The Cable Guy

I have been lucky in many ways, but luck has graced me one way in particular.  I am one of those wives who has never had to lift a finger (unless I wanted to) when it came to things like house repairs, gardening, garage clean up, the weekly trash rounds…   Doug easily accomplished all those details-plus around our house.  I gladly never worried about stuff like that and consequently know very little about the requirements involved in stuff like that.

Doug has numerous childhood stories about his love of yard work and home improvement.   But better yet are the stories he tells about the finished products.  Cut grass with straight lines on a diagonal mimicking golf course precision;  tightly trimmed trees, flowers in bloom year around, and a clean fence line resulting in curb appeal that generated neighborhood envy.

As a youth he spent oodles of time in the yard, fixing, cleaning, sprucing and constructing.  Doug gets animated, complete with dimension descriptions, sore muscle recall, and a big smile, when he shares of single handedly constructing a wooden back patio deck, with a windbreaker and all the trimmings, at just twelve years old.  As amazing as that seems, the stories don’t stop there.  He also constructed a two-story tree fort complete with the neighbor dad’s approval and sleep overs on the main floor.  

I have heard tales of trimming hedges that towered over him, designing projects that General Contractors should have had a say in, and setting up surround sound throughout the house before there was such a thing.  Creative, determined, and resourceful are all strong words that define Doug’s youthful ingenuity and his adulthood innovations.

Doug’s imagination has always led the way.  Together we have owned numerous properties that he fixed up and flipped. Doug was ahead of his time.  If the reality “Fixer Upper” shows were a thing back then, he could have been a star.  Our children have lived in a number of dilapidated starter homes and experienced house restoration right before their eyes.  Furniture construction and woodworking projects were hobbies of his that have blessed us with some one-of-a-kind pieces spread around our home and have blessed family members with several unique keepsakes.

This is the Doug I have always known.  The man I have heavily relied upon… to fix anything. 

My heart sank and flipped with nervousness when I walked in the door and realized the electronics that were strewn across the floor and the cords that were piled on the counter were from the entertainment center that housed our television, routers, internet… Doug was standing in the center of it all, looking confused.

“What happened?” I asked.

“The T.V. wasn’t working,” he answered. “So, I decided to fix it,” he added.

“How is the repair going?” I asked, feeling the fear that nothing was wrong with the T.V. rise in my chest. I knew Doug and the remote control were struggling in their relationship. 

“Not good” he responded.

“I took it apart,” he said. “But now I don’t know what to do.”

It was at this point in the conversation, with my confused husband standing amidst the disorder of electronics in the front-room that I responded with selfishness and self-absorption leading the charge. It was up to me to put this thing back together and I had no idea how.  I exhaled with emphasis, the breath I had unknowingly been holding for what seemed like a matter of minutes, I passed him a look of disgust due to the incredible inconvenience I felt, and I marched around like a rooster in a coop picking up one cord after another mumbling words like, “What?”, “Oh brother”, “Geez”, “Ugg” and “Lord help me…”

Doug, feeling the tension in me, the anxiety in him and his inability to fix either hung his head, took a few steps back, and left the house.  His bike became his escape.  I stood in the rubble feeling a confused combination of remorse and anger and I picked up the phone.

The first call was to my son-in-law.  He lived locally.  Maybe he would fix it.  No Answer. 

The second call was to our cable and internet provider.  A man named John, at a call center in Wisconsin, answered the phone.  His dad, he told me, has dementia.  John patiently stepped me through the repair piece by piece. Together, this man I never met and may never talk to again, helped put me and my entertainment center back in working order over speaker phone.  John’s patience, his calm voice, his understanding comments, and the way he accepted the situation with no judgement fractured my frustration.  Cord by cord, as I reconnected the technology, the cable guy helped me see Doug’s grief at the loss of his abilities.  He helped to restore Doug’s dignity in my heart.

I don’t think he gets paid enough for what he does.  I am so grateful.

Doug returned with little memory of what had transpired in the room earlier.  There was no evidence of the technology debacle.  Everything was neatly put away, the T.V. worked fine, and I gave him a new tutorial on using the remote.  My heart however, had been changed.  I promised myself I would work to be more understanding, more tolerant, less pit bullish when Dementia tries to steal the show, and extra grateful for how lucky I’ve been.  

One-day-at-a-time and with God’s gentle reminders.

Doug and Karen