A couple of years ago Anderson Cooper and his mother wrote a book called The Rainbow Comes and Goes and then an HBO special called Nothing left Unsaid. It was a conversation that started via daily emails so that at 91 years of age, Gloria Vanderbilt could converse with her son and vice versa so that, at the end of her life, have….nothing left unsaid.

I had seen the HBO special a couple of times and before we went to the Bahamas last year, I bought the paperback copy of the book and Heath bought the audio book. We sat together at the resort and I read and he listened. I remembered that yesterday as I was really working on accepting that we had our last conversation.

Last Monday night, Heath and I had our last conversation. For some of it is was the daily banter that we always had. A recap of the day’s events, anything that happened that we wanted to share. Mostly it was me getting guidance on life principles and how to live with the glass is half full mentality. Which has been hard for me over time, but in the past two years gotten much better at choosing happy.

The last thing we talked about was Kenya. Every other year WE puts on a staff trip where you have the most incredible opportunity to go to one of the WE villages and have a trip like our guests have to see why we do what we do every single day. It is open to family, friends and anyone in your life you want to share your WE experience with.

Since Heath was such a strong factor is me getting my job at WE I wanted him to come with me. That was what we talked about. We were going to go on the trip and then extend our time in Paris. He was going to confirm with work and see how many extra days he could take and we would be booking our tickets, “when I come back from DC.”

On Friday we got the email from work about booking the trip. I am not going to lie, I don’t want to go on this trip without him, but I KNOW that I have to go BECAUSE of that that same reason. But thankfully I don’t have to think about this today.

I would encourage you to have conversations with the ones you love. Not just texts. There is something about a real conversation that happens between people when you hear their voice, their tone, their intent. Most importantly how you can learn the lessons in life that we get from being in relationships.

What I would give to hear him say hello to me one more time.

Live your best life,

Lisa

#HeathLessons

You may remember from previous blog posts that I have a very good friend who is a United Church Minister. She also happens to live in the Vineland region of Niagara and that always lends itself well to escaping the city and for what I always call my spiritual refill. It never disappoints.

When the events of last week were happening, Anita was in Florida, without data. I reached out when I all I knew was that Heath had passed. I didn’t even know where he was. I was out of control with my grief and just hearing her calming voice on the phone gave me consolation. My friends were sitting with me at my house and people were all around yet I had never felt so alone.

Okay, back to yesterday.

I went to Anita’s service and walked in (traffic on the QEW) a few minutes late. She was sitting with the children of the congregation and they were talking about abundance. She asked them, “what do you have an abundance of” – lots of answers, toys, clothes, shoes, stuffed animals and then one child said love. We have an abundance of Love. There was some talk about that and when Anita ended with “Love never dies” I knew that was for me.

After the service we went for lunch. Great outdoor patio, food and vibe. There was a duo singing as we were eating lunch and the acoustic music, their take on different genres of music was very comforting to me. I was having a good time, but struggling through sharing my stories.

Then the duo starting to sing a song that I had an immediate reaction to. I know I had heard it before. It was another sign. It was strong.

Heath lives in a small town outside of Oklahoma City. It is called Wanette and the population is 450. Even though he lived in other places, he called Wanette home. He has so much pride and joy for his town. On the school board, the economic development committee for the betterment of the town and so much more.

Because it out of the city, Heath spent a lot of time in his car. When I was there in December we had a lot of time to listen to music and talk while we drove back and forth from Oklahoma city, Dallas (twice), and more.

Donny and Marie’s – I’m a little bit country and I am little bit of rock and roll comes to mind about our music tastes. He loved current artists but he loved his country.

A song came on and he was singing the words. I was surprised because he had a good voice. I hadn’t heard this song before. It was played yesterday by this duo.

It is called, My Church by Maron Morris

Can I get a hallelujah
Can I get an amen
Feels like the Holy Ghost running through ya
When I play the highway FM
I find my soul revival
Singing every single verse
Yeah I guess that’s my church

I have now added this song to my playlist.

Minute by minute I solider on.

Live your best life,

Lisa

#HeathLessons

 

When I woke up on Tuesday July 24th, 2018 I could have never imagined how the day would have unfolded.

I was working from home on Tuesday  because I was helping my parents at their new condo. After that was done it was off to sleep country to buy a new bed as I had been procrastinating for…well, a long time.

When I got home I started my work day. I had sent Heath a text message at 11:42am telling him I finally bought my new bed and I hope his flight went well and to call me later that night. He didn’t reply, but I knew he was flying and then busy while he started his trip in DC. We always speak at night so that wasn’t abnormal.

When I work from home I usually have the tv on in the background, but that day I decided to keep my Ipad in my office and listen to some playlists. Again, not a normal work day.

At 1:12pm it all changed. I got an Imessage from Brad advising me that there has been an emergency Heath on the plane. He didn’t have all the details and he would get back to me. Instantly I think I already knew. I was sick with worry. I switched my play list from my upbeat music to my mellow music while I anxiously waited for the reply from Brad. If I had been at work on Tuesday I would have not seen this message until the evening. I would have come home to these messages.

I asked Brad to call me when he knew anything. But I think in my heart I already knew. I sent Heath another text, hoping that whatever had happened, he was okay and he would write back. Nothing.

Then Brad called me. He delivered the news but I think I already knew. It was similar to the old Peanuts cartoons where when the teacher talks all you hear all the muffled sounds. “The news is not good. Heath didn’t make it”. What? How is that even possible. I got off the phone with Brad and instantly started to scream. I called my mom, and couldn’t even get the words out. I called a couple of friends and they instantly dropped everything and came to my house.

These are the words that come to mind: inconsolable, unimaginable, unbelievable, mean, horrible, horrific, tragic, love, heartbroken, loss, permanent, forever, friendship, laughter, grief, missing, empty. 

For a while the three of us just sat around saying that it was wrong, that he was going to call me like he did every night and ask me why I sent him so many texts when I knew he was on a plane. That he would call me a mess when I didn’t hear back from him and thought something was wrong. That he would tell me some crazy story about someone on the plane or in the airport or the Black Suburban Uber driver that picked them up at the airport.

But no, that call never came. And it is never going to come again. For the past five days days that is the one thing that keeps haunting me. That no matter what was going on in either of our lives, we spoke every night. Every night since Tuesday I have looked at the clock at the same time of the day that the phone would ring.  We spoke three times on Monday night.

It is funny, as I am writing this post that I am thinking about something I found in my home office on Tuesday morning. It is a hand written sheet of blog post ideas. I hadn’t written in my blog(s) for a long time. I said out loud on Tuesday that I am going to start writing again. I think that those topics will go on the shelf and I will pick them up again some time in the future. I think that my blog will be dedicated for the next while to my healing. Sharing my stories of my time with Heath. Sharing the love, life friendship and what I am going to call my #HeathLessons. He had many special gifts. HAD. Another thing I will need to get used – referring to him in the past tense. He was a gift to anyone who had a chance to know him. My life is forever changed by Heath Landon.

Thank you for reading and for all the heartfelt comments on my Facebook page, private messages, calls and friendship. I have read every single message and they have helped. I will be looking for your help as I start my long and winding road towards….I don’t know…healing. I don’t know if I will ever be healed. A new normal, let’s call it that as the life I have had for the past two years will never be the same.

Heath – you knew this because I told you often – Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.

Live your best life,

Lisa