Hit by a Hammer: Are you lucky?

On Saturday, a hammer hit me. In the face.

It fell from the top of the ladder, where I had hooked it, about three feet above my head. I was standing at the bottom of the ladder, trying to move it, and wondering why the ladder seemed so heavy. I looked up to investigate. I didn’t see the hammer coming, I felt it.

As the hammer rammed my left cheek bone, I knew exactly what it was. It grazed my lip and clattered to the ground. The whole side of my face was instantly numb, hot, and swelling. I stomped and staggered into the house and went straight to the freezer.

Within twenty seconds, I was sitting on the kitchen floor, ice packed from temple to lip, sobbing at my stupidity. Why this? I was just trying to get something done! I should have been working with someone else. I should have been doing something else. I should have had help… I should have been wearing a tool belt… I should have...I should have...

Within a few minutes, I quieted down and looked up at the circle of my kids’ concerned faces. Leif, at 17 months, angled himself into my lap, wanting to nurse, wanting comfort from the distress of seeing mom cry. I obliged. Comforting him, comforted me. Geoff sat with us.

The ice melted. The swelling slowed. A half hour passed. My lip was enlarged; cheekbone too, but I was OK. I was OK. We all ate lunch, and then Geoff and I together tackled the curled and tattered pieces of clapboard I had been trying to replace on the side of our house. Every time I approached the ladder, I would involuntarily cringe, as a shadow of fear flickered through me.

The afternoon eased, and a warm November wind washed the sky with pastel hues. As I painted the new boards blue, a realization slowly seeped its way into my sensory awareness.

I am so lucky. The thought streamed through the sensory channels chiseled open by pain and self-judgment and fear, and spilled over, spreading through all realms of life. I am so lucky.

In the wake of this thought, came others as well. I was hit in the face with a hammer. With a hammer! In the face! I didn’t lose an eye or a tooth. My skin held fast. I have a small cheek-bone bump and a lovely swath of violet under my eye, but I am OK.

I had been hit in the face with a hammer and all I could feel was this boundless, leaping joy. I felt deeply, deliriously giddy. Life was beautiful--all of it, and not just our house. The weekend just kept getting better. The joy kept multiplying, as I kept seeing and appreciating more in my life of what could have been so much worse.

It got me thinking. I felt lucky because I know: it could have been so much worse. So much of what happens in life that doesn’t go as we planned could have been so much worse.

Perhaps we are lucky, even when we don’t think we are. Perhaps we are. And what if? What if we allowed ourselves to feel lucky, whatever happens? To feel that joy and gratitude every minute—not just when hit by hammers? Through the rosy glow of such emotions, life seems so much better. So good. And it is. Our movements of gratitude make it so, for they open us up to see and sense more of what is endlessly being given. They empower us as well, to act in ways that move us along the paths of what we desire most.

I smiled wryly. Perhaps the hammer knocked some sense into me after all. Or rather, it knocked me along my path of bodily becoming into a newly strengthened pattern of sensation and response—one of appreciation for how lucky I am.

I know this gratitude. I can know this gratitude. And I will. I’ll remember. One hit is enough.