Tom Lively had run “Lively Hardware” in Cedar Falls, Iowa, for over thirty years. It wasn’t the biggest store in town, but everyone knew Tom; he’d help you pick the right bolt or fix a leaky faucet, and he kept the shelves neat as a pin.
For the last few months, though, Tom had been feeling off. It started as a mild tiredness, just the kind of fatigue you chalk up to being sixty-four and always on your feet. Then came the chest tightness. “Probably indigestion,” he told his wife, Joan, while chewing antacids between customers. Even when the dizziness started, he’d laugh it off and say he just needed to eat lunch earlier.
Joan had her concerns. “Tom, let’s just get you checked out. You can’t help customers if you’re not around,” she told him one night as they sat on the back porch, watching the neighbor’s corn sway in the breeze.
But Tom had always been stubborn, and business had been picking up, lots of folks doing home projects before winter hit. One crisp October morning, while restocking paint cans, he collapsed, just like that.
The EMTs said it was a mild heart attack. The doctor later said it could’ve been worse—much worse—if Tom hadn’t gotten to the hospital when he did. Tom stayed in for four days, and during that time, the shop stayed closed. When he got back home, Joan had already put up a sign on the front door: “Closed for the week. Health comes first.”
Tom still runs the store now, but he opens later, closes earlier, and takes a long lunch break at home. He keeps his follow-up appointments and even walks a few laps around Pfeiffer Park each evening with Joan. And every time someone comes in and says they’ve been ignoring a cough or some nagging pain, Tom tells them gently, “The screws can wait. You can’t.”