Little Gifts

When we were growing up, our dad did most of the household repairs and maintenance jobs himself. Dad knew what he was doing. He had built houses, from the foundation up, by himself when my parents were first married and they had little or no money. And while he built sound structures, the finishing details seemed to never get completed. Dad would put down a new floor in the bathroom and it would look great, but somehow he never got around to putting the metal strip at the threshold where the carpet ends and the tile begins.

Most of our light switches were upside down, too. If the switch were up the light was off and vice verse. And any plumbing dad did had the hot and cold water reversed. It was always a joke in the family; Faucets that had the hot water on the right and cold on the left were done by dad. Those that hooked up correctly were that way when we moved in and dad hadn't worked on them. I suppose this little quirk could have been irritating to some people but it wasn't to our family. It was just how it was.

Dad died a few weeks ago and our mother is living in a nursing home. She has dementia as well as some medical problems and we felt this was the safest environment for her. She had been living at home with my dad but, as her disease progressed, she became violent and we moved her there less than a week before my dad died.

Unfortunately, mom continued to have episodes of violence at the nursing facility. And when she lashed out at another resident mom was in danger of being expelled from the home. Which is very understandable. We wouldn't want anybody beating up our mom, either. However, if she was going to be kicked out, we were going to try to arrange it so mom could move back home and this would require some modifications of the house.

Since mom is incontinent, we needed to update the bathroom so that her caregiver could clean her up as easily as possible. Mom has also developed an aversion to bathing, so we also had to simplify that process, too. We hired a professional to completely renovate the bathroom. He gutted the bathroom, replacing drywall and all the fixtures.

My sister and I spent a lot of time at our parent's house attending to the business aspects of our dad's death and we were there the afternoon the last plumbing details were being finished up. The plumber had been going from the bathroom to the basement, looking more frustrated with each trip. Finally, he came to us and said he was quitting for the day and would be back in the morning. "I can't get the water to the shower adjusted right. The hot and cold water are backwards and I can't figure it out. I've got 30 years experience and I don't know what's wrong with the stupid thing! I'm so frustrated, I'm just going to leave it and come back in the morning to try and figure it out." My sister told him that was fine, to go on home and we'd see him in the morning.

As soon as the door closed behind him, we both burst out laughing. It was so like every faucet my dad ever worked on. How appropriate!! We believe that it was a little message of hope from our dad. From the hereafter, he had sent us a lighthearted memory to comfort us during our time of worry and grief. Later that evening, my brother called saying that he had stopped by the house for something, noticed the shower was finished and had turned on the water. "Do you know that the hot and cold water are hooked up backwards?" He asked. I told him what we thought and he started laughing, too. Thank God for little gifts.

Have a good and sober day.