This email was sent to me from Reenie, she asked me to post to our blog to share with all of you:
"Hey! I got up at 6 this morning. I haven't been up this early in a long time.
I'm doing much better. I don't know if I've explained to you, but the hardest part of my mother's death wasn't her death - though I miss her every day. The hard part is that I went to so much effort with a lot of love to build a beautiful place for my mother and she never was able to enjoy it. I've never gotten into explaining to a lot of people the nightmare she and I experienced the 6 weeks she was here - and it was all due to the jackass contractor I had who didn't give a fig about my mother's well-being. Carol, that's what tears me up every day - and my resentment for the way my mom had to live the remaining days of her life. I've hired a new contractor to correct all the things that were done so wrong. I could *make* the first contractor come back on site to do things right, but I'd rather be out of pocket a few grand or more than to have him on my property. It breaks my heart every day to remember how much pain and discomfort my mother suffered because of him. Thank God I don't blame myself - I know I did the best I could. In the contract he stated the apartment would be completed in 6-8 weeks - on or before October 20th. It's still not complete because it got too cold to paint the outside. The list of things he did wrong is lengthy and SO unacceptable. For example, he put the kitchen water pipes on an outside wall! I am soooooo lucky they didn't freeze this winter. I'm not planning to re-do those - yet - it will be a major tear up re-do. Tomorrow the heating is being torn out and something better is being installed. Carol, my first contractor is considered the most expensive one on the mountain. He's a very bright man, attractive, and has a very engaging personality - but he's scum. My mother had not one day of peace after she moved here.
On the bright side, I'm moving forward and making those corrections and received an email yesterday that the Chattanooga Times wants to do a feature article on my home! I'm pretty jazzed and this gives me something positive to work on.
I want the women of Serendipity to know I think of them every single day with such great fondness. I'm so sorry I've vanished on everyone. It hasn't just been Serendipity - I removed myself from the whole world after my mother died. My relationship with her was very complicated. She was my mother, but I also parented her for as long as I can remember. She was schizophrenic with an emphasis on delusions. It wasn't until my 30s that I realized most my life was *made up*. She never intentionally told lies - she told her truth which was mostly fiction. My whole life I've had to untangle every single conversation we had to determine the truth. As a role model, you can imagine my dilemmas over the years. I'm a fanatic about truthfulness, but I have a weak editor when it come to thoughts and expressing myself. My mother was a blurter and I'm often one too and get myself in a lot of trouble sometimes. It's a constant struggle ignore the template she created in my personality at a young age. Yet, I give her all the credit for gifting me with creativity. My mom didn't think outside the box, because she didn't even have a box. :) Anyway, our lives were tightly woven together. My sons and I were the only ones patient enough to deal with the madness. To the day she died, we treated her with the utmost dignity.
I might continue to take an extended hall pass from Serendipity for a while and rejoin you all in the 2nd year. I'm just struggling so hard to have an interest in anything and that's the God's honest truth. But I think of you all and miss you.
xoxo"
