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A final blow and a clear testimony...

Testimonies take time to tell…

In my parents small Christmas tree farming town lived a man named Jon Cates, who recently lost his battle to cancer. Before he passed, a year ago, his friend, my dad, would also pass from cancer. 19 years prior they would meet over a pizza at Jon’s little restaurant, Panezanellie, near the swinging traffic lights. It is the only one in town. Sublimity has only grown to just over 3,000 residents since.

Jon was a very talented builder and dad hired him to build a small workshop. 15 years older, dad embraced Jon’s beautiful spirit and his love for Jesus and family. Jon had grown to become a redeeming pillar of strength in his community. In reflection, this was the seed planted within my dad’s heart before he would leave the earth. They would share in their cancer journeys and form a special friendship.

Born of an Italian/Irish family, Panezanellie became everyone’s favorite place to gather and could hold a candle to some of the best food and desserts in the world. Our family loves going there when we visit. We got to know Jon’s family so well we were actually invited to one of his daughter’s weddings in August of 2018. By that October, dad and Jon connected over a beer and our life story, here in California, began to have significant meaning…

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We had long suffered the trauma of bad neighbors. There. I said it. I do not like to use the word “suffer,” yet it was the common and unspoken layer of our patience gnawing away from the insufferable lives of other broken people. Because of our history I have so much empathy for communities that crumble, with many stuck, held captive by the bad choices of others, often succumbing to what once could have been a decent life.

Filling in the gaps of a previous story, “The Best of Us” - here we go…

Sundays would come, worship would fill the sanctuary and the world felt ready to embrace every Monday.

From the time we bought our first home in 1985, and settled in, it took only 7 years for everything to change. We went from an introduction to the sweetest neighbors, “in the rental house next door,” embracing their 5 beautiful children and enjoying life in a modest Ozzie and Harriet neighborhood., to hell. The final 8 years was all we could take to get out of there. Just one house in a neighborhood can make life horrible and we were unfortunate enough to live next to it. It also only takes one pent up neighbor, complaining about everything and everybody, to make life miserable and we had several.., not including the house next door. From the fighting, abusive neighbors, to the nasty old lady that collected and kept children’s lost balls, yelling at them every time one landed in her front yard, to the disgruntled children that blewup her mailbox, the newly released child molester given to his bedraggled grandparents up the street, and the woman who had her husband beat up our once “good renters” nextdoor, it was all I could do to keep going., balancing our life with it’s beautiful blessings. We loved our home, our friends.. and the way we had struggled to fix it up.

During these years we dream’t of a home “above Foothill,” which was a coined term for getting out of our below Foothill Blvd. neighborhood. That was a fallacy.

At one point we inherited a small amount of money due to a heartbreaking childhood story of my husband’s. We had no investments, except our home, and decided to invest in some land way above Foothill in the city nextdoor. Making that extra monthly payment and dreaming about building a bit later in life., yet we were forced out of our starter neighborhood, when a mentally ill woman and her family moved into the rental next door. Life took a far more dangerous twist.

In 2001 we moved from a temporary rental home up to a wooded area and into a home that we built together as a family. It took over a year, on a slim budget, with my husband overseeing the construction. Our hands had truly been on and in every crevice of that home. My oldest son learned to drive a bobcat at 11, and loved to climb the framing (yikes), my daughter, ten, and I, did a lot of the electrical outlets together and I kept a crockpot going for sustenance while driving three children all over. Our youngest son, four, was exploring and tumbling down the extremely rocky lot. The last thing we did was fence the backyard and the day we were to bring our dogs up to the house - our beautiful old collie was sick. Our sweet Oliver was foaming at the mouth as my husband was frantically getting him to our new house. I met him in the driveway, saw Ollie’s eyes fixated, and told him to get to our vet immediately. He was gone within an hour. Poisoned. The next day was a Saturday and I grabbed all our cleaning supplies and headed to the rental with my two youngest children who laid on the floor crying themselves into that familiar headcold. It was heartbreaking. Our oldest was with a friend and didn’t know until Saturday evening.

In our scramble to move to our home, two weeks prior, I ignored a threatening note in our mailbox, telling us to “quiet your dog or else.” Our rental community was new and the homes were extremely close. On one side, where we took the trash out, there were two extremely loud and ferocious dogs in the backyard. Every time we went out there they sounded like they would eat us. They barked often but it didn’t bother us.

Exhausted, note in hand, I looked around, shrugged my shoulders, thinking it’s definitely not Oliver. He was our sweetest boy and he was inside a lot.

Saturday evening, in our new home, with three extremely sad children, I had cleaned my hands raw with emotion to get the deposit back and cooked up some hot dogs for dinner. Our younger dog, a border collie mix, Sally, was outside and I offered her a nibble. I will never forget the look on her face. This dog was all about food and treats. She stared at me and slowly turned her head away, as if to say, that’s bad meat. She told me the meat was bad, but it wasn’t our hot dogs. Someone had thrown them something when they were in our yard, at the rental, and she was the smart one. I stake my life on it.

By September of 2001, 911 rocked the world and a few years later, in 2003, the Grand Prix Fire would race through our yard and up to our backdoor. We were commuting our kids outside of our community and never did I realize I had immediately lost my new community due to a crowded school district.

Within two years of living in our miraculous gift from God, we lost the really nice neighbors on one side and were introduced to the disgusting “business” of illegal dog breeding on the other side. At first, we had no idea it would turn into that.

The nice neighbors had, in fact, sold their home, all cash, to what was to be a “clothes optional cult.” At this point, you might be laughing and that’s okay. Laughter is all you can do sometimes… but there was something deeply sinister about them., enough for me to worry about the children living there and contact the FBI. Their leader had also exposed himself to hikers and a mentally challenged neighbor directly across the street. The police laughed as the neighbors barricaded their driveway and refused to answer the door and the FBI really didn’t care. They finally moved after 8 long years of turning the home into an enormous mess. The realtor said all the walls were black and they were paid to leave by the bank as they had been squatting the entire time. It was sold to part-time neighbors, investors and brothers, who couldn’t fix it up if their life depended on it.

Despite quietly shaking our fists at God, asking why he challenged us so badly with that second commandment.. we just kept going.

When I reflect, I still see a beautiful home full of family and special memories.

In May of 2018, the panic and mayhem of a single gunshot and the recorded footage from our Ring camera of my hound-dog frantically pacing the backyard wall, would change our path and put us on a deeply discerning journey. It was a sunny May day and I pulled up the blinds in our bathroom to see a huge cow hanging by one hoof, gunshot to the head. I’d often tried to talk to her from our block wall because her living conditions were terrible. We did not live in a farming community. For some reason, I was brought to the window as I had been on several occasions in my life, whether it was to rescue a dog running by on the street, revive a dying bird, or see a hummingbird mother say goodbye to her baby.., but what of this?

Not to be a hypocrite. I eat meat. Not much. Maybe a burger once a month at most, if that. I do not eat pork, mostly ground turkey and chicken. This cow was in a pen tinier than itself and the monster that owned her, and all the dogs in cages along with a tied up goat on a six foot chain, was far from above the law. He was the law. He had done his best to ruin our family weddings and he didn’t win. I had done my best to pray, let go, and not let him take us down mentally.

Stomach sinking, heart racing, I vomited and called my husband. “I can’t stay here anymore. I can’t do it. I need to get the dogs and leave. I can’t breathe.” He knew I meant it and the home he had struggled to build, even in the midst of losing our business., the fighter that he was, was on a losing end. A neighbor had stuck the final knife in. Again. We had to go.

This was the first time in our marriage that he said “I’m taking you away. We need to walk and talk and figure out what we’re doing.”

Suddenly, there was deep discernment, contemplation without arguing.., and a random house I saw online.

This house never left my mind and I honestly never looked at another one.

Why this house? Why did I drive to this house, on several occasions, and stand across the very busy street staring at it, children running and screaming behind me on the elementary school playground. Why? I was used to no one coming to my door, I never saw a child on my street, and started to believe I was living on a witness protection block. Nobody waved. They ran into their homes at the site of us walking our dogs.

This neighborhood was 100% opposite.

I had no idea why “The Johnson House” would beckon my heart so deeply. By July of 2018, with his brakes on, inwardly clinging to the home we built, I would finally convince John to step inside with me. Calling our old realtor and friend, from the sale of our first home, an appointment was set.

We walked into a 1953 time capsule, with mixed decor from some 70’s style improvements. The first person we encountered was one of the daughters who moved home to be with her mom as she passed, succeeding her father, years prior. Normally, you would say a quick hello to a resident and move on.

John suddenly asked her if she knew of a “Don Johnson.” She was on her computer and pulled up a picture of him. “This is my Uncle Don?,” she said. Well, turned out that Don Johnson was one of my husband’s early construction mentors. He gave a lot of good advice to his young employees and John would often work as an electrician alongside of them. I then discovered that their dad, Larry, who had built this home with his own family, on a dream and a dime, was also a plumber, back in the day, for the Claremont Colleges. At the time I had been working there as a pool photographer for several years. Odd, I thought, but not over the top., although “Johnson” is a very common name.

We walked into the lanai, where I saw a tree with a hummingbird mama sitting on her nest and I became overwhelmed to tears. There was something about this house. We headed home and within the week made an offer. It was accepted after many an offer over the course of a few years. We would come to find out this home had been on and off the market and the family was apparently praying and waiting on someone to love it as they had done.

During the five hour (not kidding!) inspection I had an opportunity to get to know Linda Johnson and gradually tell her how I felt about her childhood home. She was an interior designer by trade and I thought I would share some of my ideas to update it. We were on the exact same page. She proceeded to hand me extra crystals from her mother’s most prized brass chandelier. Linda said, that it made her mother feel as if she had “arrived.” I look at it over our dining room table and think of her nailing roof tiles at 7 months pregnant, or helping to install window panes. We related every bit to their dream.

Our family home listed and sold in one week. During that week, in July, the dog breeder was gone. He was never gone. 40 days later, on August 18th, the movers came, we loaded up our cars and after several trips, we closed up our family home and handed the keys over to our realtor. The dog breeder was gone for that too. For all the years that he mocked and passively taunted us, God took him away during this time.

At the same time, in the small town of Sublimity, Oregon, further out in the country, there would be a wedding for Jon Cate’s daughter, that my parents would attend. Our escrow, in California, had closed that same weekend.

The Johnson House would become an ode to Mr. and Mrs. Johnson and a God-given art project as a way of growing and healing. From day one I could feel His presence guiding us. With each new day we drew nearer to one another, camped out, mattress on the floor, a bare cold room, as if we were just married. There was no working heat or air. It was a cinder-block home.

Watching t.v. on an old iMac computer we’d sip wine, with cheese and crackers and talk about how we would bring this home into the modern century, while honoring the integrity of the Johnson story.

We never stepped outside without a wave from a neighbor and it didn’t matter if it was 10 p.m. There were stories from walkers, and neighbors that tied us together with people we knew in common. In one month we were given years of decency, kindness and a feeling of community that we had never had.

Then October came and John’s mom needed help. We had nowhere to put her as renovation work had begun, so we took care of her the best we could driving back and forth to her place, as she sunk to dementia. I knew that this was all God. John had really struggled with her and with his forgiveness toward her life choices., yet I saw this man become all that she needed. Restoration and forgiveness. We were lifted up and continued on with work, family life, and the comfort that this house was somehow providing, despite the mess all around.

By the end of October my dad called. In his gregarious way, laughing as he spoke, he asked if we knew of a guy named Archie? or a woman named Chris? We were utterly spent and on our way with food and clean laundry to my mother-in-law’s apartment, when I stopped and said, “I honestly have no idea what you are talking about dad?”

Remember the meeting over a beer?

Dad went on to say that he had just had a beer with Jon Cates and they chatted about his daughter’s wedding, how nice it was, and then Jon asked about our new home. As dad tried to describe it, and how he had no idea why we would want to live across the street from a school, Jon stopped him in his tracks and said, “wait. I know that house. I’ve been in that house, cooked in it too.” Dad, confused... Jon continued to say that he grew up in a city nearby and that his mom found out about a youth group that was starting. It would be held at The Johnson House. He said that he and his brother “Archie,” were a bit wild in high school, especially himself., and their mom thought it would be good for them. The first meeting they went to, Archie fell in love with the oldest Johnson daughter, “Chris.” They dated and eventually got married in the backyard., of which Linda would beautifully describe to me, back in July, during that inspection.

Jon had eventually met his wife in Big Bear, California and they made their way to Oregon, lived in various cities, before settling in Sublimity and opening up their little restaurant. It is truly a gathering place, given over to God. A specialness that can only be felt by going there.

On August 18th, 2018 there would be a wedding in a barn, among the Christmas trees, in a little farming community called Sublimity. Quite sublime. There would be people there, Jon and Moira Cates, their family, Jon’s brother Archie, Chris and their family, and my parents…that had no idea how our story would tie into theirs. Yet it did.

We can’t choose our family, or our neighbors., but when we think about who God places into our lives, to tell of His sincere love, I can see so clearly the path of what home truly means.

This is my testimony.

The story continues…

He writes it.

Last September 2021 with The Johnson kids and their spouses. There’s Archie and Chris behind us. They cried. We cried. Then they asked to pray over our home. How many times does my knuckle head need to know how much God loves us?

John Cates, November 8, 1953  -  September 21, 2022

Roy A. Gunn | December 29th 1936 - Jan. 1st, 2021 (Dad and I eating at Panezanellie)

There is a picture I can’t find of our three children sitting inside of what would become the windows of our former home, just the framing was done. I close my eyes and can see the beautiful stormy sky, and how excited we all were. Working, our hands touching it., paying as we went… It was miraculous.

The Johnson House - 1953 - to present. Original newspaper clipping above.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. - Jeremiah 29:11