Project Day
Yesterday was project day. I finished installing new LED light fixtures in the utility room, replacing the old fluorescent fixtures after one of them died. I installed two ornamental stars I bought at Trade Days Friday in Fredericksburg on the cedar trellis my son and I built. I also climbed a ladder and installed a ballast on one of the two fluorescent lamps in the garage. I used the good ballast from a lamp I took down in the utility room.
The latter project gave me a bit of an emotional kick. I was happy to get it done, but then I remembered how long the wonky lamp had been wonky, and I wondered why it took me so long to fix it. And that made me sad because I knew it was bad when my wife was alive, but I never took the time or initiative to climb that ladder. And that made me think about her dementia, and how her fading brain just didn’t see the bad lamp or encourage me to fix it. And that’s when the missing her crashed into me.
Of course, anyone who has ever lost anyone knows the feeling. It’s an unexpected wave that slams down on you. In this case, I also felt guilty I’d never taken the time to fix that durn light. Seriously, it took me all of 30 minutes yesterday. But I remember thinking how I felt, for the longest time, that the light was out of reach. Literally. And I wondered why I never even tried. And as I wondered, I felt worse and worse, a derelict. And now I’m stuck with trying to forgive myself and won’t that be fun. Oh, well. That’s grief, I guess, an unsolvable mystery.