From Sad Days Without Direction to the Happy to Help Handyman

Many people don’t realize how old we can get in what seems to be an instant. Sometimes we age just in thinking about ourselves. Years ago, when I was young, who would have thought simply holding my head up would tire me out and send me packing to bed or perhaps just to the old rocking chair where my grandfather used to sit on the porch and catch a nap?

At one time, I felt like no one was my equal. I swear it seemed when I was eighteen, I could hit a long drive through the mid-field, round first base, head straight out past second base, leap up and catch the ball, spin around and fire it all the way back to home while heading past third and sliding in for my run.

It was just ten in the morning. My wife had been at work since eight. I love cooking and serving breakfast for her. She deserves better than me. She’s the mother of our three children . . . plus, she puts up with me. My body seems to have aged prematurely.

I cleaned up the kitchen earlier and was now setting up the dinner table. I pulled two cake pans out of the oven and flipped them over on to the cooling racks following my wife’s orders. Later this afternoon I would add the frosting to the cake. My mind didn’t work like it used to, but it did work.

I would do my rounds of the neighborhood attempting to get some kind of yard work, or automobile tinkering to make me feel useful. It was better than nothing and it paid off about every other day. If I made no sales, I would have to rely on my wife’s income and I hated that. Tired, useless, and a loser . . . I couldn’t take too much more of this feeling of inadequate effort on my part.

It began when our eldest son, Drew, died in a car accident. It wasn’t his fault, but that’s no compensation. He was only seventeen, just beginning to get the feel of living his life his way. When he died, the joy went out of our lives. I lost my job at the factory due to depression; it just didn’t seem to matter to me and there was no program for mental health therapy in our health plan. I just settled further and further into the fugue.

Finally, I decided that I needed to get myself back on track. I’d always been a reliable and responsible man at home and on the job. I needed to find a way back to life. How could I redeem myself?

I finally decided that I had to do something to help someone else to ease my gloom. To begin with, I made a list of what I knew how to do; after all, I had helped my old man build the family home that we now live in. Now I had to learn how to sell my services to the neighbors, to begin building a cliental. I went around with my flyers and put them on everyone’s mailbox, offering to do handyman fix-its on small projects.

It began with a neighbor who had a bathroom light that had broken off at the stem when she tried to remove and replace it. That was simple and I did it in five minutes. The next day a neighbor across the street asked me to hang a storm door. That was easy as well. Three days later, I was called to unstop a bathroom sink.

As I kept doing job after job, I realized I had a talent that people needed. I went to the Small Business Association to see about working and getting paid for it. They were so much help, getting me all the paperwork I needed to keep track of all the work I would do. I got my license and my federal tax number.

After about six months of helping people get the job done, I felt wonderful. This doesn’t mean that I don’t still miss my son; I will miss him forever. Now, the Happy to Help Handyman is improving people’s lives, making money and making my Angie happier, too. And everything works at our house; cross your fingers!