And there was a light. . .

           “Mommy, Mommy!  There’s a light in the refrigerator.”  I remember hearing the thrill of my five-year-old daughter’s call from the make-shift kitchen of our ancient farm house rental in Watsonville close to 37 years ago.  I had been divorced two years, struggling to get by while working swing shift at a local convalescent hospital.  We were renting one half of a 100 year old farmhouse.  I’d finally gotten around to scraping the layers of wallpaper off the bathroom walls, patching the falling plaster, and painting.  However, any further repairs were hampered by an overwhelming tiredness brought on by working swing-shift full-time, raising two small children alone, and trying to reconcile myself to being divorced at 30.

            I’m feeling the same numbing dullness now at 67 as a widow of almost two years.  Awake at 5am I check email and play ‘Words With Friends’ on my Iphone until I can almost fall back to sleep.  If I can’t, I accept the positive view of at least I got six hours of being horizontal.  Some mornings I stand my body up and begin my day.  Others find me rolling around in the rack battling memories.

            This morning I entertained myself with the panorama of questions around the idea of moving.  I realized wherever I go, there I will be.  That’s no problem.  What baffles me is: Do I rent?  Buy?  Couch Surf?  Do I sell?  Rent?  Hire a Caretaker?  Hell, I don’t know.  One possibility has surfaced that is intriguing.  It involves trading houses, mine for one in Willits.  Attention to that scenario holds the emotional nuances of “OMG! That could really happen!”  I sidestepped my worries of what I might be getting into with that solution along with some of the sorrow about leaving the home Y and I had built by searching for some kind of bright thought that could lead me into my future.

            That’s when I stumbled over the memory of my daughter’s thrill of a light in the refrigerator.  We’d been using a frightfully old one with no light since we’d moved in, and a friend had brought a used one he’d had in his garage to replace it.  Lynnette had gotten out of bed before me and must’ve become curious so opened the new door that morning.

            Funny how a small thing like a light in the refrigerator can blossom into a high point.  Every time I have opened any refrigerator since then, I’ve remembered the timbre of her pleased voice.  The whole idea has even more importance when one understands that in 1981we moved into a 20-year-old trailer in the woods where we didn’t even have a fridge, just a hole in the earth with a trash can inside to hold our perishables.  I’ve had various propane refrigerators ever since.  None of them have had a light because it requires electricity, and small propane refrigerators rarely have light bulbs.

            When I move, I could have a refrigerator with a light in it.