"Spring will come and so will happiness. Hold on. Life will get warmer."
Anita Krizzan
This weekend — April 26th to be exact — marks the 14th anniversary of when I moved to Bend/bought my first house, as well as the anniversary of when I sold it 11 years later. I’ve been reflecting a lot on that day because these anniversaries are also intricately connected with my Realtor Terry Skjersaa who, along with his wife Renee, died in a freak (read: climate change-related) avalanche in February while backcountry skiing. To be sure, Terry was far from a careless, novice skier: he was practically born with skis on. (Pretty sure “Skjersaa” is Norwegian for “skier": His grandfather, Olaf, emigrated from Norway in 1925 and opened the first ski shop in Bend in 1939.)
Terry and Renee. Photo Credit: Matt Lasala
Once, during one of our outings, Terry left David and me in awe when he shared that he and his friends routinely skied down the steep east face of Tumalo Mountain, using ski skins to climb back up to do it all over again. There has literally never been a time since that I haven’t thought about him when I look up at that flat-faced, snow-frosted mountain, a geographic jewel tucked between Mt. Bachelor and Broken Top in the postcard view from my neighborhood.
(I need to add here that, as I wrote this, I was simultaneously watching a small black spider rappel down from my bedroom ceiling and back up again multiple times…🤔)
Tumalo Mountain, a shield volcano. Photo Credit: Adrian Klein
Terry was not just a Realtor — he was “The Mayor," as David and I affectionately called him. Having lived here his entire life, he not only knew almost everyone in town but he was also liked and respected by nearly everyone in town. Although we didn’t travel in the same social circles as Terry, whenever we ran into him, it always felt like meeting an old, trusted friend.
Patty McMeen, another local Realtor who had set us up with great vacation rentals starting with our first trip from Phoenix to Bend in July 2009, referred us to Terry when we decided to buy in 2010. While we had asked her to be our Realtor, she mentioned that she was scheduled for surgery that would keep her off her feet for a few months and wouldn’t be available to assist us, so she connected us with Terry.
From the start, we knew Terry was the salt of the earth — authentic, low-key, and genuinely interested in the people he met; we immediately asked him to be our Buyer’s Agent. After extensive home tours in and around Bend, we chose our ideal neighborhood, The Parks at Broken Top, an enclosed subdivision adjacent to an excellent elementary school for Susie, who was 11 at the time. For one reason or another, the houses we wanted fell through (one older couple decided not to sell; another was occupied by the owner’s son, who refused to allow showings). The sole remaining house in the neighborhood had been on the market for over a year, in foreclosure, and, to be honest, neglected. It was listed for $259k, a $20k price drop from the month before. Heartbroken over the loss of the house I truly wanted (sunny, spacious, chef’s kitchen, soaking tub, huge corner lot for $315k), I walked through this forlorn house in mourning, repeating, “I DON’T FEEL THE LOVE." David said, “We have to make the love…we can make it the house we want.” We returned to our vacation rental and talked at length about the possibilities of making it a really nice home — not our first “rodeo” — which gave us a ray of hope.
Early the next morning, after a fitful sleep, I sent Terry an email: “I’ll make an offer, but I won’t pay a penny over $200K.” He promptly forwarded the offer to the bank’s agent and just as quickly sent back a message from her rejecting our offer, which simply said, “Have a nice day.” With heavy hearts, we returned to Phoenix to consider the next steps toward our dream of living in Bend. I periodically checked the listing over the next few weeks to see if “our” house was still active, and, of course, one day it was no longer on Zillow. “Someone got the house,” I told David, dejectedly. “Time to move on.”
To my surprise, Terry called me the next day and said, “How do you feel about a purchase price of $205k?” I sputtered, “W-w-w-what do you mean? The house is off the market.” He replied, “The agent is willing to accept $205k. It’s yours if you still want it…” He explained that he had waited patiently until the day before her listing agreement was set to expire, then called her and said, “You know there’s no way the bank is going to renew you as the listing agent since this house has been sitting for over a year…At least you’ll get some commission with our offer.” She responded, “FINE! $205k and it’s done.” He was not manipulative — he was a strategist, all for the purpose of doing the best, most ethical job for his clients.
True to form, I learned later from Patty that Terry had shared a generous portion of his commission with her.
In 2022, post-pandemic and post-divorce, I decided I needed a change. A big change. I decided to move to Maine to be near family, so I called Terry. With economic forecasts predicting an imminent recession 😣, he judiciously listed the house just below market value, knowing that there would be heightened interest with the upgrades we had done. He was right. I accepted an offer from an older woman, moving from Maine, who agreed to an extended two-month, rent-free rent back until the end of June. For me, after a rugged and heartbreaking loss on all fronts, Terry helped me in so many ways to move forward and on.
The last time I saw Terry was a few days after I settled on the house sale. He came by to bring me a lovely set of expensive chef’s knives as a thank-you gift. (He was thanking me?) We sat on my front porch for a spell, talking about my plans to move to Maine, about Renee and his two daughters, and about how Bend had changed so dramatically in those intervening 11 years. He said, “Did you realize you settled almost 11 years to the day when you bought the house?!” I nodded and said, “Yes. It’s a wrinkle in time.”
* * * *
Losing two DEEPLY GOOD HUMANS in the dark, early days of 2025 was and still is a gut punch. At their memorial service, Terry’s business partner Jason Boone said, “It’s unbelievable that some people could have so many best friends.” I think, in Terry’s and Renee’s case, it’s like Maya Angelou said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Regarding Maine, I was within inches of buying a beautiful house in Brunswick, sight unseen but with much effort on my sister-in-law’s part. It’s just as well, I have often thought in retrospect. Although I was moving toward something good, for what it’s worth, I learned that one should never make big decisions in the wake of grief; better to gather one’s counsel —friends, family, professionals — and, to the extent possible, wait at least six months to a year when the landscape will hopefully start to look different. When I arrived in Maine in August 2022, almost from the moment I crossed the state line, I realized just how much Bend had become part of my soul. When we drove back into Bend two months later, I rolled down the windows and Maya started barking joyously as we crossed the Reed Market Bridge toward the West Side. I knew just how she felt.
Last October I bought a 2025 Subaru Outback with an interesting feature called “Driver Focus” that “gives you a gentle reminder to help bring your focus back to the road.” The only time it ever activates is when I am at the intersection adjacent to my old house, where I invariably look to the left and ponder the Purchaser’s reason for painting it baby poop brown. Then, the car beeps and the display says, “Keep your eyes on the road ahead.”
I initially started to write this post about “magic” and “you are where you are supposed to be” moments, about meeting Patty, who introduced me to Terry. That was the story I intended to tell because it is magical and still leaves me in wonderment all these years later. (Sometimes the keyboard is like a Ouija board: things that want to be said first find a way to be said first…)
After I settled on the buying the house in late April 2011, I reached out to Patty in early June and said, “You know, we’ve never met, but I’d like to buy you dinner to thank you for referring us to Terry—he is awesome.” I proposed we meet on June 4th which happened to be her birthday, so we agreed to make it a double celebration.
At my beloved “longboard” community table at Zydeco, the best restaurant in town at the time, I asked her the most common question in Bend: “How did you come to live here?”
She said, “Oh, I moved here thirty-odd years ago from Ohio, relocating with Bell Telephone for a job here.”
I said, “Oh, where in Ohio?”
She said, “Oh, a small town in eastern Ohio.”
I said, “Oh, what small town in eastern Ohio?”
She said, “Oh, you’ve never heard of it…it’s just a small town outside of Youngstown.”
I said, “Oh, what small town outside of Youngstown?”
She said, “Oh, a town called North Jackson.”
I said, “Oh, it’s just that my parents were born in North Jackson, both sets of my grandparents lived and worked in North Jackson, AND most of my extended family still lives in and around North Jackson!”
As it turned out, Patty’s father, a retired auto executive who had worked his way up from mechanic, was living with her, so she went home and asked him about my dad. He said, “Oh yeah, Elmer…he was a Chrysler guy…” (True! But not entirely true: my dad had a weakness for Ford Thunderbirds, but he DID buy his fair share of Chryslers over the years. But really? Who remembers this fifty-plus years on?)
Over the next several months, Patty would share some very salient and mutual family history: Her mother’s high school graduation booklet revealed that her mom had gone to school with both my mother’s brother and my father’s brother. Patty’s family’s burial plots are one or two paces away from my family’s plots. Our families likely crossed paths at the Austintown shopping center, where my parents sometimes bought us school supplies while visiting from Pennsylvania in late summer. Once, in 2012 when I was visiting my sister, Terri, who lived in Warren 10 miles north of North Jackson, Patty also happened to be in North Jackson. She, her best childhood friend Nugie (pronounced “Noodgie”), and I met at Stonebridge Grille and Tavern, a hole-in-the-wall in Austintown, to toast our ghost connections.
Let’s be clear: The odds are pretty slim that two people whose family roots were based in a tiny town in northeastern Ohio, who moved to another small town 2,600 miles away, 30 years apart, would meet in such a weird, coincidental, fateful way. We pretty much decided during that first meeting we were cousins because, in all likelihood, our DNA had crossed somewhere too.
My “cuz” Patty and I at Zydeco in December 2012
These days, Patty and I connect every couple of months, and it always feels like meeting up with family with whom you share childhood memories, even if you weren’t in the exact same place at the exact same time to be in the same family photos.
Here’s to the truly good people in our lives and in our hearts. 🥂
With love,
S.
4.25.25
What I’ve Been Cooking:
Roasted Carrots with Whipped Tahini (NYTimes Gift Link) - This. And I mean, THIS!
Samin Nourat’s Buttermilk Brined Chicken
Blueberry Oatmeal Muffins (used half whole wheat, half whole wheat pastry flour - delicious!)
What I’ve Been Reading:
The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
Notes from a Young Black Chef: A Memoir by Kwame Onwuachi
What I’ve Been Watching:
Government Cheese (Apple TV)
Friends and Neighbors (Apple TV) - Can’t get over Jon Hamm…
Chef’s Table (Netflix) - The link here is to a post about my favorite episode featuring Chef Grant Achatz - incredible story.
Next - Chicago - (The chef from my short stint in culinary school turned us on to this fun YouTube which is why Chef Achatz…)
In the News:
The Trump Administration’s First 100 Days (NYTimes Gift Article) 🤦♀️
Quote of the Month
“People tell you who they are,
but we ignore it because we want them to be who we want them to be.”~ Don Draper, Mad Men