Replace in Ten Years

 

When Chris and I were house hunting in our happy year of 2007, we chose an area that would split the difference between our two work locations. We looked at a handful of properties in this unfamiliar region, but not one of those houses was quite right until the last, of course. When we toured the house that is now our home, we saw that the kitchen wasn’t ideal in its style and  having only one drawer, and that storage space was lacking in the house in general. Still, the house had no red flags like the others we had seen, and it checked every one of our non-negotiable boxes. We exchanged a lot of looks on that tour telegraphing our mutual interest.

We went straight from the showing to grab pizza, just the two of us, and talked it over. Though excited, I had general misgivings over such a large decision. Chris was sure we were ready and, as usual, I trusted his judgment completely. We took the leap and made an offer. There was a little negotiation that Saturday afternoon and somewhere in the middle of that, a few questions were answered between the real estate agents. The homeowners wanted us to know that they found the attic quite useful for storage if we hadn’t checked it out (we had not). During the inspection process, Chris explored the attic and reported that it would indeed assuage the storage deficiencies in the main living areas of the house. The attic became his domain from that day on.  

Oh, Chris was a natural organizer. He measured the trapdoor and the width of the ladder steps, then purchased a dozen or more sturdy plastic storage boxes that could be boosted up and stowed in the attic. We used those boxes first to move, then to store holiday decorations and off-season clothes, and later baby equipment and clothes that we might use later. Every box was neatly labeled in his handwriting and stored tidily in the attic. My role was supportive. I would pack some of the boxes, bring them to the ladder steps, and hoist them up to Chris who would busily tuck them away according to his system. When holidays rolled around, he would climb the ladder and find the relevant boxes to hand down to me. We were a good team…

As we headed into what we knew would be the last Christmas holiday season for Chris, many things quickly changed and became painfully different. He could not climb the ladder to root out the boxes of decorations. As I did that fall with so many things that had typically fallen under his domain or ours, I tackled the task alone, as robotically and quickly as possible. The less time I spent doing it, the less time I would be thinking about how horrifying it was that he could not do it himself, and how sickening it was to know that he would not be here at this time next year.

After Chris died, I dreaded going into the attic. Eventually I would have to do it and I did, just like everything else in the after. On those occasions, I would climb the steps, flip the light on, and stare at our old life all boxed up. The still, stale air of the attic would instantly feel suffocating as my eyes would settle on one label after another, his handwriting as familiar as my own. I would have to remember to breathe as I looked around at the artifacts of our shared, now past life. Vivid memories relentlessly rushed over me and clashed with the harsh reality that he is dead. There was no sense to be made in the attic.

How can someone’s belongings, even someone’s simply written sticky notes, still be here while he is not?

What. The. Hell. Happened.

Time has passed and, just like many other things, it has become easier to go into the attic. Not easy. But noticeably easier.

Many months ago now, we heard an intermittent electronic beeping from the attic. I knew exactly what it was - the smoke alarm battery was dying and the unit needed to be replaced. I knew this because as one climbs the ladder and enters the attic, you directly face an overhead beam to which the alarm is affixed. Chris being Chris, he had also typed and mounted an accompanying reminder that read, “Replace by April 2021.” The alarm was expected to last ten years. It was just a few months shy of that.

Every time I went into the attic, I read the instructions about the alarm replacement. Those simple words always gave me pause. What was Chris thinking when he made that note? It must have been the spring of 2011, a few years into his brain tumor experience for which he had accepted his prognosis of 10-20 years. As he read about the ten-year battery expectancy, did he do the comparison math? As he drilled the holes for the mounting bracket, did he wonder if he would still be alive when the new alarm expired? I know he was optimistic and hoped to be on the 20-year side of the prognosis, but how often did he worry or even assume he’d be closer to the 10-year side of things? Did he have a premonition that he would not be the one to make the next replacement and that note was meant for me, to help me take care of the family in the after?

There is absolutely no way Chris did not contemplate whether he’d be alive in ten years as he taped his note next to the new alarm. He told me once during the good years of tumor inactivity that he thought about dying every single day, how it would play out and when. On the day he typed that replacement reminder in the spring of 2011, our second baby had only been a few weeks old. The choice to have a second child while also having a terminal brain tumor had been weighty, truly monumental for him. Would he live long enough for this new child to know him, to form lasting memories of him? Our newborn would be ten when the alarm replacement date rolled around. Chris must have wondered, Will I be here in April, 2021?

Funny how time marches on, whether we humans are here or not. Chris was on the shorter end of the prognosis, dying eleven years after his diagnosis. The smoke alarm he put up in 2011 lasted longer than he did…

Though I did purchase a new detector in a timely manner, I dragged my feet about installing it.  The new alarm sat on the kitchen counter for a long time. I simply did not want to face the attic for this task. I didn’t want to take down the note Chris left, and I didn’t want to throw it away once I did. Most of all, I didn’t want to think about the pain Chris must have felt facing his own mortality on the day he replaced the last detector and on so many, many days between his diagnosis and death.

Eventually I did fetch the required tools and climbed the ladder to the attic, new alarm in hand. I took a minute to think about Chris before starting. In my head, I talked to him a bit as I often do. There were some tears as I told him how much I miss him, how much I love him. I apologized for not asking him more questions about what he grappled with, for sometimes not being receptive to his need to talk about his inevitable disease progression before it happened because of my fear of losing him. But mostly I thanked him for being such a good partner, for taking excellent care of us, for leading with kindness and gentleness in all situations, for being so incredibly brave, and for agreeing to add our second child to our family when he knew he would not be here to see her to adulthood.    

Then, I tackled the job. I removed the old alarm and saw that the mounting bracket would not work for the new one, so I unscrewed that as well. I’ve learned to enjoy using power tools, and took satisfaction in drilling two new holes and screwing in the new bracket. Once the alarm was installed, I knew what the last step was. Using permanent marker, I wrote on the alarm cover, “Replace Fall 2030.”

As I wrote the year 2030, that year felt impossibly distant. I did the easy math; I would be turning 53 years old in the fall of 2030. My mind raced ahead with the calculations and I realized that the kids will both be launched into adulthood by that time and will not likely be living in the house year-round. I wondered if I would be living in this house in that year, and if I would still have the same job, and if my hair would be white. Then, my thoughts turned more serious. Will my parents still be alive? I shuddered with the pain of losing them someday… Will I still be alone, unpartnered? And finally, of course…

Will I still be alive in ten years?

I blanched at these thoughts. I do not feel strong enough to bear another major loss. And, much as I sometimes do not want to keep on going, I honestly do not want to die any time soon. What would the kids do if they did not have a parent for most of their lives?

I don’t know the answers or solutions to any of these musings. The only certainty is that we all must die someday, not one of us can know the day or the hour…

With no other resolution to be found, I leaned back to inspect my work. The detector was firmly attached. My instructions, though not as neat as the typed note Chris had left, would let the future homeowner, whomever that may be, know when to replace the detector to keep the residents safe.