Sunshine Alley and the Princess Chair

A view from the top

When I learned I was facing six weeks no weight bearing (post ankle reconstruction), I wondered how I'd get in and out of my home. Once inside, everything I need is on one floor. But getting there requires a nine stair climb to the front or back door - or a sixteen stair haul from the basement.

A friend of a friend was selling a stair chair. Legal issues postponed the sale. But when I thought it was on its way a few weeks before Christmas, I forgot about presents and decorations and bought paint. Riding up and down a tired, dirty basement stairwell had little appeal.

I planned to go conservative: brown steps; beige walls. But when I perused color choices at Home Depot one evening in mid-December, I spotted Bay Side and Moon Dance. Within an hour, I squatted on the steps, brush in hand, and transformed the tired stairs.

The teal color didn't panic me until I noticed Killer the Cat (named by my spouse) half way down the stairs.

"No, Killer, no!" Wide eyed, she froze.

"Stay, Killer. Don't move." As if she would respond to dog type commands.

The gray feline bolted up the stairs while I envisioned Bay Side cat prints all over my kitchen and living room floor. When panic gave way to action, I hopped every other step to the kitchen - on dry paint. No prints. No mess. Deep sigh.

Two sweet girls, Makayla and Olivia, painted the walls with me a few days later and Sunshine Alley was ready for the Princess Chair. The chair didn't arrive until last week. But my husband worked every night until it was installed, so I can now exit with ease.



Don and Killer resting after installing the device last week.

Truth: Every time another handicap device enters my world, I battle mixed emotions. Gratefulness overrides the sadness but I go through odd mental gyrations as the reality of the need continues. I want to be strong; to be able to climb stairs without assistance. But for now, I'll embrace my new ride, thankful for my husband who agreed to the purchase and installed the heavy device without gouging our kitchen floor.

A friend, Rosemary, brought me the book One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp. On page 53 she wrote, "I name gifts and go back to the Garden and God in the beginning who first speaks a name and lets what is come into existence. This naming is how the first emptiness of space fills the naming of light and land and sky. The first man's first task is to name. Adam completes creation with his Maker through the act of naming creatures, releasing the land from chaos, from the teeming, indefinable mass. I am seeing it too, in the journal, in the face of the Farmer: naming offers the gift of recognition. When I name moments - string out laundry and name-pray, thank you, Lord, for bedsheets in billowing winds, for fluff of sparrow landing on line, sun winter warm, and one last leaf still hanging in the orchard - I am Adam and I discover my meaning and God's, and to name is to learn the language of Paradise."

So ride I will, up - and down - Sunshine Alley on my Princess Chair. Their names, a declaration of good and gratitude, hopefully, even a leaning towards the language of Paradise.