What My Hands Remember

Last week, a friend suggested I watch the movie About Time - a story of a man who can travel back into his past to relive parts of his life or make different choices. It’s lighthearted in many ways, but it left me thinking about a heavier question: If I could go back in my own years, what would I change?
My thoughts quickly settled on the most pivotal moment of my life, though I did not immediately know whether I would change the decision I made that day.
Thirty-five years ago today, April 5, 1991, I said yes to a surgery that would alter my life forever. Unlike the movie, I don’t get to revisit that point in time or try a different path. There is no alternate version to explore. It was just that one choice, and the life that followed.
What makes that moment different from most is that I did have options. Usually, the turning points in our lives don’t come with that kind of clarity. They arrive uninvited, and we simply respond. We live through them and then manage what follows. But this one? I was told that without the surgery, I likely wouldn’t live more than a few years. I also knew paralysis was a real possibility. I was asked, in advance, what I was willing to risk.
Losing a future with my family wasn’t something I could accept. So, I said yes, believing that with enough determination, enough faith, I would somehow find my way back to the life I had known.
Let me say this up front—like the movie, my story does have a good ending. But even so, on that day in April, it was the last day I walked.
I don’t share that for dramatic effect; I write that to give context to what follows. For years, I saw that date as a dividing line - life before April 5th, and then everything after. But after reflecting on it again this past week, I can say this without hesitation: I would still choose to go through with the operation, even knowing I would never walk again.
Because what I didn’t lose matters just as much.
In the middle of everything that changed, something critical remained. My arms. My hands. The ability to reach, to hold, to create.
 
At the time, I don’t think I fully understood the significance of that. I was focused on what was gone. I had diminished mobility, less independence, my legs didn’t work.
But over the years, I’ve come to see it differently.
So much of my life, especially the meaningful parts, has been shaped by what my hands can still do.
Stitching became one of those places.
It’s consistent. It’s patient. It doesn’t demand that my body be anything other than what it is. It meets me exactly where I am and gives something back in return - color, texture, progress, beauty. One stitch at a time.
When I look at the pieces I’ve completed over the years, I don’t just see fabric and thread. I see time. I see seasons of my life held together by something small but strong. I see proof that even when life narrowed in some ways, it expanded in others.
There’s a kind of gratitude that comes with that realization.
Not loud. Not dramatic. Just dependable.
I didn’t physically get to keep everything. But I kept enough.
Enough to create.
Enough to express.
Enough to build something lasting with my own hands.
If I could go back, I would still say yes to the surgery. The only thing I might change is simple: I would take a few extra minutes to walk the hospital halls one last time, committing each step to memory, knowing they were my last.
But I would still go forward.
Because the life that followed…different than I expected, but still full…has creatively been worth living.
And in many ways, it’s been stitched together more beautifully than I ever could have planned.

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