A clumsy fall and a fractured wrist teach a columnist that accepting help is not surrender, but a strategy for resilience.

THEY say life is unpredictable. I have nodded along to that phrase a hundred times, the way you nod at airport announcements or tax forms.

But last Tuesday, unpredictability introduced itself with an obstruction on the floor, a clumsy trip and the sound of me hitting the ground like a sack of overconfident potatoes.

Result: a left wrist fracture (thank God for that, at least I can still write this column, albeit slowly), an off-white cast and a slow, humbling unravelling of everything I thought I knew about myself.

Let me tell you about the wheelchair incident.

There I was, freshly fallen, adrenaline still buzzing, sitting in the emergency room triage area. A kind nurse gently suggested a wheelchair. I said, “No”, with the dignity of a Shakespearean actor. “I can still walk.”

And I did. Three whole steps. Then my left wrist began to throb like a possessed drum, each pulse sending little shrieks up my arm. By step 10, walking felt like wading through cement.

By step 12, I turned around and whispered the four most humbling words of my adult life: “May I have that wheelchair?”

Was that self-confidence or ego? I genuinely don’t know anymore. The line, I’ve realised, is thinner than a fractured bone.

Fast forward a week – the cast is still there. My pride, however, has been quietly downgraded to cargo pants. I now stop strangers in supermarkets and ask them to open water bottles for me. A kind man at the pharmacy had to help me pull my credit card out of my wallet.

But the moment that truly broke me was when I was standing at a coffee shop, one hand holding my trolley bag, the other dangling uselessly in a sling, staring at my favourite flat white like it was on the moon.

How do you pick it up? How do you walk away with it? I stood there for a full two minutes, thinking. I should have cried, instead I laughed at the comical situation I was in.

The hardest part isn’t the pain; it is the small apocalypse of simple acts like showering, buttoning a shirt, tying shoelaces, holding a cup of coffee and a bag at the same time.

These are the daily rituals that whisper to us: “You are capable, you are whole.” When they become impossible, something shifts. I have started overusing my right hand, my teeth, my elbows and even my chin.

By 8pm, I am exhausted not from work but from the sheer physics of existing with one useful hand. And here is where the ego question returns. Even now, I catch myself thinking: It’s just a minor fracture. Other parts of me are intact. I will not crumble.

Is that resilience or is that the second arrow?

There is an old Buddhist story I recently rediscovered, probably while scrolling one-handed with my nose. The Buddha says: When you are struck by an arrow, that is physical pain. But if you let your mind spiral – why me, I’m so useless – this can be a disaster. You shoot yourself with a second arrow.

The first arrow is the trip, the fracture, the cast. The second arrow is everything you add on top: shame, refusal, frustration and the desperate need to prove you are still the person you were last week.

I have been shooting myself with second arrows like a one-woman archery range. Refusing the wheelchair – second arrow. Becoming furious at a coffee cup I can’t carry – second arrow. Thinking “I shouldn’t need help” as I struggle to zip my trousers for 20 minutes – that is a whole quiver of second arrows.

The irony is the world has been wonderfully kind. Strangers hold doors and neighbours carry groceries but the only person demanding that I remain invincible is me.

What I am learning – slowly, badly and with a lot of muttered curses – is that accepting help is not surrender; it is strategy. The wheelchair was not defeat but intelligence. Asking someone to open a jar is not weakness; it’s physics.

And perhaps the most radical thought of all, maybe my worth was never in my two fully functioning hands.

Maybe, it is in how I laugh when I realise I have been standing in front of an open fridge for three minutes with no plan. Maybe, it is in the small grace of letting someone else pull your credit card out or carry your coffee. Maybe, resilience is not “never needing help” but “needing help and not letting that be the whole story”.

The cast comes off in four weeks. The wrist will heal. But I suspect the humility will linger and that is not a bad thing. The second arrow, after all, is optional. The first one was just an obstruction on the floor.

When something untoward happens, my late Mum would always quote this age-old Indian saying, “What came for your head, probably left with your headgear”, and so I started being grateful for the littles mercies.

I am currently learning to type with one hand while apologising with the other.

Dr Bhavani Krishna Iyer holds a doctorate in English literature. Her professional background encompasses teaching, journalism and public relations. She is currently pursuing a second master’s degree in counselling. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

 The Sun Malaysia