October 18, 2011 - 2 Years and 7 Months Later

Tim and I just got back from a week in Palm Desert, CA - just what the doctor ordered.  A golfer's mecca, he played every day while I played twice.  On my five non-golf days, I practiced at a local Bikram (hot) yoga studio - challenging but good.

A strange, or not so strange thing happened while driving back from an Indian restaurant.  We ended up on some back roads and lo and behold, one of them was called Joshua Road.  What are the chances that we would find ourselves on that road in a part of town that we never travel?  It was Josh - just letting us know that he is always with us, wherever we are.

This reminds me of what happened to our son, Tyler.  Like many other large families, we owned vans.  Useful vehicles to cart kids, sports equipment and mountains of groceries.  As the kids got older, each had their turn to drive our last van, affectionately dubbed "Big Red" while Lauren had it at UVA  The upkeep was just enough to ensure it passed inspection.  This meant that when the air conditioning went out, it went unfixed.

Big Red then passed to Gillian and then to Josh.  We felt more comfortable with him driving a big van rather than a smaller car and besides, it was an Anderson "right of passage" to drive a car in Virginia without air conditioning.  After he died, Big Red was due for a safety inspection.  We did not think it would pass, so gave the car to Tyler because in Georgia, where he lived, there is no such inspection.  Surprisingly, the van held up for quite a while.  But then Tyler decided to trade it in for more reliable, fully functioning car.

While driving away in his new car, he felt sad because Big Red had been a connection with Josh.  He decided to check out Pandora and completely unexpected, the first song that played, which should not have based on how the app works was "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole.  Played at Josh's funeral, this song will forever remind us of him.   Tyler said this was like Josh saying, "it's okay, I'm still here."

While I am at it, one more thing happened recently.  I was typing an email for work and instead of the person's name, my fingers typed "Josh".  I just looked at it, shook my head and smiled as I deliberately deleted each letter.  I wasn't thinking of him at the time but maybe he was thinking of me?  Or wanted to make sure that I still remembered him?  I don't know but with these three incidents I want to believe that his spirit is alive and well.

RIP dear Josh and keep letting us know you are okay.