Moving on!

Post below from Linda Anderson, DeDe’s mom.  Picture (left) on David and DeDe’s bedroom wall.

I did not sleep real well last night, “Tossing and Turning” and yet I would not let myself get up because I know I need to sleep!  So as I layed there I thought and thought and then realized that my being was guiding me yet again.  I dozed for a short while and when I woke realized that I needed to write another message for my blog friends and share yet another story about this process of grief.  I continue to realize that I am not alone in this process and all of you that are reading this have your own stories of grief and of where you are today.  That is why I am calling this “Moving On”, and will share part of me.

People ask me how I am!  I respond ok, but have my moments!  They ask me what I have been doing this past two months! I guess I could ask this of each of you too!  This story may bring back the tears, but I have come to know and realize how tears are ok, they help to relieve and release the pain.

For almost a month I was here in DeDe, David, Luke and Ryans home.  Often I sat here feeling them and remembering.  Sometimes I pretended it was all a dream, but each day the reality sank in.  I went home for a few days and felt lost and needed to return to these rooms so full of them.  It has been healing for me, and to be honest I don’t think I will ever be totally emotionally well again.  I have been blessed with the opportunity to share their home while learning to live again without them.  But now we are all moving on…each new day something takes us away from this sad place of missing and remembering. We have been going through their lives by sorting their belongings, every room holds some special item that one of them lived with, whether it be in the kitchen and the dishes they ate from, or the food in the cupboards (they did eat healthy), looking out the window and seeing life outside the house and knowing that this was view they saw each day.  In the bathroom seeing their toothbrushes or looking at the bathtub you know they used…I can still hear the shower running early each morning.  The boys room and their individual treasures, legos so many sets, magic cards, pokemon, dinosaurs, books and knowing that these were touched by them and hours of enjoyment they shared with their friends or quietly alone.

The clothes in their closets or dresser drawers, I smell them and can still see them wearing them.  Sorting socks for a family of four was a task of its own, but important to me.  David’s workboots his dirty work jacket, I couldn’t move them from the place he left them.  DeDe’s organization of so many aspects of the house surprised me many times.  How did she ever find the time to keep up with photo albums (she did have lots and lots of loose pictures and slides), for the family, and each of the boys individually.  Their love of their life almost shouts from the walls, yet it is in a comforting way.

We ask ourselves what are we going to do with all of this, their belongings the items that were them an important to them, and we don’t really have an answer and take each day at a time.  You feel you don’t want to throw anything out whether it be a paper or drawing that one of the boys did and DeDe saved for them. Or one of their pieces of art, a part of them they left in their creations.   But you also realize that we none of us have room to store everything even though it was a part of them.  This is where the pain in letting go really re-enters our days.

I just finished reading the book “The Long Night of Mourning” by Janis Ost Ford (A Santa Cruz resident that wrote about her loss of her mother and her companion, her brother, his wife and their 4 month old baby girl on the Alaska Airline crash in 2000.)  Thank you Janis for gifting copies of this book to us during this time of our grieving.  In the back of the book was a cd with a few songs on it.  One I want to share here the words:

“Light up the Sky, by Jessica Baron Turner

I, heard you laugh close to the end, when all your good-byes were forever
Welcoming fate into your arms, and holding her close as if she were your lover

Chorus:  Long after the stars go out, Long after they die
Long after the stars go out, they light up the sky

Places in town are all closing down, except for the weary survivors
But the music you made remains in our hearts, We’re listening now, and will listen forever.

Chorus:

Now you are gone, and we’ve all moved on,  But every last friend still remembers
The joy in your voice, that spark in your eyes, You’re lighting the past like some eternal ember

Chorus:  Long after the stars go out, Long after they die
Long after the stars go out, they light up the sky

Thank you Jessica for your beautiful words and song.

As we all move on WE WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER and CONTINUE TO LOVE!

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7 Responses to Moving on!

  1. Michele Lamelin says:

    What beautiful lyrics! Thank you, Linda, for sharing them with us, and for letting us in to your heart… in to their rooms… thank you for being there in your own grief for those of us grieving, too. You are such a comfort. I hope you are somehow comforted, too.

  2. James P. Williams says:

    I am remembering them all a lot right now! I am finishing up on the website remodel for Aqua Safaris and it feels surreal. I also start-up my web design class again for the year on September 28th at Branciforte Middle School. It is going to really surreal then I am sure. Luke is my student and we had a deal for him to be my assistant this year. He was quite excited as I have said before. I was training him in WordPress so he could help his parents manage the new website I am building. He was pretty stoked about that too!

    My pain pales in comparison!

    Thank you for sharing!

    James P. Williams

  3. Sarah (Getty) Mozelle says:

    Linda,
    thank you for sharing your journey as you and yours continue to navigate this experience. i had a real sense of you sorting socks – trying to sort out your loss, smelling your beloved’s laundry, putting something, anything, in order amidst the swirl of grief in all its unpredictability.

    i can imagine that you will find your way to emotional wellness again, a way to integrate all of the feelings of grief into a new definition of wellness that is unique for you. a wellness which includes a gentleness towards yourself, towards tears, towards missing. may moments of peace increase over time.

    whenever i think of you, i send a hug and imagine making you a cup of tea.
    sarah

  4. Rebecca Huang says:

    Linda,
    What an incredibly loving and passionate mom, mother-in-law, grandmother you are. Thank you so much for sharing your feelings and thoughts. My father died over 10 years ago and when I visit my mom’s home I still enjoy seeing his things right where we left them. I enjoy seeing his familiar handwriting in his old address books or the smell from his old shirts…don’t know what we’re going to do with them, but can’t seem to throw them out. When the “things” are so tied with smells and feelings and love and sadness, it is almost too much to ask to decide what to do with them. Thank you for sharing.

  5. linda anderson says:

    It is hard to believe or accept that it has been almost three months since our process of our great loss and the healing began. We have all been through so many cycles of daily living feeling sadness one moment and than a joy of remembering the next. There has not been a day go by that each one (David, DeDe, Luke and Ryan) have not been in my thoughts. One of the hardest hurdles to get over is the taking apart of their lovely home that they shared for so many years. A home that welcomed each of them at special times, starting with David’s purchase to welcoming DeDe as his bride and love and then the doors swinging wide open to welcome each precious little baby boy. This home offerred them more that a safe haven to rest protected and warm, it was filled with their love of each other and their lives shared. Every corner has a story to tell and the family is sharing many of them as we daily go through their belongings. I have never in my life had such a difficult job to do and one that has brought with it so much love. It saddens me to see the walls lined with bins and boxes and even worse as their no longer needed belonging go out the doors even knowing that they are going to find a home elsewhere with someone that loves them. I share this because I want you all to know that their presence has been here they have guided my thoughts and actions, the handling of their things has brought back memories that were so deep in my mind because there have always been so many new ones shared throughout the years. I know that I can live the rest of my life knowing that they are near…I have kept wondering where they are, and what they are doing! Well, I know I won’t have that answer for quite a few years..but until that time I feel that I have Never been more loved and supported by them. It was easier when they were here to get the hug or talk to them, now I have to have the help of my blessed memories…but they are still here!

    In a few days I am going to test myself again and go to visit another love of their lives in Mulege. I am looking forward to sitting by the bay and remembering yet more times shared in such a beautiful place. I will sleep in the apartment (not in a tent on the beach by the bay) that they had planned on me living in since I retired, and I will be sad that they are not their next door. I will walk carefully on the sand as I walk in the water and be sure to shuffle my feet as the boys taught me to avoid getting stung by the many rays. I will feel the water surround me and remember the feel of their arms around me. I will kyack to our pirates coves, but won’t be towing my little pirates in the rubber boat behind me. But I will be thankful and always remembering. I will visit their school in town and eat where they ate, and I will remember all of the joy and pleasure they had living there.
    I don’t know how to post pictures here so I hope John can find a picture of Mulege to post with this blog, it is a beautiful town with such caring people. The Houghton family was much loved and admired by so many there and I have heard they are all very saddened and feel this loss also. I will try to blog updates, I understand there is an internet connection, but if I can’t for some reason, know that I am thinking of all of you and once again want to thank you my many new friends for your loving support to our family. Always, Linda

  6. Sherry Balow says:

    Bon voyage. I wonder how many times you said that as the kids ventured off on another adventure? Well, bon voyage to you dear sister, as you venture off on a healing trip, a visit to a shared memory and shared times that will take you a little farther into the, for lack of a better word, process. These last few months have been hell-on-earth for you and moving on into yet another facet of this forced discovery, (you’re pulling from your resources here), will ultimately give you strength — and more strength — for all of those days that you know are yet-to-come. I love you — will miss you — but know Mulege is as close as the thoughts that keep US connected.. so, bon voyage, see you soon.

  7. "Jay" Brandon says:

    Linda, here is wishing you a wonderful trip to Mulege,I want you to have a memorible and fun visit… I know you have a jillian memories of all your trips down there, so enjoy every minute of it ……Wish I could join you, but will be on my own little trip…So Bon Voyage…Enjoy, Love , “JAY”………

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