I couldn’t quite figure out what I was looking at, but I knew it was something special by the sparkle in my husband Jason’s eyes.
“Well, what do you think,” he asked, with a grin stretching from ear to ear.
“What’s it supposed to be,” I asked, with my hands on my hips.
“It’s a shed,” he said, throwing his arm in the air, expecting a high-five no doubt.
Jason had spent the last week constructing this “shed” for us. Asking for no help or professional opinions, he built the structure entirely on his own.
It was assembled with used lumber that was left in our yard from the previous owner. The roof was made from rusty tin Jason pulled off a long abandoned house on our land. The front door was also taken off that same house.
“I only spent money on the nails,” he said, patting the dusty wood with obvious pride. “I even had some left over.”
“You can tell,” I said.
The whole idea came about when I went through the house complaining about not having room to put anything. Like most wives, I figured if I stomped my feet loud enough and pouted, I would get my way. Jason’s never been one of those guys who catches on to hints, however.
When I refused to cook supper, Jason went to work on getting me a storage building in the back yard.
But in no way did I expect him to actually build me a shed, much less out of old, used material.
“It’s leaning,” I said, pulling my children away from the massive structure.
“No it’s not,” Jason replied. “You’re just looking at it wrong. Don’t tilt your head so much.”
It was a mess. This leaning “shed” was built right next to my beautiful home. It was actually right outside my bedroom window. Instead of waking up to a view of my pond and nice trees, I would now be rising to the sight of a building that resembled something from a prison camp.
“People can see this you know,” I said. “As soon as people pull up the driveway, they are going to see this shed.”
“Oh baby, people are going to want to come see it,” Jason said. “They are probably gonna want me to build one on their place. Just think, this was my first time to build one.”
I decided to let him keep the shed up because he was so proud of it, and he did work so hard to give me what I wanted.
But I was never expecting what happened next.
I heard a truck pulling up the driveway, only to discover it was Jason’s brother Eric with his entire family.
“I wasn’t expecting them,” I said.
Eric gets out of his truck with a massive roll of orange, surveying ribbon.
“We’re here for the ribbon-cutting ceremony,” Eric bellowed, like a true Patterson.
“Are you kidding me,”I asked.
But before I got an answer, Jason shoved a camera in my hand.
“If you are not gonna participate, you can at least take a picture,” Jason said, lining everyone up in front of the shed.
A ribbon cutting? Is this the life I have chosen?
And as everyone stood in front of the leaning shed, holding their share of a ribbon... I realized that yes, it is the life I have chosen.
And it was the best thing that has ever happened to me.
