LEFTY IS GROWING UP

Lefty is growing up.  Fifty-three years after making her grand entrance she is finally getting the chance to show what she might have done if only she had been made to feel important.  “I can be more than just a fancy rack for watch and wedding ring,” she says as she struggles to get painkillers out of the bottle.  “I never was allowed to do these things,” she whimpers as the bottle teeters dangerously toward the counter’s edge.  “Now you expect me to be perfect on the first try.”

 

I should be more understanding, less demanding.  It is uncharitable to scold her like a naughty child.  But I am grumpy.   Righty has been imprisoned indefinitely for her own protection.  Howling in pain she swells her fingers and never lets us alone for a moment.  It frazzles the nerves. 

 

What I am developing now, as I summon patience from a pitifully inadequate reservoir, is an immense sense of appreciation for all the people who live happy lives using only one arm.  How do they open cans when the power goes off?  How do they zip zippers, tie shoes, butter toast, open doors while carrying things, change diapers? 

 

The most generous thing that can be said of Lefty is that she means well.  Life has prepared her poorly for her current responsibilities.  Asking her to capture a pea on a fork is like drafting a Sunday afternoon skater to play centre for the Oilers in the seventh game of the Stanley cup finals.  Put a toothbrush in her hand and she fumbles among the gums, clubbing bicuspids and molars in her path.  The very idea of carrying a full coffee pot sets her to trembling.  Still, she tries to be there for me.  When I want to write she creeps and gropes among the I’s, o’s and j’s where Righty ought to be pressing computer keys.  In the long afternoons of my discontent she does her best to comfort, playing pitiful piano solos, holding ice packs, petting the dog. 

 

Does she know, even as she tries with all her might that she will never be my favourite?  The sad truth must be plain as day.  The moment Righty is finally released, she will dominate once more.  Lefty’s contributions will be forgotten.  Like the women who ran the country’s factories when their men went off to war, she will be reassigned to lesser duties. 

 

In the meantime she is showing off a bit.  “I can do more than you ever imagined,” she boasts.  The last word on the subject is hers to say.  She has earned the right to say it.