Terminally ill, a 90-year-old man is given a new home with neighbor he didn’t know
- Share via
The roof of a manufactured home in Huntington Beach occupied by 90-year-old Kent Tachibana caved in last March, just adding more woe to the terminally ill cancer patient’s existence. Little did he know at the time that a neighbor he hardly knew would soon offer him living quarters in the primary bedroom of her own home and oversee his care.
This turn of events came about after neighbors realized they had not seen Tachibana for some time after the roof collapsed. They reached out to the developer of the Huntington Harbour Village, an independent 55+ community, suggesting a welfare check was in order. That is when Annie Messenger, considered by some as the unofficial mayor of the development, became involved.
Messenger, a real estate agent, has designed and sold dozens of houses at Huntington Harbour Village, according to this inspiring story by my colleague Matt Szabo about her newfound friendship with Tachibana, who has stage 4 liver cancer. It was Messenger who was dispatched to check on the retired engineer who lived alone.
With another neighbor in tow — Gabi Shaughnessy, a longtime nurse at Hoag — Messenger headed toward Tachibana’s home. When he did not answer his front door, the police were called.
“A tiny bathroom window was slightly ajar,” the 75-year-old Messenger recalled during an interview with the Daily Pilot. “We got a ladder, and I was able to open it up and slide in. By that time, the police officer had called the paramedics.”
Tachibana, an American citizen who has no family in the country, was in bad shape, she recalled. He was subsequently taken to a board and care home, where he appeared depressed when she visited him.
“He had no place to go, no family,” Messenger said. “I just said, ‘You know what? He can come and live with me.’”
And that is how Tachibana came to find himself in Messenger’s spacious bedroom that she equipped with a hospital bed and other amenities so he could be as comfortable as feasible while living out his days.
“She now has her own bed in the living room, closer to the front door and across from her office desk,” Szabo writes.
Messenger shrugs off any suggestions she’s doing an extraordinarily generous act of kindness. But others have taken note.
“Nobody that’s not related would step up to that plate,” Tina Dam, the licensed vocational nurse who visits Tachibana at Messenger’s home at least once a week, told The Daily Pilot. “In my career, I’ve only seen it one time. She’s like an angel … He’s a very lucky man. He was a dead man, and now he’s alive.”
Messenger would likely be the first person to say she’s also benefiting from the arrangement. The two housemates share a love of coffee-flavored frozen yogurt and watch movies together late into the night. She also reports that she’s learned to love Japanese food during his stay.
When she needs to step out of the house, a caregiver looks after her roomie.
“He’s just a skeleton,” she said of Tachibana, who weighs less than 100 pounds. “But he’s still fighting and has a cute personality, so that’s all we care about.”
MORE NEWS
• More than five years after a mock meeting was held during which Angels executives, some council members and city staff practiced how to successfully talk the Anaheim City Council into the sale of city-owned Angel Stadium, details of that session, which had been shrouded in secrecy, recently came to light, TimesOC staff writer Gabriel San Román reports. Longtime newsletter readers may recall that, although the 2020 sale went through, it was terminated following an FBI political corruption probe that led to former Mayor Harry Sidhu accepting a plea deal. He’d been accused of bribery, fraud, obstruction of justice and witness tampering.
• In business news, after more than 30 years at the helm, real estate mogul Bill Witte of Laguna Beach has retired from Related California, a major West Coast developer that built more than 21,000 residential units.
• Having run out of funding, the Circuit electric shuttle service in Huntington Beach, which was run on a pilot program, met its demise as 2025 came to a close last week.
• The woman whose body was pulled from the Santa Ana River on New Year’s Day was reportedly the mother of two, but unhoused at the time of her death, according to police.
• Coroner’s officials identified the young woman whose body was found Dec. 30 at a housing development that serves the Orange Coast College campus as Karina Mora Hidalgo, 19, of Costa Mesa.
• Seal Beach resident Marcus Muench Casanova, 19, was identified by authorities as one of the three men who perished last week while on a Mt. Baldy hike during a snowstorm.
• A Garden Grove police officer was hospitalized after he was struck by a vehicle shortly after midnight Sunday while he was on foot pursuing a man suspected of threatening people with a knife.
• Things didn’t end well for at least one person after a group of people allegedly jumped in front of another party in line for Disneyland’s Indiana Jones Adventure ride, which prompted a brawl.
COURTS
• James Angel Reyna, 36, was sentenced Monday to 15 years in federal prison for dealing a fatal dose of fentanyl to a woman in Anaheim in October 2022, City News Service reported. Reyna was also ordered to pay nearly $7,000 in restitution to the woman’s family for funeral expenses.
SPORTS
• Brothers Nolan and Maxwell Scott were key to Corona del Mar’s thrilling 78-77 win Monday night over Los Alamitos on the basketball court writes L.A. Times columnist Eric Sondheimer, who covered the game held at Los Alamitos’ new gym.
• The Edison High School boys’ soccer team fell to El Toro in the final of the rain-soaked Laguna Hills Hawks Invitational held on New Year’s Eve.
• On the ice, the Capitals beat the Ducks 7-4 in Washington, D.C. on Monday night, giving the Anaheim team its sixth straight loss. Chris Kreider, Alex Killorn, Jacob Trouba and Beckett Sennecke scored for the Ducks.
LIFE & LEISURE
• A new garden that was created at Laguna Beach High School was dedicated last month. Funded by a $5,000 grant from Laguna Beach nonprofit education foundation SchoolPower. Students who planned it said their hope is to improve the health and wellness of those on campus, including staff, and to raise awareness about climate action.
• Students of third-grade teacher Jamie Serafin were surprised on their to return to their classroom at Hope View Elementary School in Huntington Beach after the holidays to find it had been completely transformed. Serafin was the winner of a $22,000 classroom makeover in an annual contest sponsored by OES and the HON Company.
CALENDAR
• Bestselling author and food critic Ruth Reichl will be at the Laguna Hills Community Center, 25555 Alicia Parkway, at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 22 to discuss her latest book, “The Paris Novel.” For more information, call (714) 566-3072 or email ocpl.programs@occr.ocgov.com.
• The city of Lake Forest is hosting its Snowfest featuring games and sledding activities this Saturday in Pittsford Park. In order to take part in the fun, purchase a $10 (per person) wristband ahead of time at the Lake Forest Sports Park and Recreation Center. The event starts at 10:30 a.m. and offers three sessions for families. If wristbands are still available Saturday, they will be sold for $15 per person at the park (cash only).
KEEP IN TOUCH
We appreciate your help in making this the best newsletter it can be. Please send news tips, your memory of life in O.C. (photos welcome!) or comments to carol.cormaci@latimes.com.