It took Philip a bit longer but over the next several months, he saw the light. We spent more and more time together, becoming acquainted. This was a difficult as it may seem at first glance, though he lived in Houston and I lived in Honolulu. We both worked as Flight Attendants for Continental Airlines. In the spring of 1987, he transferred from Houston to Honolulu. Our airline employer had flight bases in both cities, so the transfer was an organic transition for him and gave our growing relationship the opportunity to fly or fail. Within months, we moved into a small rental together and our lives, living together as a unit, began. In retrospect, wherever we were together has been "home" but the homes we've shared have each had a special character and played a special role. There have been many homes but I guess the first is always special. It was a tiny, 2 bedroom, 1 bath "o'hana" house (a cottage in someone's backyard) in the upper Manoa Valley of the Island of O'ahu: paradise, both figuratively and literally.
In the tradewind-cooled tropics, windows and doors are often left open to welcome the breeze. When I think of Manoa, I think of lying in bed, talking, planning, dreaming of our future together, while being caressed by the sweet-smelling breeze. Mountain ginger, plumeria, and turberose are the scents I smell today, almost 30 years later. I hear the cooing of the doves and the rustle of the leaves. Our first days together were unhurried, unstructured, unimaginably, blissfully simple. And so were we. Everything we needed, beginning and ending with each other, we had. In some way, those first days and nights layed the groundwork for the simple nature of our life as a couple. Our commitment, though unsanctified in the classic sense, was strong from the beginning. Time and circumstance combined into a fiery forge which has strengthened and solidified that commitment.
The first home that we purchased together was a "leasehold" condominium at Turtle Bay, on the North Shore of O'ahu. Leasehold property was common at the time. While one purchased ownership of the improvements (in this case, the condo) to the property, the property itself was leased for a designated term from a third party which, in our case, was the Campbell Estate. Campbell, Bishop, Kaiser were familiar names as those estates owned most of the real property in the state of Hawaii, a legacy of the missionary days of the 19th century. "Fee-simple" property signified ownership of both the improvements and the real property and was comparatively rare at the time. Fee-simple homes were certainly much more expensive than leasehold and, as a consequence, were out of our reach.
We began a pseudo-career of home improvement with that condominium, a career that persists through today, almost 30 years later. When our Honolulu based closed in the fall of 1993, we left Hawaii, the place where our home ownership legacy began and moved back to Texas, to Houston, to start the next phase of our life together.
While surviving the typical ups and downs of the first decade or so of any close relationship, Philip and I bought, improved and sold several principle residences in the Houston area. Our careers progressed. The seniority we were accumulating as Flight Attendants meant that we could earn more, working less. We found ourselves with the luxury of time and skill, so we considered the concept of a second or vacation home. We've bought, improved and sold second homes in Maine and Florida. Knock on wood, all of our real estate transactions have been profitable, some modestly, others fabulously. We have been so very lucky in so many ways!
All along our journey together, we've enjoyed the comfort of pets, primarily cats, since they tolerate our strange work schedules better than dogs ever could. Philip has always impressed me as the consummate "nurturer". I had a sense of it from our first meeting but his nurturing sensibilities were confirmed with our pets. It came as no surprise the day he mentioned that he'd been thinking about the possibilities of us being parents; adopting a child in need. We discussed the idea, purely conceptually. There were just too many obstacles in the way, I had no particular feelings on the issue one way or the other which, to my mind, did NOT make me the best potential parent material. In spite of the fact that, empirically, we agreed parenthood was not in our future, I sensed that Philip had a longing, a need to live the parent role.
Toward the end of the 1990s, one of Philip's older brothers who lived in Atlanta, Lars, was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. Philip, along with several other of his siblings, visited Lars and his wife often at their home to help them with the numerous tasks which serve to compound the complexity of the waining days fo the terminally ill. It was a chance for Philip to nurture but it was also a chance to rekindle a brotherhood which had grown distant, to repay overdue personal debts of kindness, and it was, quite simply, an expression of love. In the process, Philip learned of the small, single-parent family of Lar's older daughter, one of two who had become the damaged detritus of a failed marriage and a mentally unstable mother who had abandoned her children and husband. Lars' daughter were bringin her two young children, an 8 year-old girl and 7 year-old boy to visit before it was too late. These children had no connection with and very little concept of their mother's extended family, living mostly in Pensacola, including Lars and Philip's aging mother, their great-grandmother. Our future became entwined (or entangled, I have yet to decide). We were soon together on holidays and school breaks, primarily in Houston.
The boy grew closer to us. The girl, older in more than just age, needed something different than what we could provide and grew more distant. Where he was eager, she became reticent to spend more time with us and her visits soon ended. When we became aware of her growing distance, we encouraged another of Philip's brothers and his wife in Pensacola to have her spend time with them. It was to no avail. Her ties to "the family" were supplanted by other, more immediate needs that she felt. Soon, only Philip's great-nephew, now nearly a teenager, was visiting. He came to stay more often and stayed for longer periods. It was clear that life "at home" was far from optimal. Not only was it not fulfilling his basic needs, we had reason to believe that there were times when he was in very real physical danger.
Soon, our little duo of a family would become a trio: the Three Musketeers, Three (very) Blind Mice!
