Used Goods
From the beginning of our time together my wife and I were hand me down kids. If we could use it, and it was offered, we took it. Beds, tables, washing machines, all got second chances in our house. Even after we learned how to make both ends meet, the gift of used goods was accepted, which explains why when a used entertainment center was offered by an Alvin neighbor at some in point in the early 2000s, we took it. I painted it white, put doors on the lower openings to make storage, and it went into our bedroom.
It followed us to the Hill Country in 2009 to sit in our utility room until my wife decided she needed something that would hold brooms and mops. The old center went outside, got more doors, and became a catch all for tools and garden supplies. Yesterday, I emptied it out with the thought of refurbishing it, but as it stood there, weather-beaten, empty and dirty, my son opined that we ought to just cut it up and throw it out. And just like that the scales fell off my eyes and I realized my dereliction. It would have been long gone if my wife’s brain hadn’t been wracked by dementia, and me trying to save it was a vain attempt at patching the past.
I saw the dirt and the grime, and there was more when I pulled it away from the wall. She’d have never stood for that. It was embarrassing, even if I was the only one seeing it. So, having repurposed it twice to serve the family for twenty years, I started taking it apart. I tossed most of the hardware except for the pulls, which almost always come in useful at some point. I swept out the debris, and today will take saw to wood. It will be gone, the area will be clean, with a newly painted back door, and maybe a plant to sit beside it. A proper metal storage cabinet soon will hold the gardening goods in another location just around the corner, and I’ll take another step toward the independence I never expected or wanted.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver's Tale