Everything is different now 

Ever since Sara died, my mom and I have been overusing the phrase “it’s all working out so well.” This incantation is said with varying degrees of sarcasm and sincerity. Finding something in Sara’s belongings that we thought was lost, but that she had ‘appropriated’ – “it’s all working out so well?”

An unexpected life insurance policy through the teacher’s union to offset the debts of her estate- “that worked out well!” The mixed bag of grief and its resulting realities and situations can be lamented, embraced or rejected. Each instance is as different as the snowflakes currently falling out the windows of Mom’s new apartment.

Very quickly after that shitty summer day, mom decided to move east to live with us. We had already been planning to host her in the warmer months. At first, the many permutations and options we entertained to make this happen seemed endless. 

Maybe a tiny house in the yard? Permitting and plumbing would be a nightmare, plus it would mean snow boots and gear just to say “hi”. 

Perhaps one of those amazing new RVs? Again, plumbing issues and overwintering would be nearly impossible. 

I know! If we are putting this much money into this, let’s just sell this house and move to a place up north, with more land so we can get the most for our buck. Everywhere we looked would be further from the boys, we would be starting a new loan when we are halfway through this one AND we would still need to be modified to suit our needs. 

After months of research and brainstorming we settled on building an attached additional dwelling unit (ADU) to our house. With the money we would save by not getting into another loan we could add solar panels and new siding and windows on the old part of the house. We wouldn’t have to leave this land and the gardens we have grown so attached to and we would still be in this central location we have grown to love. 

Decisions were made, about everything; from budget, to sink color and everything in-between.

I found a great design site called Cedreo that allows you to draw up blueprints as well as design and furnish a space to scale. I can now say I have designed a house from the ground up. We took contractor bids and settled on a local company who understood we still needed to buy groceries when this was over. Around the beginning of May my husband and I were sitting out on the patio and saw a trailer with an excavator headed down the street. We joked, “I guess construction has started” and then had to pick our jaw off the floor when it stopped, disembarked from the trailer and lumbered up the second driveway like a yellow metal dinosaur.

It had indeed begun.

Like most projects of this size we had many setbacks and surprises, the first of was one of the wettest springs we have seen, so of course we had a swimming pool for a month while we waited for the water table to recede to workable levels

We decided to keep all the excavated dirt on the back hill so that we now have an amazing sledding hill for the winter and a nice sloping orchard in the summer. Besides it’s our dirt damn it, and dirt is valuable.

We found out that our part of the house was not wrapped with weather proofing at all under the siding and the decision to replace our siding, windows and roof, became much more imperative.

Mom and I were on the phone and Lowes website constantly all summer, picking and choosing all the features and fixtures. Cedreo was indispensable for figuring out not only how to layout the rooms, but what would fit in them. We tried what seemed like endless combinations and made difficult decisions about what pieces of funiture from Ca would fit in the space provided.

We chose to have valued ceilings which made the small rooms seem spacious. When I saw the sheer height we were going to have, I told mom that she NEEDED to have a chandelier or other ridiculous lighting fixture in the hallway and precede to talk her into one of the most spectacular options that Etsy had to offer. When I sent her the link she was dubious at best, I had to use Fang Shui reasoning to convince her. (I may also have threatened her with an obligatory Maine deer antler option if she refused the pretty crystal one.)

It worked, and we are chandelier people now.

She embraced the process, and decided on a retro fridge in teal. Of course she had to pair that with a retro teal toaster, which sits on the countertop next to an inherited crystal jar, now filled of dog treats.

It’s a whole mood.

I tiled walls in the bathroom myself, with mother of pearl tiles from floor to ceiling. It made the whole space like a mini spa. Especially when combined with the jacuzzi tub mom picked out.

A good friend and talented wood worker traded redwood boards mom shipped from Ca with the rest of her belongings, for a custom made vanity. Installation of the vanity between the tub and wall came down to millimeters, but when all was said and done it came together really well.

I made little ocean themed table as a Christmas present for mom. It is poured resin with Sara and Dad’s ashes as the sand and fragile shells, sea glass collected by them over their lifetimes strewn over the bottom.

Because the position of her outside front door and our adjoining hallway were decided by the location of the bulkhead to the basement and our hallway to the rest of the house, we ended up with a mud room WAY bigger than we would have picked otherwise. It doubles as a laundry room so that mom doesn’t have to descend to the “dungeon” to do her washing. Now, we actually have a room big enough to fit six people’s worth of outerwear.

The whole thing has in fact, worked out well.

We splurged and got 4 pallets of organic soil and compost to restart the gardens since this area has been compacted and scrapped down to nothing during the process of construction. We had a bunch of tree work done in the fall and kept the wood chips, This spring Ryan has been spreading them all over the yard as the first step to rebuilding the garden. Taking a whole year off from annual plants was really hard. We are anxious to get going again, but we live in Maine so of course we had the biggest storm of the winter in April and the yard went from the above on April fools day- to this by the eclipse.

Events like these are ‘on brand’ for the past couple years. I’ve been trying to embrace the change, though patience has never been one of my strong suits.

Mom moved in this fall and we have found a nice balance in our new multigenerational living situation. The commute to grandma’s house is short, but the little geeter can also get back on her own, so that’s a bit of a mixed bag. We had our first holiday season under one roof and it was balm for the still raw patches of our lives.

That pivot I mentioned in an earlier post has changed everything. Especially for my mom who never had any intention of leaving our little town nestled in the redwoods or losing half her daughters. I have said before that Sara’s passing seemed more like a tragic birth rather than a death, but no matter how tragic the seeds that gave root to this new configuration, the resulting fruit is sweet. 

Thank you for reading and be well.