It
was late (I mean real late) and I was in bed at that wonderful state where you
are not quite awake but you’re not asleep either. Then my cell phone rang. Ever since I have had a cell phone I sleep
with it on the nightstand next to the bed, tonight was no exception. But, ever since I retired my cell phone
rarely rings at night, so when it did I was startled. I picked it up to see who was calling but
without my glasses the fine print was just a blur. I asked Char who it was. She looked and told me it was Eric. “Oh crap,” I replied, “this can’t be
good.”
Eric
is a good friend. I had seen him just a
couple weeks before. Together we had
gone to visit Dave, a mutual friend, who was in home hospice. Eric had been requested to speak at Dave’s
funeral when the time came. Dave had
also given Eric some specific instructions such as; “keep it short” and “don’t
go over the top”. It was going to be
hard thing for Eric – it would be for anybody.
Now
if I may pause and add another literally license to further explain that not
only is this a story about the loss of a near and dear friend and the
gut-wrenching stress of doing a fitting eulogy for that friend in front of
family, friends and co-workers. This is also a story involving the coming
together at a cross roads of a chopping axe, six pack of beer and the recent
demise of a fairly new dishwasher just out of warranty. If you have gotten to this point surely your
interest is perked now.
I
hit the redial button on my phone and Eric answered on the first ring. I braced myself for some bad news about Dave.
The phone call went something like this:
Ralph: Eric, this is Ralph. I see I missed your
call.
Eric (with a
great deal of excitement): WOW! Ralph,
this might be a God thing!
Ralph: What do you
mean ‘a God thing’?
Eric (still with
excitement in his voice): Well, I just
called you and you didn’t answer and now you called me! It’s probably a God thing!
I
would explain caller ID to him at a later date, now didn’t seem to be the time.
Ralph: So . . . what are you up to?
Eric: Ralph, I have to tell you right up front I’ve
had a few beers tonight. What I’ve been
asked to do by Dave is really going to be hard. I do not really want to do it
at all, but I know I have to. In fact when it comes right down to it I am just
plain pissed off about all this happening to Dave.
Ralph: I don’t care that you’ve been drinking and
yes, it is going to be hard. I don’t
think I could do it.
Eric: But you know what? I just did the coolest thing I think I have
ever done!
Ralph: What’s that?
Eric: We had a dishwasher in our garage that we
were trying to get rid of and no one would take it – was going to cost $70 just
to have someone pick it up! So tonight I
pulled it out into the center of the garage and smashed the crap out of it with
my wood splitting axe!
Ralph (laughing): You did what?
Eric: Yeah I smashed
the crap out it with my axe! You should have been here to see all the plastic
and metal flying around in the air, it was amazing! It was pretty cool to watch
the axe head hit the concrete floor and make all these sparks! But the real cool thing is now I think I can
get it into a 15 gallon trash can so it can be hauled away for free!
Char
came back into the room and asked if everything was okay. I was laughing so hard all I could do was shake
my head yes.
After
Eric and I finished our conversation I laid in bed laughing for quite some
time. I had to agree with him, it was a
God thing. It had to be a miracle he
didn’t cut off his foot with that axe.
