Out of Loss Comes Opportunity

“What do you want to do with the food that’s spoiling?” our son Noah asked through our bedroom door when he returned that evening.

Leading off with that comment, Noah induced a similar state of groggy confusion as occurred 31 years earlier, during my first year as a graduate student at Cornell. Late at night there was a knock on my apartment door. When I opened the door, still half asleep and in my bathrobe, I was greeted by a neighbor with simply: “You better get some clothes on, the police will be here soon.”

The missing piece of information back then was that a drunk in a pick-up truck totaled my legally parked car. As a result I spent my first year at Cornell without one. I survived, quite well in fact with the help of another graduate student I met, Kirk Haselton. He ended up hiking the Continental Divide with us, as well as joining us on at the end of our recent PCT hike. Funny how things work out.

The missing piece of information in Noah’s declaration was that our refrigerator conked out. This had been expected. Water leaked from the condensers for awhile, but our financial strategy these days involves stretching out the lifespan of things as much as possible. The main problem with our refrigerator breaking was in the timing, two nights before we were to leave for our Long Island vacation on a Friday. Thus began a series of unfortunate events reminiscent of a Lemony Snicket story.

Two people would be staying in the house during our vacation. Noah would remain home with our car for whatever work he could find, as would our boarder Alison. Both would need to continue refrigerating food in our absence. I immediately sent out a Facebook message for an inexpensive refrigerator, but I had the additional complication of needing to bring Cindy in for a doctor’s appointment on Thursday. With our daughter Serena serving as our chauffeur for the day we stopped first at Sears. By getting a Sears credit card in the process we had six months to pay for a new refrigerator without interest, a workable solution that I jumped on. Of course, while we were waiting in the doctor’s office afterward, a home town high school friend contacted me via Facebook that he would buy us a refrigerator. Once again, it’s all in the timing.

As our kids were growing up their favorite vacation was visiting my brother Dave in Long Island for a week. Serena wanted to revive that tradition for likely one final time. Noah has his job woes, but Charissa matched Serena’s enthusiasm for the vacation and joined us. Our daughters’ boyfriends came as well.

The vacation went well for our daughters and pretty well for Cindy. Unfortunately, I came down with a bad cold which prevented me from joining in the “must activity” for our kids whenever we are there, going to the beach. Cindy, upon giving the choice of going to the beach with her kids or staying put with a miserable, drippy husband, chose the latter. Her nursing instincts kicked in I suppose.

While on vacation we learned about a variety of afflictions affecting my brothers. The worst by far was what happened to my Ernie. I won’t go into the details, other than to say the Sinclair family seemed collectively to be acquiring the luck of Job.

Our own misfortunes were not yet done. Noah was supposed to pick us up from the Bridgeport ferry upon our return, but called earlier that day to tell us our car broke down … for good. A broken axle from entirely rusted undercarriage signaled to me that our Toyota Echo should be retired. The car owed us nothing after fifteen years and 255,000 miles, with a 43 mpg average and few repairs for most of those years.

The Echo was money gratifyingly well spent but now I have no car. You know what? Just like in my first year as a graduate student without wheels life will continue along just fine. More than fine. In recent posts I’ve bemoaned the fact that we had only one car to meet the needs of four people in the house. That carries with it a burden which, magically, zero cars make disappear. Granted, Noah needs to solve his transportation problem, as does Alison, but Alison is moving out soon anyways. In her place will be Serena … with her car (um, Serena, we really want you more than your car, truly we do, :-D).

Life works out in the end, when complemented by family and friends. Our children have been attentive to our situation, as has my brother Ernie and his extended family, more on that later. Yet neither them nor our neighbors the Whites were around when I needed to go to the garage to sign the title of the Echo over in exchange for the tow. Pastor Erick obliged me instead, joining us for lunch afterward. That set off yet another string of heartwarming good will towards us.

One of my favorite sayings over the years has been “out of loss comes opportunity.” The loss of a refrigerator brought the opportunity of the kind gesture from an old friend I had not seen in over thirty years. Some day we will reconnect and I will be all the more grateful for our reunion from that gesture alone. The loss of a car brings the opportunity to shed responsibilities weighing me down, while also economizing.

Out of loss comes opportunity. The “elephant in the room” is the increasing loss of Cindy’s brain health, yet this has brought the opportunity of increased hugs, smiles and even laughter. We’ve been affectionate enough throughout our marriage, yet never quite like we are now. One might be tempted to reflect back on “why did we not always hug, smile and laugh like this,” but I don’t. In lieu of effusive affection we’ve hiked many trails, enjoyed many sunsets, raised some fine children together. Only from the loss of such things, with no regrets, comes the opportunity to hug, smile and laugh as we do now. Family and friends, hugs and laughter, all enrich life without the use of a car.

ATTENTION
Our vacation and “troubles” caused the recent hiatus with blog posts. In the interim I received some feedback that only now I will get around to acknowledging. My friend and classmate Nancy sent me a link about swallowing, while an unnamed friend of Charissa’s sent a link about “Eatware” designed for those with dementia. I encourage them and everyone to include such links on direct comments to my posts. I would like this blog to be helpful to those facing quality of life and brain health issues; people freely commenting and providing such links for quality of life tips would help with this goal. Thank you.