A Death in the Family Room

Over the weekend we suffered a loss. It was unexpected and sudden and left us grasping for answers. It's not easy going through something like this. I'm hoping that by sharing it, I can connect with someone out there going through something similar and ease their pain somewhat.

I'll just say it—our TV died.

It happened so  fast, I'm not sure I can remember all the details. It was Sunday, about noon. We were at the house, Karen and I, watching a football game that we had recorded the day before. All of a sudden—pfft. No picture, just sound.

Denial is always the first stage. We tried all the buttons on the remote. Nothing. I checked the cables in the back, which, of course, was a hopeless tangled mess. So I assumed they were OK. This couldn't be happening. There had to be an explanation, a fix, a button we hadn't pushed yet!

Finally I called it. "There's nothing we can do. It's broken." That's when the Anger stage set in.

"What about my football games?!" Karen demanded. Yes, in our house, I'm the football widow. She'll tape about 7-8 college and pro games every week. I usually watch them with her with a book in my lap.

"Sorry," I said helplessly. "l'll do some research on the web. Maybe there's a fuse or a reset or something."

Karen shook her head. She looked at the TV, then shook her head again. Then she picked up the phone and called our daughter, Michaela, who's up in Gainesville at UF.

"Guess what just died," she said.

"The car?" guessed Michaela.

"Worse. The TV."

Then, Depression set in. We made lunch and, as is our custom, brought it over to the couch and set our plates on our TV trays. We ate in silence for a few moments, gazing absently at a TV that wouldn't look back at us. We looked at each other, then at the seldom used dining room table, and we laughed at ourselves.

"I guess we could've sat there for a change," Karen said.

"Old habits die hard," I said, nodding.

After lunch I started poking around on the web and discovered that there was a class action suit against Samsung for certain model TVs, about a faulty power unit. Sure enough, ours was one of those models, so I called 'em up, stated my situation, and was told someone from their Product Liability team would call me back in a day or two as to what, if anything, they are willing to do in the way of paying for part or all of the repair.

So we did the only thing we could do – find the biggest screen possible to get our fix. We went to the movies and had a good time. We discovered that life goes on, and we moved into the Acceptance stage. Monday night after dinner we had a nice fire in our firepit out back, listened to a '70s playlist on Spotify on our iPad, and talked. Today, Karen went to dinner and a play with a friend, and I went fishing with my brother.

Three evenings without TV, and no telling how long it'll take. Who knows how long we can hold out? We do have that half-finished jigsaw puzzle we started a couple weeks ago, sitting on a card table, waiting for our attention. We have plenty of books and magazines and board games. But we also have football games stacked up in the queue, not to mention episode after episode of Scandal, Ellen, Jimmy Fallon, to name a few. Life is passing us by while we wait for our TV to get fixed! First World problems. They strike hard and cut deep.