It was an unusual sight. Eight or ten bodies in motion, bouncing, bouncing, bouncing, and my daughter’s body static. It is not a sight I’m used to. It is not a situation she is used to. But, alas, this is what happens when you break your arm.

You don’t get to play on the trampoline with the other kids. Or do the sack race on field day. Or go to the water park with a friend. You have to sit on the sidelines and watch. And when you are not a sideline kind of kid, this is a bit of a stretch.

Three times a week for the last several weeks, we have driven, all three of us, across town to sit in a freezing waiting from for an hour while my daughter has physical therapy to straighten out her broken arm. This, too, is a stretch, given I had just cleared my calendar to make life more laid back.

But the real stretching comes at the hands of Todd, her therapist, who sits for thirty minutes at a time simply pulling on her arm. For a child who is not comfortable with discomfort, this is indeed a stretch. She sits, quietly (unlike at home, where I must do it for a measly five minutes, three times a day, while she whines and moans and complains) as he patiently yet firmly works to undo the damage done by four weeks of immobility.

Immobility. I know a thing or two about not moving. About things locking up, tissue wrapping around tissue, weaving tightly to the point of preventing freedom of movement. Stretching, apparently, is the key to freedom.

Like my daughter, I grouse and gripe at the simplest amount of pressure applied to a tender tendon. Like my daughter, I do not like to let someone else pull on my arm. But the type of stretching necessary to take my daughter’s arm from a 90° angle to -5° is apparently something she can’t do on her own.

And, apparently, I’m supposed to learn something from that.

family life motherhood overload raising girls reflection spiritual growth