Our Shed

There’s a shed in our backyard that has absolutely no right to still be standing.
And yet, after more than twenty years of weather, wind, and one very determined evergreen tree trying to swallow it whole, it remains - tilted slightly, a little offended by time, but standing all the same.

Every time I look at it, I’m taken right back to the day Terry and I decided to build it.
As always, we were a team: he did the thinking, and I did the climbing, lifting, and running around. His multiple sclerosis had already taken away too much mobility, but it never touched his confidence - or his belief that any project could be conquered with a little determination and the right tools.

So we bought ourselves a shed kit.

Now, “kit” sounds innocent. Friendly, even. What arrived was… well, let’s just call it thousands of pieces loosely disguised as a weekend project. Panels, screws, mysterious metal strips with no clear purpose. I opened the box and felt the kind of quiet dread normally reserved for tax season.

Terry, undisturbed, opened the instruction book. He adjusted his glasses like a foreman about to assign tasks.

“Alright,” he said. “Let’s gather the tools. We’ll need some Allen wrenches of different sizes, a hammer, a cripple and a midget, a lever...”

I froze mid-step.

“A… what?” I asked.

He looked down at the page, fully serious. “A cripple and a midget. It says so.”

There was a long, suspended beat in which both of us stared at each other, and I realized what he did.

And then we laughed.
A deep, ridiculous, unstoppable kind of laughter - the kind that makes your ribs ache and your eyes water and reminds you that even hard days can hold joy.

It took hours after that. Screws went missing. Walls shifted. I’m almost certain I put part of the roof on upside-down and just pretended I didn’t. But somehow, that shed came together. Maybe not perfectly, but with enough heart and teamwork to carry it through two decades of storms.

Now the tree beside it has grown wild and generous, crowding in close as if it has decided to keep the shed company. The mountains behind it shift with the seasons, catching the last light of the day like a soft reminder that time moves, but memory stays.

And every time I glance at that crooked little structure, I hear Terry’s voice again, feel the warmth of that shared laughter, and remember exactly who we were that day.