Small Blessings

Sometimes things that at first seem bad turn out okay. In this case it has caused Number One Son a little pain, but I think what he is getting will more than offset that.

A couple of weeks ago, he came downstairs earlier than I anticipated. He waited a minute I guess to be sure that I had my composure, and then turned to face me so that I could see full-face the damage to his bottom lip, which had a gaping scar and was swollen to at least twice its normal size.


The story was that the night before, after he had crawled into bed, he had been tussling with Soldier Son's big dog. I had just taken Tank to the vet a day or two earlier, so I knew he weighed about 70 pounds, more than half what I guess Number One Son weighs. The play had escalated to the point that Tank had taken on the attitude he uses when he plays with the Alpha Bitch; the difference is apparently that the Alpha Bitch's skin  is much tougher the Number One Son's, so hers is not as likely to puncture,  tear, and bleed. Number One Son's, obviously, is.

Number One Son moped around the house for a day out or two, nursing his wounded lip and feeling sorry for himself, especially since he didn't see his pizza delivery customers tipping very generously the guy with the swollen, scarred lip. But he soldiered on, doing the job in spite of himself.

So I was a little surprised a couple of days later when he slunk downstairs and turned to face me with a nasty scrape on his left cheek, just below the eye. "How did you get that?" I asked him.

"That's not the worst of it," he said. "Look at my tooth."

Sure enough, half the left front tooth was broken off. Of course, that's also the side where his lip was busted. So now the left side of his face had a scrape the size of a tennis ball, a broken tooth, a swollen lip, and a nasty gash. He was a sight. And he still had to deliver pizzas.

"What did you do this time?" I asked him.

"I was roughhousing with a friend."

"Who?" I guessed a couple of names. At first, he didn't want to tell me, but finally he admitted it was Shrek, the kid who had lived with us for a while not too long ago. "How did he do that?" I asked. Knowing Shrek, I didn't figure he meant to hurt my son. but I wouldn't be too surprised if he's close to twice my kid's  weight.

Sure enough, the guys had been tussling, the testosterone had kicked in, and weight had apparently overcome strength. And Number One Son looked like something the cat dragged in. Aside from not having any kind of medical or dental insurance to take care of the damage to his body, Number One Son was not too hopeful about his tips that night.

I offered him a deal. I've had a bunch of jobs I've needed help with ever since he moved in here, but his enthusiasm for them has been, to put it mildly, low. This time I had a bit of a carrot: I'm okay financially, and I could more likely afford dental work than he can. I shudder to think of the cost of a cap for that tooth, especially since I know the dentist will see the condition of his other teeth. But I think he shudders to think of going through life with a broken tooth.

I had found a deal on a really cheap greenhouse that happened to be in my garage at the time. I had already told him that his Mother's Day gift to me was going to be to assemble my greenhouse. But now I had that carrot: I was (and still am) willing to credit him at $10 an hour to do some of the chores around the house until he earns enough to pay at least most of the cost of the cap—but if and only if he would get started on them during the next week. I didn't plan to count any part of assembling the greenhouse as credit toward the new tooth, but of course I had no idea how long "greenhouse assembly" takes.

The next week, I had to be away from home on business, and I told him the deal would only work if he got started while I was gone. I didn't hold my breath, so I was happily surprised about the middle of the week when I got a photo text message from him. Not only did I see the frame assembled on the greenhouse, but the message came early in the afternoon. That had to mean not only that he had been working on my project, but also that he had not slept two-thirds of the day away. I was pretty impressed!

A day or two later, I got another snapshot, this time of the greenhouse with the sides put together. I replied immediately—and truthfully—that I was excited and could hardly wait to get home to see what he had done.

I was able to get away early enough Friday afternoon to get home well before dark. I was thinking so much about getting there in time to see the greenhouse (and I really needed to go to the potty) that I almost didn't notice the wrought iron fish tank stand at the front edge of my parking space in the garage. Fortunately, I did see it,and it was just far enough out of the way that I didn't knock it down.

Number One Son hadn't told me that he had also started another project. I've had the old fish tank stand since shortly after I married, and over the years it has collected enough rust that it has occasionally needed to be sanded and repainted. The sanding and painting part hasn't happened for too long a time now, and since the dogs somehow managed to crack the fish tank (which was, fortunately, empty at the time), it seemed like a good idea to repaint the stand before I installed the new tank. I had asked Number One Son some time ago to check with body shop that had a sandblaster to see if they could strip it down for us, but so far he hadn't done anything about that.

Sometime while I was gone, however, he talked to a friend's dad who also has a body shop. The dad lent him a couple of tools that helped him knock the bigger pieces of rust off the iron and had recommended good old hand sanding for the rest of it; Number One Son obviously had put in some time at that. It wasn't looking great yet, but it was a whole lot better than the last time I had seen it. And it meant that he had been out of bed and moving while I was gone.

The greenhouse saga clearly isn't over with. The greenhouse is standing and looks pretty good, but the land in the back slopes, and I'm afraid that's going to affect the way the door opens and closes, so were going to have to do something about leveling it and giving it some sort of foundation. I think we've pretty much agreed that standing it on garden timbers and filling the inside with pea gravel will just about make me happy. We cruised the hardware store yesterday and came out with wire brushes and paint for the fish tank stand and some ideas for landscape timber and pea gravel. And I conceded that Number One Son had contributed more than his share in constructing the greenhouse, so the time he spends on the foundation will all count toward his new tooth.

Yesterday afternoon he was back at Shrek's house. Broken tooth or not, Shrek is still his friend. And Number One Son is on a mission: he needs a truck to haul timbers and pea gravel, and Shrek has a truck that has needed some repair. Since Number One Son has some training as a mechanic, he fixed the truck, and now Shrek can help with the hauling. It probably won't hurt Shrek to help with the loading, either.

I'm happy to see my little greenhouse standing in the backyard, and I'm happy to see the progress coming along on the fish tank stand, but most of all, I'm happy to see Number One Son grinning. I think he's pretty proud of what he's done, and I think he's proud of himself for getting up and getting moving.

I'm proud of him, too.