adminFamily and friends celebrate Olivia’s life
On September 21 family and close friends of the late Olivia Newton-John came together in Santa Barbara in Southern California to celebrate her life. Her closest family members came over from Australia and some from Europe. Among them were her brother Toby, her sister Sarah, nieces, nephews and cousins. Olivia’s parents as well as her sister Rona and her brother Hugh had all passed away before Olivia. Her friends gathered from all over the world, many from Australia but also from Europe as well as the United States. Some of the more famous celebrities that apparently attended the memorial service where John Travolta, Cliff Richard, Marie Osmond, Leeza Gibbons and Susan George.
The gathering was held just a few days shy of what would haven been Olivia’s 74th birthday on Monday September 26.
On the evening her husband, John Easterling, shared a poignant and touching story of the first birthday they celebrated together on the Bahamas. He later also shared this story on his social media.
The full text of the memory John shared is as follows:
A birthday memory from Amazon John Easterling:
I remember the first birthday when we were together and I took Olivia on a week-long adventure in the Out Islands of the Bahamas surrounded by beautiful, peaceful, spectacular turquoise water. I rented a house on an island with no roads so we got a boat to go with your house and we would take our supplies over to the house which had a generator. If we wanted to go to a restaurant we could always take our boat to another island. There are so many islands there you almost always have an island in sight when you’re out on your boat. It was private, it was wonderful, and we would take the boat to uninhabited islands and beach it and just explore – just the two of us.
One day we took the boat up to Great Guana Cay and on the return trip the wind started picking up, the clouds started rolling in, the sea got really choppy and turned gray and then the rain came. The wind was howling the boat was rolling and slamming into the waves, rain was stinging like someone throwing thumbtacks in your face. Olivia got behind me holding tight as I was navigating this 23-foot-runabout with a center consul. The only instrument was a magnetic compass.
I had a bearing on Elbow Cay but there was no visibility. The sea was rolling and chopping and after a few minutes I was wondering if the currents and the wind had blown us between two islands and maybe we were out in the open ocean just headed to Africa. But, as quickly as the storm started, the winds died down, the rain stopped, the sun poked through and the seas turned back to that beautiful turquoise. As the mist cleared you could see the Hopetown Lighthouse on Elbow Cay and we were perfectly on course. The rainbow started on the left and crystallized all the way over – horizon to horizon – and that’s when the dolphins started jumping at the bow of the boat leading us under the rainbow.
Olivia looked at me like I was a superhero and I knew it was mostly blind faith and dumb luck. As the dolphins led us over the gorgeous aqua water, under the rainbow towards the lighthouse, we both recognized the fingerprints of the supernatural were all over this – and that’s the way we lived our life.
Every day with Olivia there was a hint of magic and everyday day with Olivia was a bit of the supernatural.
Happy Birthday Honey – I Love You!
– Amazon John
A few days after she had passed away John Easterling had also shared a touching letter to his wife on her social media channel.
Some of Olivia’s family members, such a her niece Tottie Goldsmith and her daughter Chloe Lattanzi referred to the gathering in which they celebrated Olivia’s life on their social media, but they did not share many pictures. One family picture stands out though:
Some of her closest friends, like photographer Michelle Day, did the the same. Find below some of the messages that were shared.
Although the family had kept the location secret to avoid media attention, some news outlets reported on the gathering afterwards. You can read one of those stories on the People magazine website.
Her niece Fiona Goldsmith shared a touching poem she had written and which she published on September 26, Olivia’s birthday: