David's Legacy: Family Experiences Unfinished

Hi there, I'm Christine. David DeMello was my husband and the father of our two children. He died very suddenly this February.

Curating experiences that would help us grow together and show our kids a way of being human in the world was our shared project. Music is a big thing for us. Neither David or I are music professionals or particularly talented, but we both love music and think it is a great thing to to grow up with. Biking has always been important, we navigated all kinds of arrangement until the kids could ride on their own. Travel has always been part of the plan, often returning to the same places and seeing how our we grew and changed in relation to those special locations.

Now that the kids are more independent-- they have skills and context that make interacting with the world a richer experience. This was supposed to be the time that we branched out to some new experiences. A big one-- the trip west. Probably more than one trip, really. Northern route, southern route, 4 corners... there are so many possibilities. Recently we were at a performance of Men in Boats about John Wesley Powell's trip down the Colorado River, and I realized they had no concept of what the Grand Canyon is. We wanted to show the that, and lots more... it was part of the plan. David and I had gone snorkeling together before the kids were born, and we talked about how great it would be to go back with Lily and Leo. We've been to Italy three times as a family, we wanted to back, to see it with new eyes and better Italian.

Then there are little things. We were going to go to the Boston aquarium this summer. David was going to take Lily to a Broadway show. I was going to take Leo to a Philly Flyers game.

It's an unfinished project. Help me make it happen.