My Sad Story

        As everyone gathered, as everyone got seated for the ceremony program in honoring Derek's wonderful life I noticed our childhood church held memories that were flooding me like an ocean wave and I just wanted to stay there in my mind and in the past.
Where he smiled and laughed or even lectured about something he knew.
As everyone gathered I realized that this would be my sad story for the rest of my life, this was going to be it.

When the memorial service, as everyone gathered as the church was packed, as I already knew it would be.
Earlier that week my father said "Everyone hates funerals." I replied "Yes but Everyone loved Derek, so you will need more room then you ever thought possible."
He nodded at me as we both knew this kind of pain doesn't ever go away.

 As the service began as I sat with my family, as I felt so raw and so aware at the very same time.
This was going to be a program honoring such a good man, that I would never want it to end.
As the leading speaker who clearly knew my brother began the memorial service by saying "I'm going to do something a bit different and ask all you to stand in applause for the life of Derek Klein."

I burst forth such pride and such honor in clapping hard. 
It felt so powerful and so good to clap on with all the love I have for my brother!
With all the memories we shared in being there for each other over the years, in challenging each other to be our best selves and in our simple understanding that as siblings we were lucky to stay friends.
Clapping all together in honor of his life and in honor of his kindness to this world I was made stronger. I was made better for in that moment we were all so very proud of him.

I use to think that I had some sad stories in my life but nothing can ever compare to this very week of last year......

I use to think that my brother was always going to be here with me on this beautiful earth.
I use to think so many things that I don't anymore, my sad story will always teach me how quickly everything can change. How precious life can be! Especially one so loved that the sound of clapping fills the room when he takes his leave. 

Here Comes The Sun

On the morning, on that beautiful sunny bright Saturday morning in February after the worse winter in history, after all that snow and all that cold. After 6 weeks not being able to get my car out of the drive way in Boise Idaho. I happily looked out in that weekend morning with new hope for spring to arrive again soon!

My husband had just finished taking his big bar exam that had consumed his whole life for 4 months. So I cheerfully called my mother while sipping my coffee in the warmth of the sun!
Everything was so nice, everything was so perfect that I had been in wonder over how happy I felt. The night before I was getting ready for a Fundraiser event thinking to myself "When everything is perfect, something bad happens the very next day." Wait why would I think that? what is wrong with me? Am I afraid of happiness and pure delight in being alive when everything is working out again? I am pure mental to notice all these wonderful things and still worry...."
My husband was making breakfast and I was walking my dog as the sun light felt so wonderful the beginning weekend had started up!
And I was peacefully just happy!
I had called my mother to wish her well on my parents Anniversary, she told me that my brother Derek was coming out in the evening, so all truly was well and good.
I called my brother Davey next because it was also his 18th birthday and I had to tease him about not being my baby brother anymore!
The world was so beautiful in that sun light so I shared this very song on my facebook profile.  For we were heading right into Spring and all was perfect in my eyes.....
At the exact same hour as the sun light greeted my smiling face, my brother Derek was snowboarding under it's same warmth!
He was hitting those deep snowy slopes, those heavy snowy mountains. Under that very same hard sun.
I got the call about 3pm, I can still hear my screaming echoing in my memory.
The pure terror of loosing someone you loved so much that your heart broke in 2 in the instant of time and the fading of that sun light....
Here comes the sun had been a great song to choose for that perfect morning, while As strong as you were comforted me in the darkest night of the saddest day I had ever known.............

Go Rest High On That Mountain ...

Dear Derek,

One year ago today you died while snowboarding up on Baldy mountain and my whole world changed forever. 
It's truly hard living on with out you here to make a joke or share in a memory of our childhood.

Thank you for being such a great guy in my life, I miss our friendship.
.......My sweet Mountain Man.....My Brother!

Love Always
Debby

Snowy Mountain

Baldy mountain in Sun Valley Idaho is what I want to call death mountain for claiming the life of my brother Derek almost a year ago.

And Yet it's rather beautiful too. It's all that white snow and wide slopes that makes it such a popular ski resort.

Sun Valley has been famous in movies and with Hollywood actors.

I enjoyed ice skating there when I was 19 years old.

I think about how just 12 months ago this place wasn't even on my mind, how I didn't know anything about tree wells. 

(Although I saw tree wells when I skied as a teen/young adult and thought to myself "Ya don't want to fall down that!")

It's very important to know how to avoid them. It's always better to never be out there all alone.

I am grateful for all the videos I have seen about Tree Wells, and the dangers of avalanches.

I still look up at the Bogus Basin lights

thinking about Derek snowboarding in those cold beautiful evenings and nights.

I will always miss him sitting beside me as our skies dangle down together

from the chair lift as the moon was bright and the wind was freezing....

Derek shares "I want to learn how to snowboard." I laugh and reply back "You'll be on your butt most of the time...sounds horrible to me!"

20 years later he was flying down the hill like surfing the ocean waves!

 The Man from Snowy Mountain.

O "Fly On" - Coldplay

I would love to fly out into the horizon of this beautiful earth! Be free from sadness and stress. Be happy in the sun light again.......

I would love to see the world made a safer place for the next generation....I would like to sing on!

Hootie And The Blowfish - Time

I am tired today.

I am very sad of course but I am also focusing all my attention on love and the Army of Good.

I am tired of all these mass shootings, they are coming to Idaho like a dark storm out in the horizon and I feel like screaming "JUST STOP!" 

I am ready for the future now that I know it will be tragic, but time is a cycling thing, I feel like kicking ass of those who cause such sudden deaths.

I am tired today. It has been a long stressful sad year, a very emotional holiday season and now a struggling new year of what to do in fixing our society as death find us all very worn out still. 
I have see myself changing along with everything around me...for good or bad this is how it is......
DO GOOD, BE KIND and Leave the world a better place then when ya found it.

Bob Dylan- Knockin' on Heaven's Door

I have been to many funerals in the last 12 months.

I have sat in the front row as a slide show displayed my very own family, my dear dear brother Derek.

I have heard inspiring groups full of funny stories and bright sunny memories. 
I have sang really old hymns and laid flowers down on the casket, I have prayed in many group prayers at all times of such great loss and pain.
So in all these funerals I have had practice on behavior, on what expect and I always learned something more.....

Yet for yesterday it was truly beautiful in all this raw pain of the sudden death of such a beautiful young woman in our lives, now gone forever.
I hurt for everyone in her family, I am grateful that I knew her, for she sure made me laugh! She sure made the world a lovely place!

Dearest Shawnee Honey, you were loved, thank you for your friendship!

Joni Mitchell ~ Woodstock

Today is a sad day as we attended the funeral of my friend Shawnee Kimble, I have been in shock all week of her sudden death and beautiful smile gone from my life and how much I will miss her as she was family to my dearest Friends Molly and KJ Shankweiler. They have been through so much since their baby boy was born early and I truly just love them so much!
Today will be a very sad day, yet it will be full of love and of friendships that Shawnee leaves behind.
......and She was always happy in the garden so that is how I shall always remember her!

Six Feet Under - Best Quotes

Late last night a friend of mine shared how her brother had just died, while I have been getting ready for another friend's funeral tomorrow and while I have been very reflective over my own life and especially the last 12 months now since my brother Derek died.

People are so strange about death, it's a huge part of me now and I am not afraid to face it at all. I am however afraid the future will be full of more funerals then I can ever imagine, yet I am not afraid to love deeply and meet new people to care about, therefore my social circles roll on and span out before me.

This morning has been down time for me in my tears and in my fears, I started out the new year afraid of what these new days will hold......and now I know, each day for good or for bad is going to teach me something as I grow old....as I love on!

Nothing will stop me from doing my best every single day that I have left.

To death I will greet as an old friend in the end.

A Valentine for me

My Husband Tony made me this! He did such a great job capturing our last 18 years together!

I love him so much!

What a life time we sure have had, what a great memory this video is!

Happy day of LOVE to everyone!

Seasons of Love and of Loss

Tonight I sit here crying, as I have learned that a friend of mine has died. 
My heart breaks for her family as she was such a sweetheart with a great sense of humor..........
While I sang this song all day I had not learned yet of this sudden sad death, while her brother and his wife are true friends in my life, they had just been here for dinner as I asked about how she has been doing and now suddenly crazily she is gone forever and my heart breaks, this kind of pain never leave us because we loved her.........
 Tonight I cry as I think of how she smiled so beautifully, as she made me laugh while I sat beside her  and her dog with her sister-in-law and brother the 4 of us were simply relaxing outside together in the summer grass, this was before so many bad things unfolded for us so I will always cherish this memory and many others that now I can't just run up to her and joke around as I usually do...........

Tonight I count her life such a gift for the rest of us! Tonight I celebrate the love we have that leaves us all stunned and sad by her death..........

All Of Me - John Legend & Lindsey Stirling

The beautiful world of Love songs is where I go every February, for every year since Tony and I started dating we promised each other that on Valentines Day we would stop working, we would stop being distracted by life and responsibilities.

The beautiful day of love has always been our important holiday.
We share in it with such devotion and delight!

The beautiful life that comes from Love is why all these songs and music touches the soul!

The true beautiful is Love.

My Love Story

It was at the coffee shop in front of the fire place that Tony said to me "I have to break up with you. We had such a rocky start to our relationship that maybe it was sign we shouldn't be wasting our time with each other." I sat stunned and a bit in shock as the romantic fire glowed on me with my newly made mocha in hand....I had been working out in the cold winter's day, I had been looking forward to seeing my boyfriend for coffee by the 5 o'clock hour before heading back home out into the country side. 
He sat there looking rather pale and stressed out, I was almost 22 years old so in my young adult life I had never dated before I had met Tony.

Being dumped is a rather weird feeling, I am glad I have this memory because it was after our first 2 years in dating and getting to know each other. I sat staring at my coffee trying not to cry but to think fast on my feet.
 When it feels like everyone else is judging you, not being supportive and not being there for you, as I had lived through by proudly announcing to my community/family/church that I was happily dating Tony Shively. The distractions of others coming at me in protest or in protection made me realized how I had forgotten to judge myself. "Am I in love with Tony?" or "Am I fighting off everyone else to prove to them that this IS true love without really being sure myself?"

Being dumped after 2 years of working hard to win favor of those around me in my decision to date I knew wasn't a waste. I had grown stronger in myself then I could first imagine, so if it had been easy maybe I wouldn't of understood the true value and real cost of it all in who I am when it was suddenly all over like that.

Being dumped ran deeper then just me not being around Tony anymore, I sat looking at him in a calm awareness,after he said thsi to me, so I knew that I did love him. I also knew that we are 2 very different people.

I sipped on my coffee always enjoying my romantic view of life, feeling a bit raw at having just been dumped. We had a lot of family drama going on all around us as well, so whenever I could find a peaceful place to sit and relax I took it tenderheartedly to just breath and think. 
He sat looking sad but also determined as if he thought I would try to talk him out of it. "You have decided that I am no longer your girlfriend in order to lessen the stress in your life?" I asked him carefully observing as I always do....He explained quickly "Yes. Where ever you go I notice that you don't take shit from anyone, you bulldoze your way right through life not realizing all the drama that unfolds because of you!" I chuckled and nodded wondering why I am like that at times myself but I replied "The drama is always there, with or without me you can find drama any where, so I react in a way to lessen it for myself, cut through the bullshit, I don't play games like that. If my bulldozing causes problems then I am in the wrong place for myself. It's good that we are breaking up if you don't like me speaking my mind, we could of ran into this problem down the road of life." Tony burst out "Exactly! Why invest into a relationship that could or would eventually fall apart down the road!?!?" I paused in my smirking and in my defense suddenly I realized what was really happening here....."You are afraid of failure in our relationship?" He nodded and looked around "Everyone here says we make a cute couple, this has become our main hang out spot to date and to be together, but in the REAL world is much harder to face. In the years ahead unresolved problems like you having such strong opinions all the time could eventually lead to a divorce or a sudden end to our love story. Why not face it for what it really is now before it's to late?" I smiled so big at him and I nodded in a mocking way sharing back at him "Exactly! Let us break now before any real problem comes up! here, here." I felt heated at the ridiculousness of the moment then I leaned into him and winked while saying softly "You can not control the future, failure isn't a bad thing at all, for at least you tried." He sat sighing back at me as if I had just proved his own point. I took a deep breath in knowing we were now just friends so I shook his hand "I wish you well, I am glad that we dated I loved every minuet of it! I hope we will still be friends after this. I respect everything you have said and I am sorry, but I disagree with you completely but what else is new huh?" I stood up smiling big and bright confidently while I shook his hand, I looked him right in the eye adding "I know your parents are going through a divorce right now so if ya just need to talk, give me a call I won't mind at all. For you will always be a friend to me." I nodded down at him and left. 
I have never been dumped before, it's a weird feeling of "Wait.... what just happened???" and "I feel like I should be singing my lungs out to the radio right now, or maybe go for some ice cream?"

Three days later Tony found me, "I have made the biggest mistake of my life, breaking up with you was not the answer I was looking for....in fact it was the very opposite of what I needed. Feeling all alone doesn't get any better when you ARE all alone in the end." I chuckled half hugging him so happy to see him in person once again. I had gone on a big weekend adventure with friends, I had felt so empowered by my freedom, so full of life and promise for my wide open future. Only once did I catch myself saying "I should tell Tony about this!...oh wait I don't have a boyfriend anymore I forgot! HA!" 

Getting back together is wonderfully feeling, it had me thinking that we should all be dumped in order to know what we are made of. In order to evaluated everything we still need to work on within ourselves. We can come back together with a better understanding of how important the other person is in our lives or we can move on completely never wasting another second with the wrong person for us. Being dump isn't a bad thing at all really I was surprised to discover this.

Tony and I sat in front of the fire place at our favorite coffee shop once again, drinks in hand and catching up over our last 3 days of being single. "When you left like you did, when you said for your part we are still friends, I knew that I had made a HUGE mistake. Then I kept trying to find you and everyone said you went off to the mountains! and when I got home my family said that I was an idiot to let you go....so needless to say I had a rough 3 days." 
I was giggling as I listened, I was so happy to see him face to face again. I wanted to learn how to listen better and not bulldoze him down. I knew seeing him there was pure joy! A real gift of love!

"I thought a lot about what you said about me needing to always be right, needing to always state my opinion and declare myself stronger then what they all think. I will work on this, I will try very hard to not bulldoze everyone around me, I want to listen better and be nicer to people around me I really do.....I'm sorry for being so difficult when all you need is a friend right now. I am determined to never to loose my identity in my marriage with my spouse so I bring that around with me in everything. I have fears too but not about with US." He smiled so big "Wait are WE getting married already?"

I burst out laughing and nodding "After you get through college, that makes more sense to me and if we are only married for a year there is no failure in that as well. Divorce is not a shameful thing, it is not a scar to carry around for the rest of your life.....people will always judge you if you are in a bad marriage or in a good marriage, they will judge you if you are single or you are dating, they will always be out there with their own agenda so what you have to learn is how to be proud of who YOU are. If your lover changes through out the years, if your partner cheats on you, or if you feel trapped, if you don't feel good in your relationship then by all means don't regret having first taken that adventure with them beside you and now if You find yourself all alone in the end don't take it personally, you can not foresee all things of the future.....as long as you always do your best and want what is best for the other person in your life then you should never be ashamed of how that love story goes. So give yourself peace of mind that no matter what time has in store for you, You never regret having fallen in love and having shared your life with someone along the way to begin with!"

I smiled big as I always did back then, Tony exclaimed "Well shit! Where were you when I needed to hear all of THAT!?!?!" 

I chuckled cleverly "I dunno, I guess I was off dancing in the snow. Ha!"

My Birthday

It was foggy and cold when I woke up and care for the pets, then as it grew into the afternoon the sun shine came out and I happily opened all the windows in our home since my family was coming over for lunch. the night before I baked a couple of apple huckleberry pies instead of birthday cake.

 In the sunny Sunday afternoon my husband Tony grilled up hamburgers and pineapple slices.

 My Mom said it was funny to have me cook for them on my birthday....
Yet I loved having them all come over to visit and enjoy pie with coffee.
It's feeling more like home as the Holidays have unfolded and now my birthday on a nice warm winter's day.
It was fun to hear my father talk about moving to Meridian in 1982, in the small town surrounded by farm land that now is full of new subdivisions and shopping plazas. 
In the last week I went to a grocery store not far from where I grew up and the open field where a white horse lived was still in place set before me in the wide open sky, was I about 7 or 8 years old when I would walk by that horse with our elderly neighbor Bob Hardy who carried sugar cubes for that horse and we got to feel the tongue of the big horse lick the sugars out of our hands as kids.
That was over 30 years now so the fact it's still there this open field I can't help but smile, I have returned to Meridian. We moved out into the country side when I was 10 years old so I really feel like the Orchard farm was were I grew up, but the early days of my childhood were in a trailer park with a gas station around the corner for riding our bikes over to buy some candy or ice cream treats. My young Aunts lived in an apartment not far from there as well and they would babysit us quite often so the play grounds and parks of Meridian reminded me of those busy days of our lives.

Now in having my family over I felt like Good foods and good memories all go hand in hand. It was relaxing and refreshing, it was so sweet that everyone sang happy birthday to me as I hugged my brothers. This is my last year in the 30's so I wonder what I should do with it.....in living here in Meridian I am constantly noticing the new world growing next the old world. Maybe that is how everyone feels about life as they get older.
I sprinkled Derek's huckleberries into my apple pies thinking it's almost as if he were here too, almost as if the day was perfect..........
I walked Oscar that early evening out into our quiet neighborhood grateful for so many things in my life, my old dog and my new home, my family and my husband with many more birthdays ahead (Hopefully with pie every time now) and just another 12 months that could lead to a whole different world for me in the end.