The light in my bathroom keeps blinking off and on.  I’ve changed the light bulb but don’t know what else to do.

The thermostat keeps giving me an error message.  I need to call a repairman.

The handle fell off of my bathroom door.  I could fix it if I had the screw, but it seems to have vanished.  So every time I forget and close the bathroom door all the way, I have to get the handle off of its now dedicated spot next to the sink and jam it into the spot where it goes to open the door.

I took the cover off my bedroom light to replace the bulb, then lost the knob that holds the cover on.  I have since found the knob, but still have not replaced the cover because I’ve already folded up the ladder.

There is a mountain of boxes in the garage that need to be broken down and put out to recycle.

All of our bike tires are flat.

My kids don’t know how to ride their bikes.

They also don’t know how to tie their shoes.

There are two large pictures that need hanging.

The door is about to fall off that corner cupboard in the kitchen again.  I’m always leaning on it, but I always pretended like I didn’t know how it always broke.  He pretended to believe me.

The grill is filthy and needs a good cleaning.

Of course, there are also a lot of things around here that need to be done as a result of Trey’s death.  There is sorting and getting rid of things, rearranging things, not to mention the whole nesting instinct that kicks in.  So my house is half painted.  The above list, however, is a list of things that Trey normally handled and now he is not here.  His dad used to buy dilapitated houses and the would enlist Trey’s help fixing them up for rent or sale.  This was years – decades – before “house flipping” would be a thing.  The point is that Trey could rewire things, install thermostats, repair plumbing — he was a super handy “guy-guy.”  And now he’s gone.  And it’s not like I’m a girly princess who can’t fix things.  I hang my own shelves and I installed our video game systems and I can do a lot of these things. The things I can’t do, my dad can do or I can hire someone.

But he used to do them.  He took care of things like broken door handles and flickering lights.  He knew what to do about furnaces, and didn’t mind getting out the ladder.

I hate these daily reminders that he’s not here to take care of things.

Meanwhile, there is a jar of strawberry jelly in the fridge that I absolutely cannot open.