For Wilshire Baptist Church
Next week I’m having some work done on my right shoulder. A bone spur has torn a tendon and it needs to be fixed. I’ll be in a sling during recovery so I’ve begun practicing for life as a lefty for the next six weeks or so.
I already know there are a few things I actually do fine with my left hand. I’m a natural righty like 90 percent of the population, but I tend to drive with my left hand on the steering wheel and my right hand on my thigh. There are some other tasks I can do as a lefty; I’m a switch hitter with a broom and a shovel, a hairbrush and fingernail clippers, a door handle and a light switch. But eating – that may be the biggest challenge; drinking too and especially hot coffee. I don’t want to end up in the emergency room because I fumbled my hot brew.
So I’ve begun eating meals with a fork or spoon in my left hand. I’ve also tried sipping from a coffee mug with my left hand, but that still feels pretty dangerous. I’m practicing grabbing and moving things around with my left hand, including the soap in the shower. And dressing myself? I’m not proficient at all yet, but I hope that by getting a head start I might get ahead of the hassle of it all.
I’ve read that only one percent of the population is truly ambidextrous. Anyone else who claims to be so has adapted – like my grandfather, who apparently was a natural lefty at a time when that was considered a handicap. They forced him to write with his right hand and he developed a beautiful signature and writing style, but he always wielded a hammer and other tools with his left hand.
It’s all about adaptability, and that comes in many forms and at many stages of life. This COVID thing has forced just about everyone on the planet to adapt to different ways of doing things. We’ve had to learn how to buy and sell, teach and learn, work and play, even do church in new ways. Some of those ways are unsustainable, unsatisfactory and counter-productive and will be cast aside as soon as possible. But others have found their place and will remain part of our normal life once COVID is behind us. In my line of work, interviewing people by Zoom has become more satisfying than faceless phone calls and more flexible than traveling. Some of our favorite non-fast-food restaurants have increased our patronage by figuring out how to let us drive up and pick up meals rather than parking and wading through the crowded dining room to the take-out counter. Telemedicine has taken off as a great alternative for non-critical check-ups and just getting answers to medical questions. But obviously, doing something like getting a shoulder repaired will always require an in-person procedure.
Still, if I get my shoulder feeling right again, and, I come out with a little more ambidextrous flexibility, that will be a two-way win. I’d like to be more handy — and more helpful — with both hands. Maybe I’ll even buy one of those T-shirts or mugs that says, “Lefties Unite.” Still, the key will be to know when I definitely should not use my less dominant hand.
One of my favorite stories about my grandfather was one morning at Sunday school when a preschool boy in my grandmother’s class got his head stuck between the back slats of a wooden chair. My grandfather went home or at least out to the car and came back with a saw. I don’t know if he sawed with his left hand or his right hand, but I suspect my grandmother or another adult helped hold the boy calm and still while he was cutting the boy free.
And that’s another lesson about adapting that I’ll need to practice and learn in the coming weeks: asking for help when I know I can’t do it alone. Let it be so with all of us.