anything.
It’s my first night alone in my house. The dogs come back tomorrow morning. I know I have to do something. I can’t just sit around and stare at old pictures. I need to fall asleep with some sense of accomplishment. I decide to frame the pictures and hang them on the wall.
Last Christmas Deedee bought me a box of ten black frames. Three five-by-sevens, four four-by-sixes, one eight-by-ten, and two two-by-threes. Anyone who knows me can tell you that there is a reason why I let Josh make all of the redecorating decisions. I have a horrible concept of spatial relations. It is very difficult for me to envision and estimate how much space something will take up. A couch, a table, a frame, whatever it is, I have a difficult time figuring out how one thing will look, or if it will fit in a different place. Josh would often tease me about this. He would roll his eyes when I wanted to rearrange furniture, but still he would help me move chairs and tables around, only to laugh when everything had been reassigned to its new location and the couch stuck out two feet into the doorway. And then, laughing at my deficiency, he would help me move it back.
I consider all of this as I look at my stack of ten frames. I consider how if Josh were here he would hammer in all of the nails. He wouldn’t even need to think about how he would arrange them first. He would just stand there quietly, hang one frame, look at it, and then hang the next. By the end, it would look perfect. I consider how I am sad that he is not here, not just to hang the frames but that he can’t stand in this hallway anymore. He can’t look at these pictures with me and laugh abouthow mad I was that day we went fly-fishing. He can’t tell me that he doesn’t want to use the one from last Christmas because he was chubby or that he wants to hang the one of Ashley from last summer in her bathing suit because she was chubby and he knows she’ll hate it. He can’t do any of this. He will never do any of this again. How am I supposed to sleep here tonight? How am I supposed to do anything again, knowing he can never share it with me?
But I get out the toolbox and I take the plastic off the frames. I don’t know why this is so important. I don’t know why I make myself do this. It’s like everything else I do lately. Taking out the garbage, emptying the dishwasher, putting wet laundry in the dryer—every motion that I go through in the house reminds me that Josh used to be here, but I still make myself do it because I want to remember what it used to feel like and I need to know what it feels like now.
I arrange the frames on the floor of my bedroom. I come up with a few arrangements.
Wait and see what Mathews thinks
, I tell myself. But then my body takes over again and I hang the first frame. I measure everything on the wall. I make pencil marks all over the wall. I want to make sure it looks perfect. I want to make sure I know how to make it look perfect. I measure the distance from one frame to the next. I measure the center of the frame. I measure how far down the hook is from the top of the frame. And then finally, I hammer the nail.
As an amateur in the business of hammering nails, I am annoyed at how difficult it is to hammer a nail in straight. The first three nails do not go well at all. The whole wall shakes and it takes me about fifteen strikes with the hammer to get it into position. A couple of times I hit my fingers, bend the nail, or shift it off center. Again, I get sad and frustrated that Josh isn’t here to do this. I can picture myself in a parallel world somewhereyelling his name. And he walks up from the basement and silently takes the hammer from me and finishes the rest of the nails. And then when he’s done he does something funny like pull up his shirt sleeve and flex his bicep or flip the hammer in the air and catch it after one full turn. I can see all of this. And then I become angry that I can’t see any of this. I will
It’s my first night alone in my house. The dogs come back tomorrow morning. I know I have to do something. I can’t just sit around and stare at old pictures. I need to fall asleep with some sense of accomplishment. I decide to frame the pictures and hang them on the wall.
Last Christmas Deedee bought me a box of ten black frames. Three five-by-sevens, four four-by-sixes, one eight-by-ten, and two two-by-threes. Anyone who knows me can tell you that there is a reason why I let Josh make all of the redecorating decisions. I have a horrible concept of spatial relations. It is very difficult for me to envision and estimate how much space something will take up. A couch, a table, a frame, whatever it is, I have a difficult time figuring out how one thing will look, or if it will fit in a different place. Josh would often tease me about this. He would roll his eyes when I wanted to rearrange furniture, but still he would help me move chairs and tables around, only to laugh when everything had been reassigned to its new location and the couch stuck out two feet into the doorway. And then, laughing at my deficiency, he would help me move it back.
I consider all of this as I look at my stack of ten frames. I consider how if Josh were here he would hammer in all of the nails. He wouldn’t even need to think about how he would arrange them first. He would just stand there quietly, hang one frame, look at it, and then hang the next. By the end, it would look perfect. I consider how I am sad that he is not here, not just to hang the frames but that he can’t stand in this hallway anymore. He can’t look at these pictures with me and laugh abouthow mad I was that day we went fly-fishing. He can’t tell me that he doesn’t want to use the one from last Christmas because he was chubby or that he wants to hang the one of Ashley from last summer in her bathing suit because she was chubby and he knows she’ll hate it. He can’t do any of this. He will never do any of this again. How am I supposed to sleep here tonight? How am I supposed to do anything again, knowing he can never share it with me?
But I get out the toolbox and I take the plastic off the frames. I don’t know why this is so important. I don’t know why I make myself do this. It’s like everything else I do lately. Taking out the garbage, emptying the dishwasher, putting wet laundry in the dryer—every motion that I go through in the house reminds me that Josh used to be here, but I still make myself do it because I want to remember what it used to feel like and I need to know what it feels like now.
I arrange the frames on the floor of my bedroom. I come up with a few arrangements.
Wait and see what Mathews thinks
, I tell myself. But then my body takes over again and I hang the first frame. I measure everything on the wall. I make pencil marks all over the wall. I want to make sure it looks perfect. I want to make sure I know how to make it look perfect. I measure the distance from one frame to the next. I measure the center of the frame. I measure how far down the hook is from the top of the frame. And then finally, I hammer the nail.
As an amateur in the business of hammering nails, I am annoyed at how difficult it is to hammer a nail in straight. The first three nails do not go well at all. The whole wall shakes and it takes me about fifteen strikes with the hammer to get it into position. A couple of times I hit my fingers, bend the nail, or shift it off center. Again, I get sad and frustrated that Josh isn’t here to do this. I can picture myself in a parallel world somewhereyelling his name. And he walks up from the basement and silently takes the hammer from me and finishes the rest of the nails. And then when he’s done he does something funny like pull up his shirt sleeve and flex his bicep or flip the hammer in the air and catch it after one full turn. I can see all of this. And then I become angry that I can’t see any of this. I will
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