A year of paradox

It’s Christmas Eve

I sit up from bed

I start to walk

I remember

I drag my leg

Painful

Slow

Unsteady 

I start my day

This is the year of paradox

The year that pain decided

my future was risky

That surgery

And it’s long slow recovery

shaped each day

The year that family 

gathered and made

a cocoon of love

The year I was disabled

by the world around me

A city of steps

and buses

beyond my reach 

Of searching

for dropped pavements 

for ramps

for everyday normality

The year our family grew

with a joy-filled arrival

our grandson 

Who knew

how babies transform

who restore

a future

to hold on to

however painfully

Even this year 

holds another chapter

of the unpredictable

that has yet again 

shifted my fragile compass 

But now it’s Christmas

and that chapter waits

while we gather

and savour the life we have