“I will keep you with me on all my adventures”… for Dori Orr, Part 1
My beautiful friend Dori Orr unexpectedly passed away in May 2015. I got the call while landing in Salt Lake City, my layover for my trip to California for a family celebration. As any of you who have experienced loss of a friend or loved one knows, your world becomes shaky and blurry for a while. I vaguely remember turning right around to fly home, the memorial we put together or the encouraging words I said or heard from mutual friends and loved ones.
I do remember panicking about what the correct feeling or response her young children should or shouldn’t be having. I do remember yelling and screaming and then realizing I don’t actually know an adults “correct” response and that I had no idea how children should feel. I wanted to be there for her husband yet every time I saw him the pain seemed to intensify. I was a rough first year. I missed her so much.
2 years later on Her Month – the month of her birth, her anniversary and her death – I decided to start a lifetime of adventures with Dori. I wanted her to see the world with me. I awkwardly asked her husband for some of her ashes. He immediately agreed and so started my healing.
She loved travel. She LOVED water; I think she was actually a mermaid. In her life we didn’t travel as much together as we wanted. She was a home school teacher, raised chickens, and did massage from home…and anything creative or artistic you could think of.
So a few great beach trips, a few mountain trips, a few concerts and lots of nights at her house, that was our short decade together.
I was excited and nervous and surprisingly comfortable to go pick up her ashes and start our travels together. It’s what we always talked about.
I picked her up on her birthday and made this promise:
I will let your toes touch every magical body of water around the world I can get to. I will release a few ashes in each of them. I will keep you with me on all my adventures. I will think of you at every amazing place and event I experience. I love you in all your forms-life, spirit and ashes.
So my next post, I would love to share the adventures of Dori and I of 2017. We have been around the world and had some amazing adventures, just as she always wanted. I cannot express the healing that has come from all of this.