Bull Shit

Tonight as I was washing dishes, I noticed a crack in the Bull Shit glass. It hit me harder than I expected. I tried to remind myself that it’s just a glass, it’s replaceable, no big deal. But it kind of is a big deal. I’ve had it for years, 12 to be exact. I rescued it from going into a dumpster at a house I was selling, in the beginning of my career. It was like a strange take-away prize. A glass held by strangers, in good times? Bad times? I didn’t know. But it was set out on a table and headed for the trash. The sight of it made me chuckle. A bold and true statement sitting on a table filled with discarded kitchen utensils in a dimly lit, moldy garage. So I scooped it up along with a couple of other items, one of them a Singer Sewing Machine. When I took it home and looked in its drawers I found all sorts of treasures. A little gold ring with initials, old cufflinks, a pair of earrings and some old photos. I wiped out the drawers and put the goodies back where I found them. It was March. Spring was on the horizon, there was some hope in the air.

In early January, I got a call from a woman looking to sell her house. I liked her from the start. She was friendly and chatty and eager to meet me. I met her the next day. I was young. I had two year’s worth of experience selling homes, zero year’s worth of experience in grief counseling. We sat at her kitchen table on a little dinette set clad in bright yellow vinyl, clearly custom-made for the wall. The kitchen cabinets had been recently refaced in a pink-toned laminate and the counters were a warm green. It felt cheerful and warm and Easter-y minus the jelly beans and plastic grass and the promise of rebirth.

I sat across from her as she sobbed over the loss of her husband to cancer. He was her everything it seemed, and she was just lost without him. She didn’t want to sell but she had to. I held her hand and cried with her, it was excruciating. It wasn’t until she started signing papers that she started feeling better, empowered. I promised her I would find her a beautiful apartment and help her set it up. I put my 50 something year-old friend on speaker phone to make her laugh and to encourage her to come out for drinks with us to ease her loneliness.  I checked on her, counseled her, called her and prayed for her throught the month of January into Febuary.  Her Anniversary was approaching just before Valentine’s Day, she wasn’t looking forward to it.  She agreed to come out with me and a friend for dinner rather than be alone. I was so happy she was willing to get out. It was February. It was freezing. Doing anything was a chore, The only hope in the air was forced.

And then it snowed.  And it snowed and snowed enough to close the mall for a couple of days and shut down the roads to anyone without an truck or an SUV and she didn’t answer any of my calls.  She didn’t pick up.  She never called me back to say that she got the message that we had to cancel because of the snow, and to call me if she needed me.  So I started to think the worst, because that’s what I do.  I create twisted and horrible, impossible scenarios in my mind and try to find the best-case-scenario out of them.  It’s exhausting and unnecesaary and I really hate when I do it because it creates unnecessary pain and suffering due to completely imagined circumstances.  Yes, even I am laughing just writing this.  

So I imagined that she couldn’t bear the thought of life without him and she took her own life.  I shuddered at the thought of it because it was one of the few times my impossible scenarios…actually seemed possible.  My husband helped me dig out my car.  He gave me a reassuring hug and told me to be in touch.

I pulled onto the block and held my breath as I came around the bend.  The house was all lit up! Every light was on!  She was fine…thank goodness.  But then why the police car? Was she robbed? I started to panic.  I “parked” the car and left it in drive as I started to get out. I was a wreck.  My knees were shaking as I walked up to the door.  A police officer answered.  I was so confused.

“Where is the homeowner?”  I asked, feeling dizzy.  He questioned how I knew her.

“I’m her Realtor.” I blurted out, swinging my arm around to point out the giant For Sale sign on the lawn with my photo on it.  “I’m her friend.” I corrected myself.

He went inside for a minute and returned with a 20 something year-old man in a puffy jacket.  He cracked the door open and said “I’m sorry to tell you this but she is gone.  She took her own life.  We will be in touch.” It was February. It was miserable. There was no hope in the air.

I was beyond shocked.  I couldn’t save her.  How could she do this? I should have come sooner.  I should have called more.  I was devastated.  I drove to my office in a fog.  It was late but I knew someone would be there and I needed to see people.  I cried and mourned her and waited for a call.

Her daughter finally called.  And I met her at the same kitchen table that I met her mom at.  She was young and fierce and determined.  She was also wise beyond her years.  She posessessed a strength and a fire thay her mother had lacked.  I adored her.

Selling the house was beyond difficult.  It had a stigma attached to it, as well as an odor I just couldn’t lose no matter how many air freshners I bought.  It took months, but we finally got a buyer.  So came the day that all of their worldly possessions were moved to a giant pile in the garage, awaiting a dumpster.  It was March.  There was that delicious smell only the promise of spring can bring even on it’s chilliest days.  I stood in the garage with the door open for light, surveying the goods.  Everything they owned, everything they used, everything that mattered to them in this life…was garbage.  It made my heart ache and my eyes sting with tears.  I searched for something worth keeping.  Something to be saved.  I scanned the table and my eyes fell on Bull Shit.  I chuckled.  Yes, It’s all bull shit.  All of the crap we accumulate, all of the pain we feel, the losses we endure, the impossible scenarios we create.  Bull Shit.

So I put the Bull Shit glass in my car and dragged a Singer Sewing machine that weighed more than my 20 something year-old self to my trunk.  The sewing machine now lives in a different home but the goodies in the drawers stayed in the drawers.  The Bull Shit glass still lives here and it is loved by all.  When my husband came home from running errands tonight I showed it to him.  He had a genuine look of disappointment on his face.  Later, my son asked what I was writing about and snooped at the page.  “The Bull Shit glass is cracked??!!!”

See it’s kind of a big deal.

Not just to me.

I’m so disappointed.

Bull Shit.