After my Dad passed away -- 21 years ago next month -- the three women in our family got very good at finding ways to get things done. Not the right way, mind you. Just a temporary solution to keep life moving forward, wobbly at best.
Fence fall over? Just tie a post to the John Deere and drive that tractor till the fence sits upright again. Hold it steady while one of you dumps a bag of dry concrete in the post hole and waters it with a hose. There. Fixed.
Car battery stall out in the neighbor's driveway? Open the front car doors and push it backward from either side, then jump in the seat and hit the brake before the car goes rolling down that steep hill. If you don't miss the brake, you're golden. If you do, you never have to worry about that car battery again!
Window-unit air conditioners need to be installed? Position one person outside, one in and leave the youngest among you to hoist those heavy suckers into the window, pinching every finger on every hand in the process. Window-unit air conditioners need to be removed? Don't. Just leave em.
That's how life went for a long time in our house. And living in an old house with a big property meant that a lot of stuff was left undone. And that was OK. We all had more important things to do.
But that couldn't last forever. And, fortunately, I found a fairly handy man to bring into our crazy family. Shane soon became responsible for all of the Neff women and the ever-aging Neff estate, a job he took on willingly even though he knew it wouldn't be easy.
I like to ask Shane what he thought when he first met my family, way back in 2004. (My Mom, by the way, did not want him to stay with us because, she told me, "He could be an axe murderer." He turned out to be the most helpful son-in-law she could ever wish for, but I did have to talk him down from chopping us all up with an axe on that first visit ;)
Back to when Shane met Cindy: A good son-in-law, he's always diplomatic in his answer to "what did you think about...all of this?" But he'll say something along the lines of how he knew Mom was really nice, if a little scatter-brained. The fact that she dumped nearly an entire bottle of salad dressing on her salad the first time we all went out to eat probably gave that away :)
Anyway, with Shane in the fold, I felt a little better about trying to care for my mother and her firetrap of a house. The first thing Shane did was install smoke alarms in every room. The last batch had been put up by my Dad -- and then swatted down with a broomstick when Mom's cooking caught fire.
In one particularly memorable weekend, Shane and our good buddy Jeremy decided to replace the toilet in the main bathroom. What was supposed to be an easy fix turned into a three-day, 24/7 adventure in DIY. When the boys pulled up the bathroom tile, they discovered the entire floorboard rotted to the point that it looked more like sawdust than wood. They actually vacuumed it up! The toilet, they found, was hanging on by piping alone. On learning this, we were all incredibly grateful nobody had fallen to the basement while going No. 2. That would not be the nicest way to go.
Over the years, Shane helped with more projects, and my mom's friends pitched in now and then. It was a group effort to keep that house running and my Mom alive. And I know it was always a big worry for Shane especially.
Not long before we decided to move to New Zealand, my mom called me, randomly, and said "I just want you to know that I'm going out on a date with Paul Baker."
"Okay," I thought. "That's...interesting."
I'd known Paul all my life as a friendly, loving, really wonderful man that went to our church. He had a nice family that had gone through some really tough things, and my heart always went out to them for the challenges and losses they experienced. I never thought about Paul being a person of interest in my mother's life, but once it happened, it seemed to make sense. And Paul became more of a fixture in my conversations with her and a presence on our visits.
I liked Paul, and I was glad to have him around, helping my mom and watching out for her. I was especially grateful for one of his gifts: Paul is a builder. He used to build homes. And he could pretty quickly see that the Neff estate was in desperate need of some TLC. He took on the challenge with gusto and fixed up the house in ways that even my Dad would be proud of :)
In one of my first conversations with Paul since he became my mother's...whatever you call it.... he told me how much he had respected my Dad, how he had been a great man and a good friend. That made me happy. He then told me how happy my Mom made him and how she's an amazing woman. I look at my mother the same way my daughter looks at me, the same way my Mom looked at her mom -- as the crazy old lady always telling me what to do ;) But she is amazing, and I was glad he could see that.
A few months after Paul came on the scene, Shane and I started putting pieces in place to make our move to New Zealand. We didn't tell my mother right away, scared it would give her a heart attack. But leaving her was our biggest worry, and the one thing that would keep us from moving abroad if anything did. It helped us to know that Paul was in her life. There was relief in that, and comfort.
The day we finally told her about our plans, we drove our family to meet her and Paul at the Hagerstown Outback. (Also, I would KILL to go to an Outback right now!) I had the kids practice how they would share the news, and each time they said it, I -- pretending to be Greenbean -- would pretend to die ;) But she didn't die, she took the news that her second-favorite daughter was moving her only grandkids to the other side of the world stoically and thoughtfully -- and I appreciated the effort that took. Paul, on the other hand, was happy as could be for us, talking about what a great adventure it was and how much fun we'd have while my mom tried to kill him with her eyes, haha. I appreciated Paul's effort too. :)
And then a few weeks later, in the middle of packing up and selling our house, stressing about Visas and airline tickets and 100 other things, I get a text: "Paul and I are getting married." A text?! For that??! Mother! I read the message, got dizzy and had to sit down on the kitchen floor before I passed out. I handed the phone to Shane, who probably shrugged and said something like "Oh, okay." I called Mom to yell at her about texting something so significant and then congratulated her on the news. The wedding would be the week before Shane flew to New Zealand, and Paul would be moving into Mom's house after. Hallelujah!!
The lead up to the wedding was not without stress but it was with a lot of joy. The day itself was lovely and nice and exciting as two families that had known each other for a very long time and each gone through some really tough circumstances became a sort of patched together one. I know Shane breathed a sigh of relief when Paul pledged to take care of Mom through sickness and health and the inevitable house fire she was sure to light one day. Shane was off the hook ;)
I'll fast forward this story a bit since it's getting long: Paul moved to mom's house. We moved to New Zealand. And Paul Baker -- the quintessential West Virginia boy -- took two trips around the world to see his "Auckland family." He climbed volcanoes and showed off his farmer's tan at one of New Zealand's most famous beaches. He spent way too many hours sitting on the couch with the Boy watching Power Rangers. He rode in the back of our van and got kissed by our dog. He became family. :)
Earlier this week, I got a text (always with the texts!) that Paul was sick and in the ER. His heart rate was all over the place and he needed a surgery to install a pacemaker. Moments like this are the worst ones for us abroad. We're way too far from home to be of any help to anybody. We just feel....lost...and worried...and helpless.
Thankfully, the surgery went well. Paul is home and eating his meat-and-potatoes meals with a smile on his face. And I am so very glad. I never knew we needed a Paul in our life, but it turns out we did. Everybody needs someone like him. :)
We all love our Paul (which sounds a whole lot like Pa when the kids say it.) And we hope to have him around for a long, long time to come.
So, Paul, you better eat your vegetables!
