Friday afternoon my wife Mary Lu, who is recovering from a serious stroke, fell.

She was sitting on the edge of her bed in the barn (our house is known as ‘the barn’). I was standing just a few feet away. She leaned forward — just a little too far — reaching for her toes. And then she went straight down. Face and shoulder first.

There is that split second when you see it happening and know you cannot stop it. Her body folded in on itself. No arm came out to break the fall. It was like watching a ragdoll tipped from a shelf. It shocked me!

The sound of shoulder on wood is a sound I won’t soon forget.

We have been so careful about this. Falling is the one thing we have tried obsessively to prevent.

The Sara-Steady (Mary Lu’s ‘stand-up’ wheels) was parked beside the bed. She hit her knee and her head against it on the way down. But it was the collarbone. When her shoulder struck the floor, something gave.

Later, holding ice against the swelling, I kept replaying the angle of impact, my own useless half-step forward.

And while I was doing that, my phone keep lighting up. Missiles. Counter-strikes. Iran. Retaliation. Escalation. Text threads flaring to life.

Friends in Israel write that they are, so far, all right — staying close to shelters, sleeping lightly, listening for sirens.........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)