended to open the door for her. Looking back, I was a bit naïve I guess. She must have entered and exited this place a hundred times before—without any help from me. Soon I would learn how very little she needed my help and how pathetic my gesture really was. She was the sort of person who caught your eye. I had seen persons who were confined to wheelchairs of course. Yet she was different. It was bad enough that she was confined to a chair, but she also visibly listed to one side—owing to a deformed spine. I felt sorry for her—not that she needed my sympathy. Being confined to a chair and visibly contorted was bad enough. But there was something more—something that shook me down to my toes. This poor woman had no hands or feet…at least not in the conventional sense. The fingers on each hand had been fused together, in the womb, and were merged into a single hook. She had no right hand or left hand. She had a hook on each arm. The toes of each foot had likewise merged into something akin to a pincer—like the crawdads I caught when I was a kid. I say with the deepest respect and because I do not want to dishonor her by minimizing her disability—she had hooks and pincers. That is all. The sight of this should be enough to cause any healthy person to drop to his or her knees and thank God that they were born with working hands and feet. Or parents to give thanks that their baby had all ten toes and fingers when the doctor delivered it. Decades ago, someone had taken Thalidomide while she was pregnant and the lady in the chair lived with the consequences the rest of her life--with hooks and pincers, confined to a chair. I could not begin to grasp the unfairness of the situation. I felt guilty and abysmally sad. Yet, life is full of surprises, and each time I stereotype another person I have—without fail—been wrong. As I offered to open the door, she told me politely that she could make it. I hit the big gray button on the outside of the door anyway and she wheeled into the lobby. I followed her in, just in case I could “help” her further. She approached the elevator. I did not see any buttons on the elevator and felt stupid searching for buttons that were not there. “It’s okay,” she said impatiently, “I’ll get it.” I backed out of her way and watched as she lifted a tiny elevator key ring dangling from the arm of the wheelchair. She dropped it onto the floor. I thought it was an accident. I thought about picking it up for her, but something told me to back off. Then, as deftly as a Chinese diner picks up a single grain of rice with chopsticks, the woman in the wheelchair leaned back, thrust her right pincer foot forward, picked up the tiny key and lifted it four feet into the air. Then, like a tailor threading a small needle, she effortlessly inserted the key into a small slot, turned it to the right, called the elevator and patiently waited for its arrival. Next, she removed the key with her pincer foot, tossed it backwards onto her lap, snared it with her right hook and returned it to the arm of her chair. I watched in embarrassed silence as she disappeared behind the doors of the elevator. Only then did I realize how pathetic and ineffectual I must have appeared to her, and how little she needed my help. I probably should not have even been there; she did not invite me. But I was glad—glad that I saw it all. I was meant to see it. She taught me a valuable lesson that I will never forget. I honor her memory and thank her for that. Because of the woman with the hooks and pincers, God bless her, I have decided I am no longer entitled to feel sorry for myself. I have gone through my whole life with basic good health, all my fingers and toes, the ability to do hard physical work and enjoy life. I am not entitled, really, to ever have a bad day. I have no worries. And the next time someone like me gripes about an ache or pain, or complains about utterly trivial matters, I will sympathize with them—but only to a degree. I will tell that that my back used to hurt, and my hands and feet used to ache too. And then I will tell them about the lady with the hooks and pincers.


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William Kevin Stoos -- Bio and Archives

Copyright © 2020 William Kevin Stoos
William Kevin Stoos (aka Hugh Betcha) is a writer, book reviewer, and attorney, whose feature and cover articles have appeared in the Liguorian, Carmelite Digest, Catholic Digest, Catholic Medical Association Ethics Journal, Nature Conservancy Magazine, Liberty Magazine, Social Justice Review, Wall Street Journal Online and other secular and religious publications.  He is a regular contributing author for The Bread of Life Magazine in Canada. His review of Shadow World, by COL. Robert Chandler, propelled that book to best seller status. His book, The Woodcarver (]And Other Stories of Faith and Inspiration) © 2009, William Kevin Stoos (Strategic Publishing Company)—a collection of feature and cover stories on matters of faith—was released in July of 2009. It can be purchased though many internet booksellers including Amazon, Tower, Barnes and Noble and others. Royalties from his writings go to support the Carmelites. He resides in Wynstone, South Dakota.


“His newest book, The Wind and the Spirit (Stories of Faith and Inspiration)” was released in 2011 with all the author’s royalties go to support the Carmelite sisters.”


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