Our neighbor, Fran, had offered Jeff a number of small household projects at his house so Jeff could test his strength and abilities close to home whenever he was ready. Fran suggested Jeff could scoot back home to rest as often as he needed to. I thought Jeff’s first tests would be done in his shop, not at the neighbor’s house, but Fran’s offer was very thoughtful. The two of them decided painting the front door would be the first project.
After not working for many months, the shop was looking more like our sons’ shop than Jeff’s and it took him some time to gather his supplies. He headed over to Fran’s to prep the door for painting. In no time, he was sweating profusely and he was shaking with the effort of scraping. He couldn’t lift his right arm over his head so he used his left hand. Fran kept insisting that Jeff go home to rest. Instead, he sat down frequently and then resumed his work. After an hour he had managed to do what he estimated would normally have been a half-hour’s work. And then it was quittin’ time; he couldn’t do any more that day. And guess what? The door was scraped, primed and ready for paint!
Jeff related all this to me with neither complaint nor pride. He was just a little concerned, I think. I asked him how he liked the one-hour infusion and he said it was “not a long enough nap.” That evening I don’t think I heard him once sigh or say his mantra, “I need a new body.” which is as close to a complaint as he ever gets. I guess you could say he is a bag-half-full kind of guy! Or, in this case, since the desired end is no bag, would he be a bag-half-empty kind of guy?
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