Picture Window Preparation

Monday morning, Gavin got a call from Mark, our window man. After nearly two months working around the weather & his health problems, he said Wednesday was the day.

That meant Monday night was time to bust the glass block out. Gavin started in the top right corner using his hammer drill between the blocks, breaking up the mortar. It didn’t come easy because the top row was glued to the wood frame. He drilled harder, leaning into it as the 10 foot ladder he was standing on fidgeted back & forth. I couldn’t watch. Dust plumed into the air as I closed the door & went downstairs to the kitchen to make dinner.

Awful sounds of crashing & banging echoed above my head. I stood there nervously eating asparagus, looking up at the ceiling in the dining room. Bits of white plaster & dust descended from cracks around the pipes, peppering the floor below. The house shuddered with booms & thuds.

Each time I went upstairs & opened the bathroom door though, it seemed like my prayers were answered. Gavin hadn’t fallen off the ladder & everything seemed to be going well. The stack of glass blocks grew until every one was out & intact.

Before we began cleaning it up, we walked outside on the patio & sat on the step facing the door. Only the light from the house shown out, illuminating the darkness. “It’s nights like these that are going to make our dreams for this house come true,” he said. We were both tired & sore but knew we had to keep going.

Back inside, I trudged to the bathroom, wheelbarrow in tow. I grabbed each block with my orange rubber-gloved hands & placed them in. The first load I put in too many. Gavin grabbed the handles & started down the hallway to the back door. I carried the light beside him as he started rolling faster down the hill to the dumpster. The tire hit a rut when he tried to turn & every glass block flew out into the yard at our feet.

We worked to throw them back in along with chunks of broken glass that looked like ice cubes in the light. We dumped that load then & went back to do the same thing four more times. He stopped me in the hallway before the last trip back down. “Give me your hands,” he said. He held his out. They were charcoal grey, covered with dirt & mortar dust. I placed mine in his. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to make this house everything we dream of,” his blue eyes, deep & intense. He continued, “We’re building something here, and we’re building it together.” He squeezed my hands. “You & me.”

We collapsed into bed around midnight.

Tuesday was similar. What needed to be finished was getting the leftover rubble swept up, installation off & finally the wood shutters that had been covering this original double-door entryway for as long as anyone can remember. The only problem was that Mark wasn’t returning our calls. Gavin left two messages explaining that we were on our last step & wanted to make sure he was coming out in the morning. No response.

Gavin called my dad to ask his opinion. “Should we take off the shutters even though we haven’t heard from Mark?” That was the final piece. Removing them meant a completely open hole in the front of our house. He said we could always tarp it for a day if we needed to.

So Gavin & I set the platforms in place and climbed the two-story scaffolding to begin unscrewing the wood. Being up on that wobbly thing without railings was its own adventure. After feeling like two people on the platform was one too many, I climbed to the side and draped my arm over the metal bar, holding the other one out in the air. I looked down at the brick walkway below, wondering how trapeze artists do what they do. I laughed to myself wondering what people driving by might be thinking at the sight of a crazy couple two stories up doing who knows what to their house.

The shudders didn’t come off easy. We came back inside & I handed him a sledge hammer. We were going to have to break the wood to pieces. Each time he swung, a bit of the outside emerged before our eyes. Eventually we had an enormous square opening. We stepped back & gazed at the outside that was now in our bathroom. There was not much else to do so we closed the door & went to bed praying that Mark would arrive with the window the next day.

Wednesday morning came. Gavin had gotten up before me with still no answer from our window man. He decided to call the delivery company & see if it was still being dropped off at our house today as planned. I heard the door open to the bedroom & Gavin walked in slowly, “Honey, I have some bad news.” I rolled over to face him. “Mark passed away yesterday.”

We stared at each other wide-eyed not sure what to do next. Mark had just talked to Gavin Monday, how could it be? Gavin explained that the woman he spoke with said she received a call from Mark’s daughter canceling the job due to his passing. He had been in just a day before buying all of the supplies for our installation. Our window was the last job he had been working on.

We opened the bathroom door. Morning light poured in through the gaping hole in our house, illuminating everything. How could we find someone to put in this huge window with such short notice? I called my mom while he called every contractor in the area explaining our situation. No one was able to come out. Many were booked until July. My dad called one of the contractors he knows & caught him just in time. The man said he could be out to the house at noon, the very same time the window was being delivered. It was a Wednesday morning miracle only by the grace of God & good parents.

After going through a roller coaster of emotions, I told Gavin goodbye & headed to work, eagerly awaiting the time I could return home & finally see the window in place.

To be continued . . .