Spirit Moves Through All Things……….

Dear All – this is Bill, Heather’s husband.  As I believe everyone knows by now, our sweet Heather passed away peacefully in our home back on Friday August 10th.

This continues to pain me and our girls beyond all belief, and I see no end.

A few weeks prior, she mentioned to me that if she did have to leave us behind, that I please update her blog from time to time so you, Dear Readers, can be kept up to date with the goings-on of our  family.  I promised her I would.  I will delve into more details about her incredibly moving Celebration of Life at Blooming Hill Farm and some other recent happenings at a future date.  But first …

… I would quickly like to ask, that if any of you are so inclined, to please consider making a donation on Heather’s behalf to Metavivor at the link below:

https://secure.metavivor.org/page/contribute/heathersabella

For now though, I would like to share with you the roadtrip that Izzy, Abby, Rosalee, and I took two days after Heather’s memorial at the Farm.  It had been an incredibly packed, crushingly emotional 2 weeks since she had passed, and the outpouring of love and support was overwhelming in a most incredible way.  SO many beloved friends and family came to us and gave us Love.  WE LOVE YOU ALL, AND WE ALWAYS WILL.

For the last few months I had the last week of summer reserved for a vacation that we were never able to plan.  I wasn’t about to give up this time off, and the girls and I truly needed some time away together, so I asked them what they would like to do.  Maybe the 4wd beach at the Outer Banks again?  I personally would have loved the peace and quiet for a week, especially the beach at night, but the girls both said heck no – they wanted to do something more engaging and exciting.  So be it.  You wanna ride some roller coasters and water slides?  YES, Dad, yes!

So we loaded up the 4-Runner and took off on Tuesday Aug 28th for my hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.

On the way down, for awhile we happened to follow a car with random NJ plates that ended with “HRS”.  We all took that as a good sign!  At Richmond, we took the scenic route (Rt-5) from the interstate for 45 minutes, drove directly to the First Colony (my old neighborhood) beach, and we all had a sunset swim in the 90 degree James River – it truly and honestly felt like a baptism.  My friend Ben and his parents and my friend Danny all came, and we hung out like old times.

Then on to our friends Joe and Jen’s farm, “Critter Creek” (they have 3 mini ponies, goats, chickens, 2 pigs, a turkey, 1 very old big dog, 2 crazy little ones, and a cat) out in the peaceful countryside of Gloucester VA, where we would spend the next 4 nights.

Winston

Mini Ponies!!

Cobi & Tang

Thomas

Cobi!

We did Water Country USA on Wednesday – the girls had a BLAST on all the different slides and rides!  OK, I did too.  Complete with a stunning sunset on the drive back to Critter Creek.

Thursday, we had lunch at The Trellis Restaurant (should have went to the Cheese Shoppe) in Colonial Williamsburg, went boating (Thanks Joe B Jr & Sr!!!), swimming, and shark tooth hunting on the James River, then spent time with Joe’s sweet parents after.  Apparently I somehow missed seeing a rainbow over both the James and another over the York River on the drive back to Gloucester on the Colonial Parkway.  SO many memories from drives on the parkway, I was lost in my mind…….

Friday was Busch Gardens from 9:30am-10:30pm (!!!) with Cass, Drew, and their littles, Piper and Cam.  It was an epic day – Izzy and I rode the Loch Ness Monster 7 times, the last 3 were from 9:45-10pm in the dark under fireworks, Abby rode her first real roller coasters (mainly cause Piper is a real daredevil), and Izzy, Drew, and I rode Apollo’s Chariot coaster a couple of times in the total dark, other than a distant thunderstorm back over Gloucester or West Point, which was spooky and awesome.  But the most amazing moment was the quick late afternoon rain shower and resulting perfect rainbow over us all.

Rosalee totally had the time of her life staying at Critter Creek (eating their food), swimming in the James, boating, etc etc…

Saturday we headed north to Arlington National Cemetery and visited my Dad for the first time since his funeral in July 2015.  That was a truly moving experience for us all.

There had been a few quick rainshowers throughout the day, but for now we were on our way to Baltimore to stay with Sean, Ana, and their cute and silly (and certainly viscous!) Rottweiler, Millie.  During the drive from Arlington to Charm City I put on Heather’s and my favorite Widespread Panic album, ‘Til the Medicine Takes, and it’s opening track Surprise Valley.  Heather and I have always loved this album and definitely this song.  We were now moving slowly in a good bit of traffic on the Washington Beltway.  As the line in the song, “the spirit moves in all things, spirit moves through all things” comes on, I see the reason for the traffic – another amazing rainbow going right over the interstate and seemingly ending to the south and Arlington.

I mean, WTF???!!!  Of course though – she is everywhere now.  Spirit moves in all things.

It felt great to be on the road with our girls, and felt even better to get back Home.

Love to All.