It was during that time that I got a call from the seller Ann, she was crying.

“Ann, what happened? What is going on?” I inquired.

“Tammy Jo, I just got a call from my insurance company. They notified me that since my mom has passed away and that the home is now vacant they are dropping the insurance! What am I going to do? They have insured this house for 40 years. This house has to have insurance,” she was in a panic.

“Ann, do you trust me?” I replied

“Why, of course I do,” She said.

“As you know, we had to remove the listing sign, because people kept stopping at the property, walking around and looking in windows. It wouldn’t be bad to have someone stay here to make sure someone is watching over it. I am sure I can find a friend of ours to stay at the house until we close. Would that be okay with you?”

“Oh yes, that would be fine.” She replied. “Oh, thank you”

“Please call your insurance agent and let him know that you will have a friend live at the house until it is closed.” I relayed.

“Okay,” she said.

That was on a Thursday.  That was when reality set in for me. The house was completely vacant. Not one piece of furniture in it. I needed to have a friend stay here and not only was there nothing here. But there wasn’t even the basics.

That night I said a little prayer, “God, please let me find the perfect antique bedroom set for the blue room.” Let’s be honest. I am too Dutch to spend money twice. I had to have a bed, but I didn’t want to buy one for our emergency situation only to have to buy a second one again to fit the house later. I didn’t have money to throw away.

The next morning I headed to my listing appointment in Cedar Springs. To a client’s family home that he was now ready to sell. I navigated the remodeled upstairs, impressed with the work that my customer had done. But then we walked down to the lower level. The basement as they say. It was dim, dark, and poorly lit. 1960’s wood paneling flanked the walls, the fluorescent lights sputtered on, and the glass trophy shelves  were layered in dust and were empty, having not been used for years. It was here, under the stairs where the light hardly illuminated that I saw a bed and a few pieces stuffed away. Forgotten, or too special to part with, but nevertheless “in the way”.

I turned to my customer, Forrest, “It is beautiful.”

His eyebrow raised, perhaps more in comic response than in all seriousness, he responded, “Really?”

“Yes, it is just beautiful. Whose is it?”

“It was my mother’s,” He replied, taking a short pause. He continued, “She found the set in the mid 1980’s when she was antiquing. She loved it. She passed away, a while ago. I am going to be selling it, interested?”

“Yes,” I replied as I was trying to see it. All I could make out in the dark was that there was a bed, what looked like an armoire and a vanity. I could see some damage at the bottom and grimaced, and thought how on earth will I find someone to fix that. Noting the damage, I said, “$500, work for you? Now I have not been shopping for antiques for a long time, but it seemed like a reasonable number having no idea what I was doing.

He agreed.  That weekend, I rented a uhaul and drove up in a rainstorm, and loaded it up in a rainstorm, and unloaded it in a rainstorm. It was wet. While having the u haul, I also picked up a free couch from one customer and a couple twin mattresses that he didn’t need to drop them off to a family that needed them. All done in the pouring rain.

It wasn’t until a few days later that I actually looked at the pieces and began to wash them and clean them from all the cobwebs and grime. I couldn’t believe what I uncovered.

Max just rolled his eyes at me, “We don’t even know what we are doing with this place. Why are you buying furniture?”

I simply smiled and replied, “Can’t have our friend sleep on the floor.”

But he agreed, “That is a beautiful set you found.” he said as he helped me wash it. And beautiful it was. The furniture was adorned with hand painted flowers. They were stunning. I hadn’t even noticed them in the dark gloom of the basement. But it wasn’t until we carried the piece upstairs that we realized how well it fit into the room. It is not the size that I am talking about, but how the flowers on the furniture seemed to match the flowers on the wallpaper.

And that is how it began. How it seemed that the pieces of furniture started to find their own way to the house. I felt as if the house was calling to them. “Hey, I am waking up and it is time to come back home.”

This feeling reminded me of “The Iron Giant.” A favorite movie from my youth. I am known as the tender heart of the family. The emotional empath, which translates to “I cry at everything.” And with this movie, my family would all laugh at me that no matter my age, I will always tear up and cry when The Iron Giant, a robot of war and destruction befriends a human boy and at the end of the movie, sacrifices himself by taking on a nuclear warhead to defend a town. He explodes into a million pieces. It is at this moment that I always cry. Cartoon or not, the act of giving of yourself for the greater good always gets me. But it isn’t’ until the end, that hope, and humanity is established. That a beacon begins to flash and then you see, a scene that shows a screw starting to roll, then a bolt starting to push its way back toward the beacon. That the Iron Giant has not actually died, but that his parts are finding their way back. Piece by piece he is rebuilding and will become whole again. Laugh as you may, that is how I feel the house is working. The house is waking up. And items are coming back, coming back home.

And so that is what happened with the bed. The bed for the blue room. When I asked Forrest what his mothers name was, he looked at me, intrigued, “Pearl. ” he replied.  And that is how Pearl’s Place came to be at the Vander Jagt. Or perhaps, it always was.