Making Changes

11/02/09:

Dear Clint,

I’ve been making some changes in the house, some of which you would approve, others of which you would probably wouldn’t. I have to make our house into my home and still keep your presence here. It hasn’t been easy.
You will be happy to know that Derek was here yesterday, and he helped move the barrister bookcase from our room into the foyer, where you said it should be all along. I called Darrell Tomberlin this morning and I’m taking him the door to the bottom section so he can replace the glass. Remember the day it got broken? Someone came to see us in our apartment on Vista Circle, and Belle had such a celebration in the foyer that she bumped into the case and broke the glass! You wanted me to move the bookcase for such a long time, but I didn’t want to figure out how to replace it and cover the wall behind it. I wanted to spend my time with you, not solving the problem of an ugly wall.
Now the bookcase is where you wanted it, and soon it will house our Boehm porcelains, now hidden in the china cabinet were no one can see them. In the bookcase, they will be one of the first things anyone sees when coming through our front door.
I moved Addie’s portrait, and I know that would piss you off, but it shows up so much better on the dining room wall. There's no glare on it. I moved Kenson’s abstract pears onto the wall that backs up to the den.
With the bookcase gone, the wall in our room under the TV is pretty ugly. There is a hole where all the electronic stuff is plugged in, and a wire that drops out of it to the plug. Remember when, about 4 years ago, Deidra gave us a wonderful shadow box with a photo of us inset in the center? It’s blue and this quote from Erik Dillard is hand painted all around it: “Then we sat on the edge of the earth, with our feet dangling over the side, and marvelled that we had found each other.” The black and white photo is of the three of us on the night we celebrated our birthdays when she was 26 and I was 52. It was in 2000, long before you got sick. We were at Chelsea, which, by the way, is gone now, and we laughed and loved and ate good food. I’ll never forget it. Remember how she kept pointing out the fact that I was twice her age? I love that photo so much, and I know you did, too. You kept a copy in your wallet for the rest of your life. I uploaded it to my blog, but it's a little fuzzy, not surprisingly, considering where it has been for over 9 years. I want to share it, even if it’s not perfect.
Derek moved the little pine chest over where the bookcase had been, and I propped the shadowbox against the wall. It covers up the hole and wire, and for the first time since she gave us the picture, I have a place to put it. It’s where I will see it every day, a constant reminder of our love and happiness, and of what a priceless gift Deidra was to us. She adored you.
We moved the seascape from our room to the den and hung it over one of the blue sofas where more people can enjoy it. Gloria Ragland’s floral is on the outside wall and looks wonderful, the colors so radiant against the neutral wall. I hung Cuz’ portraits of Baby and Belle. I also made a coffee table for that room, using a tall heavy brownish-gray planter with a piece of glass on top of it. (That piece of glass that came with us when we moved but was not ours). For 2 years I struggled to figure out what to do with it , then I began to believe it came to us for a reason, like my fountain. An idea came to me. I stuffed the planter with plastic peanuts, then covered them with sheet moss. The glass lies on top, and it’s very smart looking, the green moss showing through. You would hate it. The planter is oval and the glass is rectangular.
I guess what this is all about is that I want you to know that you were more important to me than our home decor. I loved you too much to go to war over where a painting should hang or what a coffee table should look like. But now, expressing myself is healing for me. I’m not getting rid of you. I’m finding my way without you. Even the changes will always make me think of you, remember our incredible love affair, and yes, they will remind me that you are gone, and sometimes that will make me cry, just like now.

I will love you forever,
Your Fat Girl

Posted by cjschlottman
at 10:39 AM