OUR LOVE FOR ORCAS

DEAR FRIENDS AND FAMILY—

I have always cherished Sundays on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands of Washington State, especially when I knew I did not have to leave that day.  For thirty years, since 1997, Rich and I have been owners of a place there that began as five acres of undeveloped waterfront property. We had sailed for fourteen years and purchased this land when we realized we would not always sail. I loved having our own beach, a piece of the Pacific Ocean!  Early efforts to build fell through when a Washington State builder we hired sold out to someone from Colorado who understood nothing about following shoreline restrictions on the West Coast.  About that time, we also moved from a home in Woodway, Washington, to acreage outside of Olympia where we planned to learn how to be self-sufficient and sovereign (i.e., no debt and grow-your-own food). We continued to visit our place on Orcas and in 2000, purchased an RV we drove to Orcas to camp there in summer.

We collected years of special moments, such as the summer I sprained my ankle when I fell over our dog Snickers on the RV steps.  I begged Rich to leave me on Orcas.  He walked down the road to find a neighbor so someone would know I was alone and then hesitantly left me.  I knew I could never stay off my foot if I returned to our place in Tenino with its 33 acres and large landscaped areas and vegetable gardens. I sat and read in a camp chair, watched deer pass, even heard a mother talk to her fawn.  Friends came in their boat one evening to visit and tied onto our mooring buoy. My daughter Mindy arrived by August and declared I looked like something that had lived in the woods too long, hauled me into a hotel in the village of Eastsound, and then we rented a cottage there until the end of September.

I never stopped dreaming of building a home at 2101 Dolphin Bay Road.  As my parents reached their nineties, I found myself returning to my hometown of Decatur, Illinois, for eight years whenever my brother called me, to help care for our parents.  Rich and I also made several trips to help close their home in La Jolla, California.  Mom had been placed into what would be one of three nursing homes for dementia, but Dad remained fairly healthy until he died in 2012, at age 93.  One August day he simply turned to his caregiver and said, “I think I’ll go now.” And he died. Mom outlived Dad by three years.

Meanwhile, we had accidentally stumbled on a house we liked in Union, WA that needed work but faced Hood Canal and the Olympic Mountains. After 17 years on our little farm, I tired of growing and canning vegetables and longed to return to live by water.  We bought the house in Union as a retreat but then our ophthalmologist on Orcas told us he had a builder for us there. After Dad died, property he owned in Louisiana was sold and we used that money to put in a foundation for our Orcas home.

We laid the foundation but became disenchanted with the first builder who preferred to work without a budget.  Rich set up a card table on our property and interviewed three other builders. We were blessed to find one of the best--Con Russell, son of a long line of Orcas residents.  An architect from Olympia designed our dream home and Con built it.  When our home on our little farm near Olympia sold, we moved into both the house in Union and the Orcas house in 2015! Now we lived in two waterfront places!! For 11 years we have traveled about every 3-4 weeks between the two homes using Rte 101 and two ferries as a scenic route, a way to avoid I-5.

Rich will be 92 in September, and I served as his caregiver for five years.  He got caught in a computer scam one time when he was alone on Orcas, traveled off island without telling me to Anacortes where he relinquished $5000 to scammers.  Soon after that incident, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, and I became his full-time caregiver. Rich has many other ailments to include heart disease for which he received an ablation last year, esophagus problems that required surgery, and sleep apnea.  I have been helped by the Orcas Island Senior Center meetings for Alzheimer’s caregivers and Alpine Way luncheons in Shelton, but this summer Rich developed medical conditions that were more than I could handle.  My daughter Becca saw how we struggled and stepped in to help but even that was not enough.  I had become exhausted serving with no help, no time off, 24/7. Some criticized me for moving Rich to a retirement home but there the medical team and our primary care physician diagnosed a parasite and that improved the digestion and also the Alzheimer’s.

We put the Orcas house up for sale this summer. In August I returned to find the realtor we hired had gone through every drawer, every closet, everything in our house in an effort to “model” it.  I have since found another realtor. Meanwhile my car broke down (a Rav4/Toyota Prime with only 16,000 miles).  Towing the car across a ferry to a dealer on the mainland, even with AAA, has been a challenge and took a week, but the car arrived at the dealer this morning. The new realtor came to see our place and take photos. I am hopeful I will soon move ahead and can return to Union to be closer to Rich.  Alpine Way Retirement Home is only about twenty minutes from our home in Union. In all the homes of this type I have seen, I have never found one with such kind staff members.  Rich has his own apartment furnished with our things.  

I have spent my last moments here on Orcas watching wildlife, a pastime I have always loved.  So much of the sea life has vanished, the eelgrass, the sea stars, crab, but the birds—ravens, osprey, eagles, Kingfishers—are still abundant. I feel so grateful to have had this place as an escape spot for thirty years.  I always planned to slip up here to write, but after Rich got scammed that never happened, so this week I can experience that dream as well. I never saw myself selling our Orcas home but long-term care and high taxes are finally forcing us out. The memories, however, belong to me and can never be taken away.   

Pictures below: Orcas house, back deck on Orcas, view from Orcas, view from Union

Orcas house

Back deck on Orcas

View from Orcas

Two waterfront properties. View from Union.