For two evenings he would disappear down into the workshop, door closed, radio on, with express instructions to me not to come in. I thought maybe he was finally going to get started on the big dollhouse he has told me he'd like to make Ruthie for Christmas this year.
Finally after spending two evenings knitting and listening to music and talking on the phone and becoming bored out of my skull, Jacob raced past me up the stairs three times each time yelling,
Don't look! Shut your eyes!
Then he came waltzing down the steps with a satisfied grin and told me to come up and see his surprise for me.
He said it was in our bedroom. The old summer bedroom with windows on three sides that is nestled in the trees at the very top of our old Victorian house, a room accessible only by passing through the bathroom that has the sink and the clawfoot tub but no toilet, that's in the water closet room at the top of the stairs. Once you cross the bathroom you duck down, if you're Jacob, and pass through a 3/4 sized door in the wall and hunch down the tiny hallway that opens up in what can only be described as a conservatory for all the branches framing the windows and all the sunlight that room receives in a day.
For the record, I don't have to duck or hunch getting into our room, it's perfectly sized for 5-feet-tall me.
All the lights were off upstairs. I went through the bathroom and opened our door and stepped into a...midnight garden.
Along the windows were hanging mason jars with fireflies in them. Not real fireflies, he made 18 of these beautiful pretend-firefly lights after seeing them in the new Signals catalog. He strung them in front of the windows and they look magical. It really completes what is a very simple airy room with the trees outside and the white painted furniture and pale green walls.
It made me happy. I have a long standing love affair with strings of tiny lights inside and outside the house and these are so pretty. I tried and tried to get decent pictures but they just don't work sufficiently. Suffice it to say it was a wonderful and effortful surprise.
Another surprise was that he convinced Sam to seek approval for another minister, a return to the former community minister set-up Jacob had before in Carolyn, who has moved on to different pastures. Jacob doesn't want to risk getting spread thin again and has opted not to take on hospice (or even the separate chaplaincy gig) this time around. I doubt the church will go for yet another salary dip into the coffers for a third minister but Jacob is adamant about not doing it. Which is weird but logical. I find it weird anyway. He usually jumps in with both feet. Before looking. I guess I can just chalk it up to him having a balance at last.
Oh and I won't mention the vandalism! Consisting of awful words scrawled with a key or an icepick or something! On my side of the truck! Cannot shake my happy mood! Ruining Jacob's father's awesome paint job! Fuck!
I'm trying so hard here, give me credit.
