River Guide: Pawprints on the Riverbank

An Ocean View

Waves and sand. Sand so soft and white that it seemed to be made from clouds in the sky. As it flowed around and between her toes, all Christine could do was wiggle her foot and bury her few toes deeper in this sea of joy. Exfoliating or not, this was genuine happiness. Christine had never seen an ocean beach before. She had seen them in pictures and on television, but she lived in the middle of the continent, and a lake shore was not a beach. The salt air, and the pervasive sun, were all so 'beach' to her. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and she would get as much beach as possible during her stay here. Christine had won a contest. She entered them all the time. She had lots of time on her hands. Well, so to speak. Christine had no hands.

As a child, she had been exposed to leprosy. Before the doctors could diagnose and treat it correctly, she had lost most of her hands and a foot. She still had two toes on the other and most of that foot. The leprosy was gone, but the damage it did was permanent. She could get around well enough on crutches or with her prosthetics, but they set a chair up for her in the sand from which she could enjoy the beach without the body tools. Soon enough, she was sitting in the sand anyway. She let it flow across her legs and ankles. What was left of her one hand she used to push sand across herself and smile. It was heaven. She left all her body attachments in the stateroom. Today was for her as herself. Her mother took some vacation time so she could come to this paradise with her daughter. They took loads of pictures and movie snippets for her father to watch as he could download them from the internet. Soon there was too much to share. Most of their pictures would fill the cameras and phones until they were home again to show them to her father.

Christine was an amazing young lady. After getting used to using her artificial body parts, she soon found that she had an aptitude for helping others through the same transitions. She was especially good with children since she started her appendage journey as a child. She was thrilled to be able to be part of the physical therapy ward for 'body extension training,' or so she called it. The patients were amputees or children like her who never had limbs they could learn to use, so this was a chance to become more like everyone else. Her sense of self-worth was the most important reason she was encouraged to work with others. She didn't miss what she never really had to begin with. The kids she worked with enjoyed her distinct sense of humor. It was sometimes unruly, but it was hilarious when a kid with no hands was rolling on the floor laughing hysterically because she had taught them how to flip someone off in twelve varying metal finger positions. She didn't know what it was all about at first. She saw the veterans doing it behind the nurses' backs and thought she'd try it out. She received much gleeful approval from the veterans, so she became an artificial finger artiste. Until her father caught her at it, that is.

After that, she was still allowed to work as a therapist assistant with the kids but had to refrain from the behaviors the veterans showed her. All of their behaviors. She was good at self-control since it took a great effort to walk with her new feet and use her new hands to train the kids. Some of the kids would be shy, but since she was a girl and a kid, they usually opened up to her pretty quickly. She still taught the kids how to flip people off, but she told them they could only secretly flip off the veterans in therapy. The kids often opened up to that world and discovered the joy of telling off veterans with varying finger displays. The veterans never got mad about it. They'd smile at Christine and give her a thumbs-up, natural or artificial, whenever a new kid demonstrated their new special moves.