Like New
There’s a fresh coat of paint on the back door. Downing Straw by name. The exterior latex paint for our house. It looks fresh and inviting. Going forward, I will endeavor to keep it fresh and inviting. A bold promise, but one that needs to be made. I still need to do the door jam. I’m not real sure how I managed to overlook it yesterday, but I did. I’ll take a crack at that today, although it may have to wait. I’m hooking up with some Houston friends for lunch.
The other little chore I performed yesterday was replacing the pneumatic door closer on our screen door. It carries a lot of significance because of one tiny detail. The closer I took down was one that replaced the original. When I installed it, I forgot to put on the hold open washer. So, for about the last five years, maybe longer, I could never slide that washer up and hold the screen door open while bringing in groceries or doing anything else. I tried to reinstall it once. It proved difficult. I quit.
If you need an example of a life gone bad, that seems to be it. And it reminds me of the long proverb about for want of a nail the shoe was lost, because for want of a washer my house was very nearly lost or at least the livability of the house. And if depression has a face or at least a peephole that might be it as well. The big thing of my wife’s decline and ultimate demise made everything hard to do right down to the smallest thing. But I fixed it yesterday, and painted the door, and I have typed list of pending projects, and I’ll do those and see if I can’t keep on keeping on because this is the house we built, and it was a good thing and I’d like to keep it that way. Shiny and in good repair.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver's Tale