Eileen and I go back a long way, around 14 years. We have been through a lot together. Eileen, it must be said, is not human. She is made of wood. The truth of the matter is that she is a cane, a walking stick, She is not just a cane, though. She is my cane. I lean on her. Hence the awful pun for her name.
The other week something happened that made me realize how dear she is to me. I had been food shopping. I finished loading the groceries from the cart, put the cart aside, and drove home. As I got out of the car, I discovered Eileen was missing. A moment of panic! Not only would it be physically difficult for me to walk, or rather hobble, from the car back to the apartment, but I felt that a part of me was missing. I felt grief within myself.
I immediately drove back to the store, limped in, and there, at customer service, was Eileen. Somebody had rescued her.
Many years ago I started having a few issues with my right hip at the same time as I was about to start work as a hospital chaplain. I knew at that point I was going to need a cane. I purchased Eileen online from a company called Fashionable Canes. Great company! I still go to their site when I need replacement rubber tips.
Eileen and I were to traverse many hospital corridors together. Once I took a pedometer to work. One night shift I walked about five miles with my trusty cane. She came in handy in other ways as well. I became quite skilled at pressing elevator buttons from a yard away. And having a cane gave me something to lean on while sitting at many a bedside.
Eileen’s most dramatic role, though, involved an episode not at the hospital but at home, in the kitchen. One evening, I was shocked to see a snake on the floor. It was perhaps a little over two feet long, quite thin, and totally black. I did not know how it got into the kitchen. Neither did I have any idea whether it was venomous. Maybe I could move it out of the way with my cane? I poked it. Never would I have guessed how fast that snake could move.
The next few minutes were a frantic struggle to do the snake in with my cane. I did not know whether it was poisonous, and it was in my kitchen. Eventually Eileen’s tip hit the head of the serpent, and the snake stopped moving. I used the cane to push the body of the snake across the floor and out the glass doors onto the patio. By the next morning, the body was gone. Eaten by critters, I presume. I didn’t feel good about what had happened, but I had done what I felt I had to do. I was glad I had a cane, but was sad I had to use it the way I did.
Now, many years after that incident, I still use Eileen, and do so every day. She is only an object, but an object for which I am so very grateful.