Long ago when Mary, our daughter was in high school she was dating Steve and he and his family came to Avon, North Caroline every summer. They owned a house a couple of blocks from the beach and loved every minute of their time there. Rodney and I were entranced with all she said about living so close to the beach for a couple of weeks that we finally decided to drive there from our home in the Chicago area.

We quickly discovered that we also loved every minute of being near the beach. When first there we stayed in their house, but after they had two children we rented a house near them. A different house in that neighborhood each year became ours for about three or four years. Then one year Debbie, the relator told us that the house we had rented for the next year was empty for a couple of days, “Did we want to go see it?”

A quick jog through the house told us that it was going to be okay, and we thought no more about it. But then, Debbie called mid-year to tell us that that house we had wandered through was on the market, “Did we want to buy it?” We had spent years saying we did not want to own two houses. So we struggled mightily for a couple of days but then called Debbie to say, “Yes, we will buy it.”

Rodney flew east by himself to sign the papers that put the house Blue Heaven in our name. For the first several years that we came east the house still had a screened back porch that I used as I framed bird pictures that I had taken. Every picture in the house was of cats in one form or another. Slowly we replaced all those pictures with bird pictures. We had a great time as we enjoyed our time walking on that beach.

We hired a builder to enclose the back porch and that became our dining area. Plus we added a third story room in order to watch that fascinating ocean. We started bringing various family members with us each year. Many years later we brought our friend Kaze. And she and I started writing and produced several books in that third story room.

Rodney, Kaze and I came out to Blue Heaven in the spring of 2011 and then he suddenly dropped dead in a couple of months. Kaze and I continued to come out to Blue Heaven and write. Now I am sitting on the same spot on the third floor where Kaze and I did so much writing. It is August, 2021 and I came with my daughter, Mary and Kent. I may come again but having turned 90 last March it is harder to say what I will do.