I was awaked by glaring sunshine that streamed through the southeast glass of my bungalow bedroom.
Squinting and shielding my eyes from the death ray sunbeam, I was able to discern the time on my bedside clock. 9:48 AM.
If it hadn't been for the urgent call from my bladder, I may have lolled about longer, but I forced myself to rise.
I was up thirty four minutes earlier than yesterday.
The shocking reflected image in the bathroom mirror made me take stock my life.
Ten days after my meltdown, I decided that I would shave today. I might even get dressed.
Ten days ago I was in the Westside Hospital operating theater, struggling to resuscitate the 36 year old female accident victim I had been working on for the past hour.
Ten days ago I told the family of the mother of two, she didn't make it.
Ten days ago I walked out, vowing to never perform surgery again.
The question now was, "What was I, Dr. Oscar Simpson, going to do with the rest of my life? At 63, there was lots of life left.
Physically, I would give myself an 8 out of 10.
Playing hockey twice a week with my Oldtimers hockey team maintained a basic level of fitness. The locker room banter with my crude and vulgar teammates and partaking in a couple of chilled after game Molson Canadians, were the best parts of my life in this moment.
I would definitely not be giving that up.
Maybe I would travel. My last vacation was more than five years ago. I would never forget that trip.
Basking in the springtime sun on the Balcon de Europa in Nerja, Spain, I stood overlooking the Mediterranean. It was at that moment that my wife of thirty four years basically told me to 'fuck off'. She needed to go find herself.
Financially I was not as well off as I once was. Divorce will do that.
Still, I had no immediate worries about getting by for the time being. As I was no longer receiving a paycheck, I would need to find some way to supplement my modest annual investment income.
My ex-wife got the house by the lake and half the investment accounts.
As part of the settlement, I got the rental property in a middle class section of the city. We had purchased it as an investment.
I took occupancy after the current lease expired, from the tenants who had recently purchased their starter home. It had been my residence for the past four and a half years.
The jury was still out on my emotional well being.
I made a commitment to myself that today I would shave. Who knows what I could accomplish tomorrow?
By midafternoon, I was starting to feel better about myself. Not only was I clean shaven, I had fed myself and was even considering firing up the BBQ later on. I still hadn't dressed. Maybe tomorrow.
Pondering what my next great achievement would be, my smug satisfaction was disturbed by the incessant chiming of my doorbell.
"Oh good Oscar, I wasn't sure you were here." Jenny Crowe, my distraught next door neighbour, said as I opened the door. "I'm running late to pick my mom up and my garage door won't open. Derek is away. I don't know what to do."
"It started opening and there was a loud bang before it crashed down. Now it won't go up at all."
"Sounds like your tension spring broke. I can open it manually and get you going. You will have to park outside until it's repaired."
With some great effort, I manhandled the door open and held it while she backed out.
Later, as I prepared to BBQ dinner, the doorbell rang again.
Jenny stood on my doorstep with a bottle of Chianti. "Thanks for the rescue earlier." she said, handing me the wine.
"Happy I could help. I'm just about to put a couple of burgers on the grille. Care to join me?"
"I ate with my mother, but you could talk me into a glass of wine."
My relationship with the Crowe family was friendly, but not especially close.
Derek was a long haul trucker who was away more than he was home. Jenny worked from her home office for a national insurance company.
They had two children.
Nineteen year old Gavin, was in first year business at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
Twenty two year old Emma was a barista at the neighbourhood Starbucks and lived at home. She was unwed and in her seventh month of pregnancy.
A look of disappointment crossed Jenny's face as I drained the last splash of the wine into her glass. It turned to a smile when I uncorked a bottle of Borolo.
For the first time today, I realized my spirits had lifted significantly since my inauspicious start to the day.
I thought about how I would deal with tomorrow and for no logical reason, I said to Jenny, "I have a lot of free time on my hands. I would be happy to fix your garage door."
"I couldn't ask you to do that." Jenny replied.
"The same thing happened to my sister last year. I fixed it for her, no problem. Besides I need something to get me out of bed."
"In that case, I gratefully accept. You'll have to come for dinner tomorrow."
Aside from a slight hangover, I awoke with a sense of purpose for the first time since my meltdown eleven days ago.
Surfing the net, I located a local supplier of parts and a call verified that everything I needed was in stock.
Four hours later as I stood in the shower reflecting on what I had accomplished. I felt pretty good.
I loved to create things with my hands, even if one of those hands had bleeding knuckles. In this case it was courtesy of the wrench that slipped off the tension spring locking nut. Replacing the spring certainly wasn't surgery, but it was satisfying and no one had died.
Jenny was extremely pleased as she tested the door operation. She seemed equally disappointed when I passed on dinner.
I awoke the next day with a cheerier attitude, actually eager to tackle another project. There were endless things in need of repair on my 60 year old bungalow and overgrown property.
My first priority was to identify the items that were in disrepair, creating a 'Job Jar' with individual slips for each project.
Reaching into the jar, I pulled 'Fix front gate'.
Later as I stood proudly testing the operation of the replaced hinge and latch, a voice behind me said, "Nice job."
I turned to see a distinguished 70ish man approaching with a Golden Retriever on a leash.
"Mayer Landon. I live on the corner." he said extending his hand.
"Oscar Simpson. Pleased to meet you."
"You do good work." he said inspecting my handywork. "Guess I won't be doing any odd jobs for you. I'm the local handyman. No problem any way, There's more jobs around here than I can handle."
A few days later, Mayer stopped again as I was trimming the hedge.
"You like doing all this stuff?" he asked.
"Surprising to me, but, yes." I replied.
"Been thinking about an idea. Like I said before, I do odd jobs. Can't take some on because it requires two men. Sometimes it's just beyond my skill set. We could call our company, 'Handywork by Landon/Simpson." Mayer said getting excited by the possibilities.
"How about 'Oscar Mayer' instead? It already has good name recognition, don't you think?" I replied, trying to keep a serious look on my face.
Mayer looked confused for a second before cocking his head and groaning as the meaning of my crude sense of humour dawned on him.
"It's a kind offer but I'll pass on the partnership." I said. "Happy to help though, if you call me when you need an extra pair of hands."
I moved to the backyard in the afternoon and worked at trimming the Juniper hedge delineating the property line between my yard and Jenny's.
Midway down the length of the overgrown row of shrubbery, my electric pruning tool hit something solid. Investigation showed it to be a rotting wooden gate hidden in the lush vegetation. It had once provided access to the Crowe's yard.
As I sheared off a few more thick branches, the gate fell into the yard next door and shattered.
The noise caused Jenny's daughter, Emma to jump out of the sun lounger where she was tanning a few feet away.
The young blond now stood before me, naked except for a miniscule bikini bottom which left little for me to imagine.
We both froze in place, before she retrieved the towel she had been laying on and covered up. The pause had given me a full frontal view of her tanned, 22 year old naked body. Her ample bosom, accentuated by large dark areolas and puffy thick nipples were now firmly etched into my lascivious brain for future recall.
I should mention, the only thing that turns me on as much as an attractive mature woman, is a pregnant woman of any age in her third trimester. Emma was as alluring as any I had seen.
It probably didn't help that it had been more than two months since the last time I had been laid.
The clatter had brought Jenny out to investigate and what could have been an embarrassing encounter never materialized.
"I forgot that gate was there. It's been years since we last used it." Jenny said.
"Should we let the shrubs grow in and close the opening?" I questioned.