Dearest Rachel –
I haven’t forgotten that this is the five-month anniversary since your departure. It is going to be a long time (if ever, let’s face it) before I forget about the significance of the twenty-third of the month.
What’s interesting about it, is how often I have something going on – and more specifically, the start of something big. The very first month was when I first brought Jan in to start cleaning out the house, for instance. And now that we can actually walk around in places like the kitchen and the laundry room, I’m looking into starting the remodeling process we talked about as a pipe dream now and then back in the day.
I don’t think I’m doing this to drown out the fact that it’s the twenty-third; if I am, that strategy is failing miserably, as I’m clearly aware of what day it is even as I’m typing. Besides, it’s not as if other people’s schedules line up so that they start a project with me on the twenty-third on purpose. It’s all really just coincidental.
Then again, I recall hearing someone once say that ‘coincidence’ was just something God used when He’d rather not sign His name…
Anyway, I’ve engaged Detail Kitchen & Bath to take a look at the place, and see what can be done with it. They’d been a long-time customer of my Dad’s back in his sales rep days. You’ll remember the owners, George and Arlene, who went with us and the folks on our trip to Israel back in 2018. Well, now their son Michael runs the place, and has come here to find out what I want to do with these rooms, and what they can do to make everything I want a reality.
It’s a little difficult to answer their questions as to what, specifically, I want done with the place. I’ve never been much in terms of having a specific taste in décor – it’s part of why it’s rarely bothered me that we still have the same paint on the walls and carpet on the floors that we had when we moved in. Add to that the fact that I wish I had your input – or, failing that, that ‘Megumi‘ was here to offer her input – and you can figure out why I’m hard-pressed to respond as to what I really want out of these rooms.
Although, for what it’s worth, Jan has offered to go with me if I plan to check anything out at their studio, in order to get a female perspective. I may just take her up on it.
For now however, they’re going to be taking these measurements back and drafting up some possibilities. I can’t say that I’ve given them a blank check, but I will certainly give them a blank slate to work with.
It’s so weird, honey. I know we talked together about doing this back before your accident (and also about the impossibility of doing it while everything was still so messy), and how we had about a year’s worth of time to clean thins up, considering the supply chain issues that Detail (and their cabinet line, Plato) are dealing with. And here we are, exactly five months later, and we’re actually getting everything started. It seems so unfair that you’re going to miss out on the process.
On the other hand, and I’ve observed this before, would we have ever gotten this thing clean enough to begin work if you were still around? I hate to say it, but I really doubt it. I don’t want to say that you were holding us back, but we really had to dig deep into the piles to get to this point, and I think you would’ve found it far too painful to dispose of everything we did.
Anyway it took the better part of an hour for them to go through both the kitchen/pantry and the laundry room. I should mention, Lisa found the pattern on the laundry room floor and the vanity really interesting; she liked the sparkly look that both patterns held: “It’s kind of like Christmas,” was how she put it. Having lived with it for the past twenty-five years in every season, I can’t say I’d really noticed all this time. I only know both patterns are woefully out of date.
Apparently, I’ll be hearing from them in about three weeks, give or take a few days. They might even come calling when I’m working at the folks’ place, which I’m sure my dad would appreciate. After all, these are old customers and friends of his; he wants to see how this will progress.
Regardless of whether they intend to meet me at home or at the folks’, or if I’m to go into the studio, I’ll keep you posted of the results and progress on the results.
I really hope that whatever results would meet with your approval.
Until then, know that I love you.
Letters to Rachel 