Contractor!

Sunday, November 17, 2019

Some weeks ago, after my ailing elder sister’s health had begun failing, a potential buyer discovered her for-sale home in Arizona. My sister herself built that home, situating it on a semi-remote desert plateau. She also purchased its surrounding bare acreage. The plateau and open space brought great privacy, and incredible views of a distant golf course and at nights the faraway lights of Mesquite, Nevada.

Building that home, she was her own contractor. Heaven only knows how she managed to figure out ways to accomplish everything. She somehow got water, electricity, gas, and whatever, through the desert, and up the hill to her flat acre and potential living structure. She installed a septic, turned upon its side when her rocky land couldn’t be dug wide and deep enough for in-ground space. Each accomplishment passed an official inspection.

She researched and found an almost-brand-new manufactured home of 1800 sq. ft., elegant and nicely designed, three bedrooms and two baths. (She had the cash in 2010 to negotiate for this newly deserted, unlived-in home, a fallout in America’s sad, financially-depressed period.) She found how to truck the large structure from another state to Arizona, and then, had to build a reinforced roadway up the steep hill to her plateau. Once the structure was in Arizona and in place, she surrounded the plateau with a six-foot chain-link fence. (An experienced dog trainer, she intended to create a dog-training/boarding business, but didn’t fulfill this part of her dream.)

My sister lived on her plateau for five years before becoming ill with the onset of dementia. In 2015, I went there to help her move to Oregon and arranged for her plateau and surrounding acreage to go onto the market. The realtor and I recognized that my sister’s home required a unique buyer and wouldn’t sell quickly.

It sat nearly untouched for almost five years, until recently, when a single man wanting space, privacy, and a view, found it. The prospective buyer ordered a home inspection–and this just blew me away: After years of very minimal maintenance, this home’s negatives added up to a couple of blown fuses.

My sister, often throughout her life found ways to accomplish unique goals. Even as she aged and performing as her own contractor, she achieved solidly.

As for me, her passing made nill my Power of Attorney, and yesterday I had the task of copying and mailing her Will and Trustee documents to a title company. While gathering those papers, I sat for a while looking over the chachas my sister left behind. As that day progressed, I became increasingly sad, and finally began to recognize the deepening sense of our final parting.

Dear Friends: To my always little-sister-eyes, she’ll remain an amazing individual. Diana