I know that a lot of people have a love hate relationship with social media. Facebook specifically. I know that I do. Over the past couple of years when I have been on vacation I have made conscious efforts to take a self imposed sabbatical. Yet, the past week it has been my lifeline. My connection to the people in my circle to express my sadness. The outpouring of love and support has no measure. Every single one of you has helped me start to get through this very dark time in my life. I will forever be grateful.

To be honest, Heath probably would have hated it. Which is funny since he was a social media manager in his professional life. He spent hours picking and creating posts for his various clients yet never posted on his personal page. He would carry his phone like a bible checking constantly to ensure that his response times always stayed in the high range.

I take a lot of pictures. Okay…I know many of them are of food! One thing I noticed was that on the trips that we took together the past 18 months there weren’t that many photos. As I am looking back on this now I realize it was because I just enjoyed being in the moment. As much time as we spent talking, there were many times where we didn’t talk at all.

I mentioned yesterday, in the Bahamas, I was reading Nothing Left unsaid and he was listening to the audio book. We sat overlooking the ocean for a couple of hours just reading and listening. I would make him pause to ask him what part he was at but that was it.

When we were in Jamaica it rained – quite a bit actually. One afternoon we were sitting in the outdoor covered restaurant rain pouring all around us. I was reading (love my vacation chick lit reads) and he was working. It was perfect. It is a memory that is in my mind without a photo yet I remember everything, including the smell of the warm Jamaican rain air.

Over the past week I have found the silence a challenge. If you knew Heath you know that he was never at a loss for words. He had very strong opinions and wasn’t afraid to share them with you. I learned that I was not a great debater and many times just conceded to change the topic.

Yesterday my “memory reminder” on Facebook reminded me that one year from now it is going to be all these posts and memories that will be coming up in my news feed. The photos will bring me joy but the posts will be like ripping the band aid off and feeling the raw pain like it is feeling now. I think I am going to be mindful of that moving forward.

I am going to continue to write as it brings me joy and helps the healing. You can actually “follow” the blog on the WordPress page so that when I write a post you will get an email that I have a story to share. There may come a time where I choose not to share my posts on social media. I hope you will all continue to follow my journey.

Have a great day and talk soon,

Lisa

#HeathLessons

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