March 2026 Island Trip – Day 7

The excavator of choice on the Island came out this morning to talk about the west driveway. We came up with a ‘good, better, best’ fix idea. I was telling Chris about the last time our AN put rock on the drive, 2018. And how our AN said he didn’t think my folks ever rocked the driveway. Chris said, “Oh no, I rocked this when I was a kid!” I think Chris is couple of years older than I am. He further told me about tearing out the power (before it was underground) during that job, and how upset my dad was! He’ll get me pricing next week. Needs to ponder it. It won’t be cheap with 2” rock costing $650/10 yards. 😳 I went to school with Chris’ wife.

More drainage and pump room window work was accomplished today. And the fellow working on the window framing remediation finished trimming out the interior door trim for the pump room! Our general contractor asked me, via text, what I thought about the door, and I asked, ‘which door are you speaking of??’ 😅 I have to take a look tomorrow 😏.

I attended to a smattering of small chores, some of them in service of us pulling out of here by late morning. I finished cleaning my mom’s bottle collection, tossed another couple dozen shovels of gravel in places they need to go, put the tools away, hung three ceramic tiles of my mom’s on the newly de-wallpapered cabinet in Stella, and spent time reading letters between my mom and her cousin from the late 90’s. The depth of my mother’s emotional intelligence is bottomless. And the things she did not share with me about her mother’s family are a testament to that intelligence. Think about this… She didn’t share why she didn’t share the dysfunction with me because what was important was not to pass on the generational trauma. What wasn’t important was sharing why the story wasn’t told. I’m really glad to understand this about my mama. She was protecting me the best way she knew how, including not telling her mom about me until I was 2.