Andy Blog
Its very difficult to imagine Andy at 28! Today is his birthday and for the 12th time we are celebrating it without him. All week our thoughts have been about him and we have probably chuckled as often as we have shed tears. We have been planning to plant a tree today (a memorial we have used before) but have had a difficult time finding the tree we wanted. Dianne and I both remember the tree we had at the house on Anchorage. It was a beautiful flowering tree that we had been told it was a tulip tree. It turns out that is was actually a type of magnolia that grows to be larger than we want in front of the bedroom window. (We learned about the magnolia after Dianne visited the Anchorage house and clandestinely removed a small branch to take to the nursery.) As were discussing the tree and the Anchorage house, we remembered how much Andy loved that house and being close to his best friend, David Bell. One of the first things Andy would ask each day was about the possibility of playing with David. They had many great adventures together. Since we are thinking about planting a tree today, the one that came to mind was the treasure hunt. They had seen or read about pirates and buried treasure which set their active imaginations loose. It seemed perfectly reasonable that they too should have a secret treasure buried somewhere. So, Andy and David snuck into David’s parents bedroom and cleaned out his mother’s jewelry box. Their vegetable garden had been tilled for the spring planting and this seemed like the perfect place for the treasure. For some reason they decided that each piece of jewelry should be buried in a separate hole. This occupied them most of the day and their parents most of the following week with a metal detector. Here comes another chuckle!