A lot of things happened to lead up to this decision. It all started back in January of 2000. Up until that point I have never been to Oregon before. I had only seen my sister Diana that lives in Oregon once before when I was two years old. Needless to say I had no memories of her. I had never met any of my three nieces before either. I did not even know their names.
The event that triggered me getting in touch with Diana was my other half sister Becky having medical problems. It came on suddenly. The first signs of a problem happened around the end of October 1999. At first the doctors had no clue what was wrong with her. But she kept on getting worse and the problems were not going away. When all of this started she lived with her husband Patrick (Habib) near Alberqurie, New Mexico. As things got worse my sister was flown up to Portland, Oregon. That way she could be close to her mother and her sister Diana. While she was in Portland she stayed at my sisters house and then in the final stages stayed at a nearby hospital.
I got the phone number for Diana's from my dad so I could talk to Becky. As a result of that I also talked to Diana for the first time. As things got worse and it was apparent that Becky was not going to live much longer I planed to use my last free plane ticket from US Airways to fly to Portland and see Becky one last time.
I could not leave right away because at work I was in training class for Rapid (A computer program used to create simulations). It was a week long course. So I decided to leave as soon as the course was over. Unfortunately Becky passed away on Friday January 14th 2000 while I was still in the Rapid class. However even though I could not see her one last time in person she did come to me in a dream the night before she passed away. Check out my dream journal in the Dreams section of my website to see what the dream was if your interested. It is the 2nd dream on Page 4.
I was trying to decide whether or not to still fly out to Portland to meet Diana. I decided against that and flew out to Kissimmee, Florida instead to be with my dad for a week However Diana and I kept in touch through ICQ (A program on the computer where you can chat with someone over the Internet). We got along pretty well over ICQ and both enjoyed chatting with each other. Because of that I decided to fly out and meet her that summer.
I went there around the last week of June for a week. I greatly enjoyed that
trip and by the end of the week it felt like I had known my sister Diana my
entire life. I loved Portland, Oregon. The landscape is very beautiful here
and all the pine trees and waterfalls were great. I also enjoyed being driving
distance from the ocean and being able to go to the beach and look out at the
ocean from the cliffs and the beaches. My sister told me that if I ever wanted
to move out to Oregon that I was welcome to stay with her. That is when the
idea to move to Oregon first began. At the time I was thinking only if I lost
my job or found a job in Portland would I move. I was not seriously considering
it, but just kind of thought it might be nice to do someday in the future.
More text to come later...