Our House Is a Very, Very, Very Fine House...

June 14, 2023

Our House Is a Very, Very, Very Fine House...

Our house is a very, very, very fine house
With two cats in the yard

Life used to be so hard...

My home, this morning. Mom and Dad's wedding peonies are blooming.

When I was a teenager, I remember bringing the mail to my Mom and she opened a letter to realize that their mortgage was paid off! She was ecstatic! Perfect timing actually as my parents were on the verge of a 20 year project of sending 8 children to college—me being the first to "fly the nest".

Opening my bills this morning, I unexpectedly discovered that my mortgage is paid off. Perfect timing actually as I will leave my post as acting dean of the Stiller School of Business this July. This will considerably help with my bills as I retire again.

Amazingly it is the first home I have ever paid off the mortgage without selling it to do so. This milestone at this time feels like it is readying me for my next. Giving me space to breathe a bit.

This house and I have gone through ALOT in the almost three years since Jim's final days, beginning with the flooring coming up in the studio, the roof needing to be repaired, water leaking between the main floors leading to walls and ceilings needing to be repaired, then the entire legal affair over the flooding from the neighboring property and all that repair that could only begin once that was settled with the entire process taking over two years, and of course the windows being replaced, yard regraded, on and on. Oh yes and all the appliances that broke and went kaput—starting with the water pump when the house lost power as Jim was dying, but then also the microwave, refrigerator, dishwasher, then the stove and washing machine and then all of the normal repairs I learned to do myself—changing large and small water filters, dust filters in the furnace, electrical wiring and lighting fixtures, and completely redoing the pond when it leaked, repainting and repairing the deck and porch, a never-ending list it seems.

So many repairs in the last three years...

The flooring came up and was moldy which meant...

the roof was leaking.

Lights out so...

I learned to do wiring—remembering what I had seen Jim do

Half of the windows on the house needed replacing.

Plumbing between floors was leaking which meant...

Moving ALL the furniture, repairing, replastering, and painting.

The flooding caused when the property next door was raised ruining the driveway...

But more importantly detaching the porch and deck from the house.

Repairing that took two and a half years of wrangling and included regrading the property upending the plantings.

The funny thing is, the last movie that Tegan, Jim, and I watched together under blankets and masked up out on the back porch as it was Memorial Day weekend during the beginning of the pandemic, was The Money Pit. I had never seen it. It was a favorite of Jim's. After he died, in that time of my life of extreme grief and isolation, the way I managed this colossal task was through the belief, that like me, our property was also grieving. I know the dogs were. I mean hours before Jim died, as he was surrounded by his sisters, the bookshelf he made for me collapsed. To me, the way I see it is that the universe had to exert that kind of vortex to pull Jim from this life, this home, and us. He embraced us that hard. Even the stop sign at the end of the street—the one we would walk the dogs to and he would jump up to touch each time, the one with his fingerprints on it, that stop sign also was replaced the week he died after it was destroyed by the freak storm that hit our street and caused the power to go out. What I've learned, of course, is that not everything in life can be repaired and things are just things.

All of these repairs, each one of these painful decisions, I've had to manage on my own, all of these things I needed to learn to do without my Mr. Fix It. I've learned to turn to friends and contractors whom I trust, to reach out, and that Google and Youtube are amazing teachers. The positive, I suppose is that I've learned a lot and I feel confident that I can deal with almost anything now. In a deep way, I feel like I built this house twice: first with Jim, and then without him.

And still the note has left me so melancholy. A good night's sleep will restore me but first I needed to grieve again my beloved Jim, the dreams we never got to see come true together, and surprisingly I had to grieve once again for my parents as well. They had been part of this property too; visiting to see it being built, bringing the blue spruces bought at year end for $5.00 at Wegman's, helping to plant some of my hydrangeas, and more. Today I'm missing Jim, Dad, and Mom. I'm wishing they were here to celebrate this transition. Transition to what I am not sure... I do love this little piece of paradise but is it too much for me alone? Some day soon enough, it will be. But not this lovely, dew soaked morning.

Mom and Dad 2006

Mom on a visit

Dad on a visit

Jim inspecting the work of the builders 2006

Jim in our "new" home always with a coffee in hand.

Jim inspecting the work of the builders 2006

Jim with the last big house project he completed - our deck built the summer before he was diagnosed with cancer. He seemed so fit. It will always be hard to comprehend.