Memories...Part One

When Heather died I realized the most important thing in life is the memories that you make and the people that you make them with.  It has nothing to do with your job title, the amount of money that you make, or how expensive the gifts you give. In the end all you take to heaven are your memories and hopefully the people that you love.
When Heather died she left behind a 6 foot one, black, grand piano. I can still picture her face the day the piano was delivered and they set it up. She knew that the piano was hers and she could play and practice on it. In 2009, I believed that I would someday be living in a small apartment with that grand piano taking up the entire space and having to eat and sleep inside of it. But with time, everything changes and when you see things differently I realized that Heather would not want her beautiful grand piano sitting unused, untouched and not tuned for the remainder of my life. So last Christmas I made the decision to sell Heather's piano before the carpeting was put in so that I didn't have to pay movers twice to move it and then move it back onto the new carpeting. It was very difficult for me to have the first person that Heather's piano teacher brought over to see if they wanted to buy the piano. It has been said that I am a very strong person, but as strong as I thought I was, I could not handle seeing young person after young person coming into my home, sitting at Heather's piano and them play with the delight what might be theirs. So I contracted through a consignment store and sold Heather's piano.
When Heather died if you had asked me then if I would ever consider going on a cruise I would have told you “you were insane.” Cruising to me did not seem to be my type of vacation. However after our 2012 Disney cruise to it Alaska, I realized that I did indeed enjoy cruising. In October, 2013, I decided that I wanted to make memories and take my family; my daughters, their husbands and my granddaughters to Walt Disney World and on a Disney cruise to celebrate the holidays for Christmas this year. Once the piano was sold, I used the profit from the piano to pay for our trip and our cruise. I could have bought new carpeting for the house or put a nice down payment on a new vehicle but again I wanted to make memories with the ones I loved instead of material things.

Edison holding Daisy tsum with Bear in the bag and ready to go

When Heather died, Wendy and Jenn were not married, and Lil E was not here. Amazingly, Jenn's husband, Paz, actually met and spent time with Heather on several occasions. The only members of the family that have never known Heather or Aunt Missy are Sunnie, Violet and Elinor. I find it so amazing that Sunnie, who never met or knew Heather shares her exact same birthday-December 10th. I do not think this is by accident that he has this bond with Heather. Then both babies are born on the 10th of the months. So it seemed that the perfect time to take an all family vacation would be December 10th. One to celebrate two very unique and special birthdays and also the cruise ships are decorated for Christmas as well as Disney's private island-Castaway Cay.

The Gang selfie-Jenn wearing Ellie, wish my arms were longer

October and November came and went and our big family vacation was coming close. We had many things that seemed to want to sink our vacation. The final thing required us to get an attorney to make it all happen. I was into the full swing of work and had Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving. I was uncertain as to what I would be working on Thanksgiving since the store opened at 6pm and remained open till 10pm Friday. I decided not to cook a traditional meal for this holiday and then cook big again in less than 30 days. For the first time ever we had pizza, chicken wings and salad for dinner with pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. The only thing that mattered was we were all together. My shift at the store turned out to be on Friday.

My Sunnie-Happy Birthday! I didn't get to hug Heather but I got Sunnie

I was made to feel a bit guilty for being off from work as it was the worst kept secret there. Looking back I should have just let it go and been myself. But I was trying to be political correct to earn a continuing position at The Disney Store after the season. I was nervous about using the paper Disney discount card as I had been told there could be lots of issues with the parks not accepting these. To be completely honest I wasn't sure just what my discount would be. I knew I had 20% off but then there was the Christmas bonus that allowed a 40% discount, but seasonal employees are not given all the perks of the regular cast members. But I have to say that it was very easy to use my discount card and I received the 40% off everything that I purchased and this included fine art too.

Minnie and Mickey made in Germany

Artist Larry Dotson and Sherry with a copy of the painting

 December 10^th arrived and all the Coombe, Shannon and Galusha-Luna’s arrived at the airport with all our luggage and carry-ons. What a site to see our family all checking in. Our only hope was that the 13 checked bags would make it to Florida and we would not leave any of the bags behind on the actual flight. We arrived in Florida after an uneventful flight as Lil E slept almost the entire time. We arrived at the Disney bus to go to the resort and here came the rest of our group, Lynn and Linda, from South Carolina. Hugs were given and we headed to the All-Star Movie Resort and then to Downtown Disney for shopping.At dinner I managed to find a chocolate cake to celebrate Sunnie's birthday. Where there is a will these is a way to find anything!! It was chilly but still a fun time looking at all the shops and all the Walt Disney World items. The most treasured item I bought is a painting of Sleeping Beauty Castle decorated at Christmas by Larry Dotson. In, 2009, when we were at WDW he was signing artwork and I bought a small 5X7 of Cinderella Castle decorated for Christmas. This time I bought the actual Gilee (gee-clay) of his newest Christmas painting. I told him my story and that today would have been Heather’s 27^th birthday. He made sure to assign me painting #27 and he would personalize the back and ship it to my in January.

Snooks in Downtown Disney at the t-shirt shop

So ended the 6^th anniversary of celebrating Heather’s birthday without her. I think being busy with traveling and being away and my mind kept occupied it made the day go faster and hurt less….it still hurt but maybe a bit less.