Small World

You know that old cliché “it’s a small world?”  Well, I have a story.

After my oldest sister passed away a couple years ago, my bother-in-law, Tony, a fancier of warm weather, traveled to the Cebu in the Philippines.  Cebu impressed him when he had taken military leave there many years before.

Eventually, Tony ended up in a small town called Bayawan on the island of Negros.  As fate would have it, he found himself stranded in Bayawan at the beginning of the pandemic.  He ended up having to stay much longer than expected.

But Tony really liked Bayawan and he met a girl.

Partway through the pandemic, he made his way back to Montana and suffered through our weather.  While back in Montana, Tony made arrangements to return to Bayawan for the long term.  He even managed a long-distance marriage to Erica, the island girl he met.

A couple weeks ago, I rode to Great Falls with Tony to ship some boxes of his belongings to the Philippines.  Later that same week, Tony flew finally back to Bayawan.

Let’s do some math here.

First, Bayawan is 7,300 miles from Butte, where Tony originated.  Secondly, we are talking about one island amid more than 7,000 comprising the South Pacific nation. 

This is how small the world is: Bayawan is the very little town where my girl Desiree grew up.   More astonishingly, Tony now lives within two miles of Desiree’s father, a brother, and two bazillion other relatives.

Two days ago, the gap between all of us closed.   Desiree, back on her home island to visit family, stopped to meet Tony and Erica.  Desiree video-called me while there and we all chatted.

—Mitchell Hegman