By Loretta Parker-Brown
Maybe exercising a few times a week and occasionally doing yoga keeps these aging bones strong, or perhaps I’m just lucky.
Several months ago, I fell off the bed while dreaming. Until then, I cannot remember falling out of bed before, not even as a child. There have been other falls. I’ve fallen in and out of love numerous times during my 76 years. About six years ago, I fell down the stairs while rushing to answer the door. I was four steps above the bottom landing and wearing my favorite, old rubber-sole slippers, which I should have thrown away long ago. One of my feet slipped on the stairs, causing my knee to buckle. I lunged forward, threw my arms out in front of me like I was diving into a swimming pool, and landed in a heap on the floor. Blessed assurance! I didn’t hurt anything but my pride, and the next day, I trashed the slippers.
My bedroom layout is such that the head of my queen-sized bed is beside the bedroom door. I sleep on the left side of the bed. Against the wall on my side are a nightstand and bureau. Between those two pieces of heavy wooden furniture and the bed is a narrow space of slightly over 13 inches. My girth from left to right is broader than that space. Okay, I’m not that broad. There is enough room to walk from the foot to the head of the bed if a body turns sideways.
On the night, I toppled off the bed. I had been having a crazy dream. One moment, I was chasing a villain. The next moment, the villain was chasing me. I ran everywhere, dodging cars, ducking behind buildings, and hiding in backyards.
I was deep in sleep and didn’t feel myself falling off the bed until I hit the floor with a loud thud. Not only did the fall wake me up, but it also woke my boo, who had been sleeping beside me.
As it always is at night, our bedroom was dark except for the street light shining through the blinds. Boo jumped out of bed and, without stopping to turn on the light, ran around to my side of the bed, reached down, grabbed my hand, and attempted to pull me up.
“Are you okay?” he asked anxiously.
My 5 foot 6, creamed coffee brown, full-figure body was face-down in a heap on the floor, sandwiched like a Big Mac between the storage drawers on the bed frame and the furniture on the opposite side. Boo was tugging on my arm, and I was struggling to get up, but one of my feet was wedged in the space beneath the bureau and the hardwood floor, making it difficult to free my leg. Simultaneously, I thought this gives new meaning to “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up.”
He was pulling, I was pushing, and my body wasn’t budging. “Wait! Let go of my arm so I can turn over. I said. “I’m stuck.”
He gently released my hand. I twisted and jiggled my foot, finally freeing it from under the dresser, and then pushed myself from my belly up onto my knees. Boo took hold of my waist as I put one hand on the bed and the other on the dresser and rose to my feet.
“Another nightmare?” he said.
“Don’t ask.” I replied.
I did a mental check and assured myself that nothing felt broken, and I hadn’t hit my head. But I had landed heavily on my upper right arm, and a couple of days later, a nasty-looking, 4-inch, black bruise appeared between my shoulder and elbow.
After 23 years together, my boo is as baffled as I am over my kicking, punching, and trashing around nightmares that only began about two years ago. He wakes me when he realizes I am physically acting out a dream, and occasionally he’ll jokingly say, “Sometimes I wonder if you are really asleep when you’re beating up on me.”
I’ve read that several things can cause animated nightmares: certain medications (I don’t take any meds. That’s a blessing), traumas, and even reading scary books or watching frightening movies before bedtime.
The morning after my fall, I told my grown daughter about it. That evening, she came to my home carrying a flat box and said, “Mom, I have a surprise for you. Come with me.” I followed her to the bedroom and watched in awe as she unboxed, assembled, and put a bed guardrail on my side. Then, as she was leaving, she said, “Pleasant dreams.”