I know just when this happened as I was on my way to Brain Games – about 1.45 on the fourth Tuesday of September. I was only a few minutes from home, part way down the path leading to Jaycee Island. The path has been patched a good deal so is not entirely level but it’s a path that I’ve walked along most weeks in the last two years. Maybe I was looking for birds. Whatever the reason, I fell over, flat on my face.
If this has ever happened to you, you will be aware that, as you are falling, you know exactly what is happening but you can’t do anything about it.
I lay there for a minute wondering whether I could get back on my feet. When I did manage to, I dabbed my face with a tissue, finding it immediately covered in blood. I wasn’t too sure which part of my face was responsible for the flow, but slowly made my way back up the path and across the street.
There, standing by her car, was an angel disguised as a kindly middle-aged woman. I’d never seen her before but she appeared to live around the corner from me, just two doors away. She called to me, opened up the back of her car and proceeded to get antiseptics, dressings, cleansing agents, forceps, from a large first aid kit. She told me she was associated with Cooinda. I couldn’t have been more grateful. I didn’t feel like taking myself to the clinic at that stage and thankfully walked around the corner home.
I went to see the doctor the next day and yes, I had skin off my forehead, my nose, above my mouth and two black eyes coming into view. I later found a bruised knee and a skun hand. I wore sun glasses for a day or two and then put up with the sympathetic comments. Incidentally, I discovered that it’s much better to say ‘I tripped over’ or even ‘I fell over’ than to say ‘I had a fall’.
Results:
1. I suddenly felt tremendously vulnerable. I immediately pictured a walking stick, then a walking trolley, then a motorised vehicle. My mind raced ahead with more and bigger ideas.
2. The next day, I left a Thank You card under the windscreen wipers of the grey car around the corner. I live in a court and know every person and, frequently, their visitors and relations. This is hard to believe, but in the two and a half years I have lived in my house, the grey car is almost always in the driveway but I have never seen Tess before or since.
How can I not believe in God’s care!
(No photos available!)
Carmyl Winkler
10:06 am 1 November 2023
Postscript -
12.24pm 1 November 2023..."Hi...I had a sudden thought this morning. I just printed out my story and I’m going around the corner to put it under Tess’s windscreen wiper! Carmyl"