They spent six weeks with us. It was the longest we'd been in the same household since before I left for college. I'd resisted having my parents come to take care of us but could find no alternative. There we were, Jerry and me, with three of our four limbs in casts. Jerry had two broken ankles, a broken hip and sprained wrists. I had one crushed foot and a left arm with multiple breaks, the bones being held together with something that looked like plumbing or mechanical tools. It was called the Hoffman Frame. I couldn't see the pins holding my foot together -except on x-rays. They were hidden beneath the non-walking cast.  

But there we were, dependent on my parents to help us dress in the morning, cook for us, clean the weeping around my metal pins that held my arm together and keep us from obsessing about the plane accident that had landed us there. My dad watered trees we'd planted and got us hobbled out of the house on a hill to their van for the 52 mile run for a doctor's visit. They looked after the dogs who were thoroughly discombobulated with extra people around and neither Jerry nor me sleeping in our usual beds. (We were afraid if one of us rolled over with all the plaster and metal that my arm might take out his eye and his casted ankles might break the one good leg between us that was whole.)  

It was the oddest feeling having my mom tuck Jerry and me into bed when we decided to try sleeping together again. Pillows under legs, something to hold the sheet off of my arm, selecting just the right blanket weight. She'd settle us in, place Jerry's walker where he could reach it in the night and my adapted crutches so if we had to get up we could...with help. Neither of us could even get out of bed without assistance.

I think of my mom especially now in this month of Mother's Day and miss her, grateful that I had those six weeks that changed our relationship from one of fractured interactions to compassionate connection. Her being a nurse helped, I'm sure, as she knew what to do with me as a patient. But our time together went beyond that and like a spring snowmelt, filled hollow places that had never before had the nurture. In later years, after my Dad died, I was grateful again that we had those days on the homestead as reminders of the give and take required in loving another especially in grieving.

The daily living continued, of course. There were bills to pay and doing so in front of my parents felt exposed. After I was strong enough to go back to work, I drove their van because it was an automatic and I still had one leg in a cast but now it was a walking cast. And I still had that robotic-looking Hoffman Frame on one arm. I know they worried about me driving two hours to work on the reservation but that was our income then...we hadn't yet had a harvest of watermelons and the cattle and grapes and little rows of words in books lived in the future.

The day came for all the pins and plaster to be removed! We'd been held hostage for nearly two months (my dad said they were hostages as much as we were) and we decided to give them an evening without us and for us to drive the van into Portland, get a motel, go out for dinner and dancing. This was not the wisest thinking. So that I wouldn't be groggy, I asked to have the pins removed without anesthetic. This, too, was not the wisest decision. The pins in my foot remained and would be surgically removed later but the seven in my arm had to be unscrewed out of the bone. An anesthesiologist stood by. After the first one I thought I'd faint! After the second I really questioned my sanity. After the third tortuous removal I said to the surgeon, "Does your mother know what you do for a living?"  

The last four pins are memorable only in that when I asked for anesthetic the surgeon said it was really too late and the worst was over. Easy for him to say.

The arm still had to have a cast but we could now walk without the leg plasters. Funny thing, though, we had to relearn walking and found we still needed the walker and the crutches and would for another week or more.

My mom and dad stood next to our car as they watched us get into their van. They waved and I felt a little like when I got on the bus and my mom waited for Tom Cook, the bus driver, to pull out and take me away. Trepidation? Forlorn? She showed that same expression.

Once we arrived in Portland, it took us more than an hour to get from my parent's van to the motel room and then only because some kind person held the elevator door for us. By the time we reached the room we were exhausted. We still wanted dinner and thought we'd dress up to do that. A one-arm-panty-hose-puller-upper is not for the faint hearted. Jerry tried to help but it's a one woman job. Jerry described it as watching a beetle try to turn over. I soon forgot about the panty hose and dancing and we went to the caf� in the hotel. It was the easiest way to manage our contraptions. I could only hope my mother and dad had a less eventful evening. But what good people they were to change their lives and stay with us. And how grateful I am now that they taught me the importance of accepting help and learning how to pass it on.