A Cherished Bungalow

It started the year I was born—my dad’s first road trip to the Oregon Coast. He fell hard for that wild, green edge of the world. In the years that followed, we made the long haul from the high Utah desert to Seal Rock more times than I can count, usually with my dad, his brother, my grandmother, and a young scrawny me crammed into the car. My clearest memories are of misty mornings, slipping out with my dad before dawn to marvel at the tide pools—alien worlds cradled in wet rock, teeming with life, always returning with pockets overfilled with wet, fragrant seashells, rocks and driftwood.

My dad, Gary, was born on the southern edge of Ohio. His father died young, and his older brother Bill—16 years his senior—stepped in as much a father figure as a brother. After serving in Thailand during Vietnam, my dad moved to Utah. As time thinned the southern family, and the reasons to stay faded, his mother and brother headed west to join him.

Bill, an air traffic controller and a man of deep faith, found solace at a nearby abbey. Eventually, he left behind the chaos of his old job for the quieter certainty of a life devoted to faith, becoming a Catholic priest. By the time I hit middle school, he was known to all as Uncle Father Bill.

When I was 16, my dad got remarried, and plans for Oregon grew roots. Bill, having battled cancer, decided it was time to settle, too. He bought The House on the Coast, knowing it was meant to be my dad’s future. Two years later, when I graduated high school, my dad and his wife made Oregon their forever home.

Bill and I didn’t always see eye to eye. He was wise but stubborn, shaped by the South and the Great Depression. I was a reserved kid who grew into a rebellious teen, and our differences sometimes sparked. Still, I never doubted his love. He never had children of his own, so in his way, he claimed me—part uncle, part grandfather, part second dad.

When Bill’s health declined in 2015, he moved to the Willamette Valley, where my dad and his wife could look after him. Our conversations deepened during those years—long calls filled with his stories, advice delivered with quick precision, but more human tenderness than I felt when I was young- age had softened him. He passed away in January 2021, leaving behind his stories and the house on the coast.

The House on the Coast sat untouched for years, waiting. It felt like a time capsule—nothing moved, nothing changed—held in place by the hope that Bill might one day come back. With that hope gone, my dad and I started making plans to revive it—a place for friends and family to gather, a retreat shaped by both memory and new life. Gardens, hot tubs, Thanksgiving feasts—we were ready to make it happen together.

Then, in the fall of 2022, my dad was diagnosed with metastatic esophageal cancer. He died so suddenly it hardly made sense. I’m still unraveling the ache of it.

My ownership of this home came from great love and great sadness. It was a gift inconceivable, beautiful, and tragic. It is a gift I look to share from a place of honor and gratitude.