Power and Dark
by Rob

Where were we when the lights went out?

In the dark. But not just literally.

I was in the office at school at about 2:30 this afternoon, when one of the secretaries answered the phone. I knew that it was for me, just by the way that she looked at me. “Rob Hileman? He’s right here.”

It was the transportation office at Schalmont, the kids’ school. They wanted to let me know that they had received word that Schermerhorn Road was closed and they would be dropping Nate off at the Schonowe building, an old elementary school at the end of our street. They wanted me to know that he would be walking home from there.

I needed more information. “Why is the road closed?... Where is the tree down?... Do you have anyway of finding out?” They didn’t, so I said, “no.” After I made it clear that Nate was not allowed to walk down the closed street where trees and power lines down, the nice woman agreed to have Nathan taken to Abbie’s elementary school. I said I’d pick them up there.

After I picked them up, we navigated our way to my 3:30 doctor appointment. It wasn’t as easy as I hoped it would be, since there were several major traffic lights that were not working. The kids helped me through the tough spots and we made it on time.

When we finally were able to head home from my appointment, we watched the houses very carefully. As we turned off Rice Road onto Schermerhorn, we could still see lights on in all of the houses and so we all thought things would be fine at house. Our hopes vanished pretty quickly though, as we soon came to a section of the street where the houses were dark. Then, we were greeted by what has become a familiar sight, traffic cones placed across the road just beyond the section that heads to our house. Closed.

Ahead there were all sorts of trucks and flashing lights. We parked in a neighbor’s driveway and made the rest of the way to our house on foot. As we got closer, it was clear that the tree had come down directly across from our house. There was tree and power pole debris everywhere. When I reached the edge of our yard I could finally see the worst of it; our power meter lay in the middle of our front yard. The falling tree snapped the power pole at the edge of our yard, and the force had ripped the entire service line off of our house. Crap.

The men working on the situation took immediate notice of us and wanted to know if this was our house. They explained that they were waiting for us, since they needed to get inside to assess if any damage to the breaker box had occurred from the force of the line being ripped off the house. Fortunately, there wasn’t any damage. They explained that we would need to get an electrician to come and make permanent repairs, but they would be able to give us a temporary hook up in the meantime.

At that point, Kim showed up, and like me, she was pissed. You see, the folks who own property across from our house, know that the trees on their land are sick. I know this for a fact. Yet, for the nearly eight years that we have lived here, even though this sort of thing has happened time and time again, they continue to allow these incidents to be treated as “acts of God.”

At this point, darkness fell. Not just the fading light in the sky, but Kim and I began to feed off of each other’s anger. We swore. We talked about calling a lawyer. We raised our voices. And we whined. All the time, Nate and Abbie were there, listening. It didn’t take long for me to regret my response. Our kids take so many leads from us. As of tonight, I’m sure that they must both think that when these things happen, someone else is to blame, someone who should be punished. At least that’s what we have led them to believe.

I keep hoping I’ll reach a point in my life where I stop saying things I’ll regret later.

Even though the lights have come back on during the time that I have been writing this, I’m still in the dark. Tomorrow I have to figure out how to get everything fixed. And how to pay for it. Yes, I assume that our insurance will cover it. And, yes, I expect that any electrician worth his or her salt will know the repair process from beginning to end. But still, I decided I’d have to take the day off just so I can deal with it.

Which brought me to my most sobering moment of the day. I called my supervisor to explain the situation and request an emergency personal day off. She wished me well and told me that she hoped that things would be okay. “It’s only stuff,” I said. It was at that point I remembered that her son is critically ill. Just yesterday she told me that she and her husband live from day to day knowing that he could die at any time. Right now they’re hoping he’ll be well enough to face another major heart surgery at the end of this month.

Not only is the power is back on, but none of this was ever a real problem in the first place.