Life won’t go on as usual after loss of two close friends

Yes, life goes on as usual, but sometimes it’s so hard.

At noon Wednesday, Jan. 27, Bertha de Alba called because she knew we’re friends of Michael and Lynda Adelson, and Bertha was unable to get into their home, which she’d been cleaning weekly for decades.

Hmmm. Perhaps the Adelsons had gone out of town, maybe for a last-minute doctor’s appointment? I sent Facebook messages to Mike’s adult daughter, Laura Adelson, to ask if her parents were traveling (I didn’t have her phone number).

I wouldn’t learn until eight hours later that Mike and Lynda were dead inside their Cambria home. Autopsies were tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 3.

About 8 p.m., I got another phone call, this one from a kind woman named Susan, a stranger who had rushed to help an obviously distraught Laura standing outside that home. Laura had asked Susan to call me.

The Good Samaritan had to repeat her message several times before I understood. A bad connection, maybe, or my mind just couldn’t accept what she was saying. “They’re both dead. Mike and Lynda are deceased.”

The sobbing Laura took the phone. Immediately after reading my texts, she’d tried to call her dad, she said, then rushed to her parents’ sleek, modern home and found the unthinkable inside: Both of them had apparently been dead for several days.

I tried to grasp the ungraspable and figure out how I could help Laura and comfort her. Sheriff’s officials were there, with others on their way, she said, and her son would be there soon to support and help her through the trauma.

After I hung up, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t think coherently.

I had another role, however: Reporter. I had to check with my editor, Steve Provost. Laura had told me the investigators didn’t seem to suspect foul play, and the Adelsons had died in their own home, so Steve decided we wouldn’t do a breaking-news story about their deaths.

I’ve written before about the sudden, tragic death of dear friends, and those are among the hardest stories I’ve ever done. Now I’m writing a column about two of them, and it’s a heartbreaking labor of love.

Lynda and Mike had been our friends for 35 years. We were close enough so Lynda and I called each other “sis.”

We knew Mike loved his cameras, pricey cars, well-done beef and burgers with no frills and hated most vegetables (although he enjoyed my caramelized corn). Lynda loved seafood, salads, spicy stuff, chocolate, her T-bird, bold jewelry and dramatic clothing (often red and black).

Mike had been a race-car driver; he was a photographer, avid sportsman and crackerjack poker player. Lynda was an artist, researcher and writer who shared my long-ago background in marketing and public relations.

They were talented, so-smart people who were absolutely, totally devoted to each other.

They launched their Seekers Gallery in 1981, near where Husband Richard and I had opened our bakery in 1979. Soon, clients came from around the world to buy from the Adelsons’ carefully curated collection.

Seekers was frequently honored by art publications as one of this country’s top galleries for American art glass. The shop regularly won awards for the breadth of its collection and the spectacular ways in which the Adelsons displayed the works.

Their staging skills carried over into the Adelsons’ own collection at home. Once, when we were at dinner at their house, Mike looked up and commented dryly, “Our cat is scratching its back on a $35,000 piece of glass.” That was so Mike.

And life went on as usual.

Our friendship went beyond commerce into social and familial territory, from daily phone chats and shared celebrations to shows at the PAC, picnics at concerts and a quick lunch at the beach.

And there was love.

After fire destroyed the Tanner home in 1994, Mike and Lynda were right there, helping us scour through the ashes to find any salvageable remnants. In turn, we tried to help them through their travails.

Gradually, though, the Tanner and Adelson lifestyles diverged. I became a full-time reporter at The Cambrian. Mike and Lynda traveled frequently on long cruises and tours. They sold Seekers in 2005 and opened Gallerie Lulu, where they displayed his computer-enhanced photographs and her collages and other artworks.

Medical problems (and getting older) interfered with some of our shared plans. Mike developed a debilitating back condition, changing his sport from tennis to lawn bowling to pickleball, playing each of them aggressively. Lynda had hip-replacement and other surgeries and medical issues. My husband had a stroke. They closed the gallery.

We chatted and emailed. The caring was still there, but changed lives meant we couldn’t socialize as much.

Then the phone rang Jan. 27. Life will go on, but things will never be “usual” again. And it will be so hard without them.

This story was originally published February 1, 2016 at 1:27 PM with the headline "Life won’t go on as usual after loss of two close friends."