When My Grampa Fell
We were in the shed, trying to find the box of ornaments to decorate the Christmas tree. I surveyed the back of the shed and the boxes on the shelves and deemed the ornaments missing. However, Grampa stood up from his wheelchair and stepped inside the shed. He pointed to a box on the shelf in front of him, and I said it was too heavy and not big enough to be the ornaments. With two hands, Grampa lifted the box off of the shelf, but he dropped it from his hands and the box fell to the ground. Grampa fell soon after.
He didn’t hit the ground, but his knees collapsed in a crouch-squat sort of fashion. I grabbed onto his arm to support him, and waited a moment to see if he could get up by himself. It came obvious that he couldn’t, so I tried to hoist him up by the arm I had. I was useless. I then tried to stay rigid so he could push himself up off of me. His legs gave out and this time, he sprawled to the floor.
At this point, Grampa’s back was facing me and I was backed up against the boxes in the shed. I was trapped and unable to get around him to help him up from his front. Grampa was quiet this whole time, but moving his arms around to see what he could do by himself. Just as I was about to shout for help, Pedro came quickly into the shed and pulled Grampa up by his arms. I attempted to lift him up by his lower back. “I’m up, I’m up.” in his usual gruff voice. He got back into his wheelchair and said, “Oh, I’m fine,” swatting the side of his ear like normal.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt so helpless for being small. I couldn’t compensate being little with a big personality, or I couldn’t rely on a taller teammate to do some damage on the field when I couldn’t reach. No matter how strong I could get with weight lifting and training, I still wouldn’t be able to provide the leverage to help my grampa up. I could only call for help and get somebody more qualified than I. Thanks a lot to Pedro, but I still feel bad.
