Monica LaSalle, Nederland. Walking in the door, I see her quietly resting on the couch by the glass doors. As her eyes flutter open, she sees me and gives me a wane smile as she slowly sits up to make room for me to sit down with her. Struggling to speak, she looks over at Ben for interpretation, and since he has been close with her for decades and came to take care of her, he immediately intuits what she is trying to say. Malformed Stage 4 Glioblastoma, diagnosed April 2, 2018, has slowly stolen her ability to speak and write, but her eyes are bright and animated, and her mind is sharp because she definitely hasn’t lost the need, or the desire.
I only got to spend an hour with Lyn that day, talking about her life and some important things she wanted people to know about her. She knew how hard it was for her friends and loved ones to come visit her and see her deteriorated condition; she got it. She was born on July 2 and died just one day shy of it this past summer; she always had fireworks for her birthday growing up in Grandville, Ohio, where she later went to Denison University to study social work. She later got her master’s degree at Ohio State University.
Hearing this, I thought, “Of course you did,” because anyone who knew Lyn knew how dedicated she was to helping not just people but animals, plants, all living things. She spent the last few decades of her life working in non-profit doing high-level finance for various organizations. She also worked for Boulder County Mental Health, The People’s Clinic and Global Greengrants Fund, in Boulder. As her illness progressed, she wanted to go back to work but just couldn’t do it.
Lyn moved to Nederland in 1995 after living in Boulder for a few years. She took one look at the house on West Third Street and fell instantly in love. She bought it immediately and never moved again. She described how free everyone was back in the days before this area became known as a place to go for the outdoors, times when she and her friends would go out to Mud Lake and go skinny dipping and run through the woods naked.
She boasted proudly (with Ben’s patient help) of her honorary membership in the Andrews clan (Norm, Laurie and Brent), having met them when she first moved to Nederland. I asked her about Michigan Mike and NedFest. She told me of the early days with him, how she helped him manage the festival as it grew. When he died, he left it in her capable hands and she immediately turned the event into a non-profit.
With a laugh, she and Ben tell me about the time she found $12,000 in cash in the closet of their home. It was October, and when she drove it over to Mike, she found out it had been stashed there from the box office of the previous NedFest. With a lecture, she returned it to him. She told me she feels very sad to see it end because it was 20 years with only one missed year.
Lyn decided to leave her home with all the flower beds to Nederland Victory Gardens.org and Jim McVey, who will offer classes on mountain gardening and anyone can volunteer. Garlic is what she was known for, as well as growing tomatoes with great success.
“Blessed to have known her as a friend, we at Victory Gardens are honored to continue her legacy of growing flowers and food on West Third Street. We are humbled by her generosity and this special opportunity to fulfill our mission of building local food systems. Her memory will live on in the vision and success of the gardens,” says Jim McVey.
Lyn was known and loved by so many people in the Nederland community. Tracy Tyrer describes meeting Lyn in the late 90s, saying “She was always fuzzy with a red wine heart that made her show her love more. She had a great laugh, a beautiful smile. In those days we were all hanging out at the PI every night having lots of red wine,” she recalls with a laugh. “We would take family camping trips that always consisted of 14 friends and 17 dogs, a whole group of us that got to be good friends. We’lll miss her laugh.” Her favorite holiday was Halloween, so she had great costumes every year, such as Recipe for Disaster where she was as chef with cooking implements everywhere; or the infamous Bird in a Bush where she hung birds off the crotch of her outfit…you get the picture. This made me laugh out loud at the memory of seeing her that day on the deck of First Street. It really was a good costume.
Lyn’s longtime partner and forever friend Ben Griffin describes how, “Nedfest was always a big thing, her in her black bathing suit for gardening and NedFest until it was so threadbare, I had to insist she buy a new one.” “She was always about dogs and taking care of other people’s dogs, paying vet bills for people. She was very simple and easy. I will miss making her laugh which was the best. She was a very giving person,” he says. Some of her favorite things were gardening, dogs, drinking beer and having fun with her peeps, and of course, music.
Mark Clift writes, “I found tears wetting the paper as I found myself at a loss for the words to eloquently express my feelings of loss. I reflected on how Lyn’s intelligence, pride and caring wisdom has touched my life. A friendship spanning 20 years. Unanimously respected in town, Lyn’s compassion and strength of character serve to be qualities we can all attempt to emulate. Lyn’s benevolence will remain as her garden property has been donated to the community to serve as her perennial expression of Growth and Love to be cultivated”.
“Always a smile, always a laugh, always filled with an appreciation of life experienced and understood by few. Lyn embraced every moment with each of us, sharing her uniquely funny and sincere personality. Her love of animals, of gardening and the peace she found in those quiet times tending to the little sprouts and watching them mature into delicious plants was her way of relaxing, digging in the dirt and reconnecting with the earth. Her famous garlic and delicious concoctions from her kitchen are known to many.
Lyn’s soul always shined, even throughout her battle with brain cancer; which her physical body finally succumbed to. I will always cherish the times we shared on the NedFest field, the laughs at Very Nice Brewing and the times she’d visit the Caribou Dog Ranch, laying in the cool creek on a hot summer day.
“Lyn is a special spirit who is off to her next journey filled with love, adventure, laughs, friends, animals and I’m sure a huge garden. Hugs and love. May we all be as fortunate as Lyn to be surrounded by such a caring community and loving friends to our last breath. Peace be with you and yours.” - Words from another longtime friend of Lyn’s, Deb D’Andrea.
Lyn’s lifelong best friend, Phoebe Brockman will be in town for the memorial, and had posted this the day she died: “The world just lost a super smart, witty, fierce soul yesterday, one day shy of her 61st birthday. She would choose dogs over people, but who wouldn’t. You knew if she liked you. She would go out of her way to help you and was incredibly loyal. If you were bullshit, she saw right through you and she would tell you. We met when I moved into her neighborhood. We became instant friends, co-conspirators, partners in (misdemeanor) crimes. She held all my secrets safe and I hers. We shared childhood adventures, called each other ‘space cadet’ as a term of endearment, helped heal each other’s broken hearts, and loved each unconditionally. We knew when it was the right time to call, and when the (home) phone rang, long before caller id and cell phones, we knew who was calling. She was always there for me during tough times. That’s what friends do. And she was a friend to so many. Generous and kind. She will be sorely missed by many. Somehow, I know that she is in South America right now organizing the solar eclipse. They needed her and of course she would leave this earthly world to help out when she’s needed. Happy birthday Lyn Hanna. I am heartbroken that you are no longer with us to share this adventure”.
For certain, Nederland has lost a beautiful soul this past summer, a loss that has been hard for us all to accept and accommodate in our daily lives. Rest in Peace, Lyn.
(Originally published in the August 22, 2019, print edition of The Mountain-Ear. The pdf is available by clicking here https://themtnear.com/product/2019-08-22/)
