“The Bamboo Season” by Kyla McGrath

Image by Keisuke Kuribara

An excerpt from a forthcoming memoir

The basement lights were off. Only a strip of afternoon sunlight cut across the floor. I was in the home gym. Steel racks. Plates stacked against the wall. Mirrors splintering the light. A sermon about discipline and healing was paused on the screen. The house was too quiet. Just the dull drone of the treadmill and my own breathing.

I was crying so hard I had to grip the rails to steady myself. I finally stepped off and planted my feet on the sides. The belt kept moving beneath me, humming. Still running.

What if it’s worse than they think?

What if I don’t make it through surgery?

What if my body is never the same?

What if I’m ruined?

For years my body had been proof of my discipline. I knew how to train it. Push it. Shape it. Now they were going to remove parts of it. Half my pancreas. Portions of my liver. Maybe more. It wasn’t just the surgery itself that scared me. It was what came after. I was afraid I wouldn’t be the same. Less capable. Less strong. Less me.

Then my phone rang. It was Paul.

He had been my trainer and my friend for more than twenty years. I met him in my twenties when I was still trying to figure out who I was and what I was capable of. Back then, we were training for fitness competitions. We trained through pain. I complained. He ignored me. Early mornings. Late nights. Workouts that left my legs shaking in the parking lot. 

He had seen me at my strongest. He had seen me at my worst. And he’d talked me off the ledge before. But this was different. This wasn’t about walking onto a stage. This was about walking into an operating room.

I answered the phone and the words spilled out.

What if they find more?

What if it’s worse?

What if I don’t wake up?

What if my body is never the same?

How big will the scar be?

What if I don’t recognize myself?

Paul let me talk. When I finally stopped, he exhaled. “Okay,” he said. “Listen to me. Treat this like a show prep.”

“I can’t do this.”

“You can.”

“This isn’t a show. This is surgery.”

A pause. “But treat it like a show.”

I almost laughed. “You’re not serious.”

“I am. You know how to lock in. You know how to build a plan. You know how to do hard things. This is no different.”

“This is different,” I said.

“Yes. Because it matters more.”

My panic didn’t disappear. But it stopped running the conversation.

“You get something locked in your mind,” Paul said, “and you’re unstoppable.”

I swallowed. He wasn’t wrong. When a date was set, something in me flipped. Blinders on. No negotiation. One step at a time until the job was done. Somewhere between diagnosis and fear, I had forgotten that. He was there to remind me. Not to rescue me. But to hold up a mirror.

“You’re bamboo,” he said.

I let out a short laugh. “Bamboo?”

“Yeah, with bamboo, you see nothing for five years. You plant the seed. You water it. You tend the soil. And nothing breaks the surface. No stalk. No leaves. No proof. But underground, the roots are spreading. Wide. Deep. Strong enough to hold what’s coming. Then, in six weeks, it rises eighty feet. Not because it grew overnight, but because it was growing the whole time. Underground. Unseen.”

“That can’t be true,” I said.

“Look it up, it’s real.”

I didn’t know if the numbers were exact. It didn’t matter. It felt true. The weeks leading up to surgery weren’t wasted. They were preparation. Now I knew what I had to do.

The surgery date became my show day. The treadmill became my prep. Morning salads on the couch, the house still and quiet. My husband at work. My daughter at school. Just me and the dog at my feet. More water than I wanted. Lifting even when my body felt weak.

I fed my mind as carefully as I fed my body. I drew on my faith. Sermons in my ears and scripture on repeat. Shutting down negative thoughts fast. My survival depended on it. It wasn’t about aesthetics anymore. It was about living.

When fear tried to creep in, I replaced the image. Instead of imagining myself broken after surgery, I visualized myself strong.

Standing. Walking. Coming home from the hospital.

I did cardio and visualized healing. I trained and visualized strength returning.

I treated it like a competition. Except the trophy was time.

Before that call, fear was running me. After it, I said no more.

The ugly crying didn’t disappear. I let it come. But I didn’t stay there. It stopped running the show. I had a plan.

Strength didn’t look like confidence. It looked like hysteria followed by discipline. Repeating the same steps even when nothing seemed to change. When the surgery doors closed weeks later, I was still afraid. But I was prepared. I had done all I could do.

All that training. All those years. All those reps in the gym. They weren’t just about winning. They were rehearsal.

Discipline. Focus. A refusal to negotiate with doubt. Those were the roots. They had been forming me long before I knew I would need them. This wasn’t the beginning of strength. It was proof it had been growing long before I saw it.

And now it was time to use it.

 ***

Kyla McGrath is a writer originally from Newfoundland, now living in Ontario with her husband and daughter. A speechwriter by profession, her personal writing explores identity, resilience, and the strength formed in life’s hardest seasons. She writes from lived experience and a deep belief in growth through difficulty. She is currently completing her first memoir.

For more essays, short stories, and poetry by you fellow writers see here (and scroll down).

See Brian Henry's upcoming weekly writing classes, one-day workshops, and four-day retreats here.