Today was a magical day.
We bought the island place (now “the compound”) about three years ago. We had traveled around the island and decided it was where we wanted to live, but we hadn’t found the perfect place. We were back on the mainland and HA was watching Zillow intently for likely landing places. I had suggested that, perhaps, it was time for an intervention around this Zillow habit. Then one day she called down from upstairs “you gotta see this!” We had put in an offer, sight unseen, within twenty minutes of the listing appearing.
We immediately booked flights to go and see it, but first HA’s son and then she came down with severe respiratory illnesses. I got on a plane by myself to a place I’d barely been where I was met by friends of HA (whom I’d only met once before) who loaned me their camper van so I could drive to the other end of the island and camp out to make my appointment to see the property.
It was scary. I drove on little mountain roads and at times I wasn’t sure whether I was still on the road or had wandered off onto a footpath. (The little one-lane roads seem perfectly normal now.) I was anxious about potentially having to make a decision without HA being able to see the place. If I didn’t like it, I could still cancel the escrow but then she’d never have the chance to weigh in. If I liked it, I’d have to decide to commit our money on a property she’d never have set foot on.
I loved it.
I’d like to say I was sure she’d love it too, but I’m an optimist and am good at overlooking obvious flaws when I see something shiny. I needed her more-sober discretion. Fortunately, she and her son recovered and HA flew out two days later and loved the place as much as I did.
There seems to be a rule in the residential real estate business that you have to keep the buyers and sellers from talking face-to-face without the agents present. In fact, for my first visit, I had to pull off the one-lane road to let the man whom I would come to know as Rob pass. He was the owner of the place, and his agent had sent him away so that we wouldn’t meet.
Fortunately, when HA came to see it two days later, we were able to request that Rob stay. We met him and chatted and at one point he and HA managed to ditch our Realtor chaperones long enough to exchange contact information.
We bought the place, and he asked to continue to live here for a few months so he wouldn’t have to move from a tropical island to America’s heartland in wintertime. That was great for us, as we both had children finishing high school so we couldn’t move anyway.
HA is more social than I am. Yeah, by, like, a bunch. She kept in constant touch with Rob by phone. We came and stayed at the property a couple of times. We helped him with his final move. We got to know him, partied with him, and heard many stories about this land upon which he had lived for over thirty years. He had raised four daughters in this 700 square foot house, and was returning to the mainland to be close to them.
About a year after he left the island, he died unexpectedly. We were looking forward to him visiting us, and it was a shock. We didn’t know his family, but one of his daughters called HA with the news. She was distraught, and HA didn’t push her for details.
Today, the daughters held a memorial gathering in the nearby village. They came with their families, and a number of our neighbors showed up and narrated the life of this exceptional man. We got to meet his daughters and their families including three of Rob’s grandchildren, and invited them to come and visit their childhood home.
The came and met Luna the Big Dog™, the sheep, saw that we had preserved much of the character of the place like the old garage and the original house, largely intact but for discreet infrastructure changes. Rob was a legendary landscape designer, and they got to see how his later projects were growing in, aided by HA’s horticultural expertise.
It was good to hear from them that Rob was so happy when he met us to learn that we planned to continue the vision of this (now) 111 year-old home.
There was much talk story. They were all delightful folks and I felt privileged to meet them all and was so happy that they thought to include us in the gathering. It was obviously meaningful to them to be back on the land from which they came, and it deepened our love (aloha) of this land (‘āina) and the families (‘ohana) it has nurtured.
—2p