News Article 4

BUFORD
   About 700 families in Buford and cities throughout the world released thousands of balloons Tuesday to remember loved ones. After they’re gone, there’s nothing you can do, but this helps, Sugar Hill resident Donna Shadburn said at about 8 a.m. at her son’s grave in Broadlawn Cemetery in Buford.
Adrian Shadburn died at age 18 as a passenger in a car accident during Memorial Day in 1991. His mother also lights candles at his grave every Christmas Eve and on his birthday.
Donna Shadburn joined the international balloon release Tuesday after she heard about it from her best friend since the first grade, Fredia Christopher of Sugar Hill. Christopher’s son Damon, 23, died as a passenger in a truck accident June 6, 1999.

   Shadburn, Christopher and their husbands braved the icy morning to put roses on their sons’ graves and let their balloons fly toward the sun. We still remember them. They’re missed every day, Christopher said. Every minute of the day, added a teary Shadburn.

   The saddest part is that there are 700 others doing it today, Christopher said. Christopher was the 14th person to sign up for this effort that originated July 30. Shadburn was the 199th. Christopher learned about the balloon release from an online grief recovery Web site at www.groww.org. Another woman on the site’s message board mentioned she was going to release balloons on her dead son’s birthday, Dec. 3, at Haleakela Volcano in Maui, Hawaii. A California mother decided to meet her at the volcano to remember her son. Within a week, 100 others pledged they too would release balloons from meaningful sites, Christopher recalled. It’s just a way of giving every mother and daddy all over the world a way to say we love and miss these children, Christopher said.

   The list at www.balloonrelease.com includes cities with participants from all over the United States as well as England, Canada, Australia, Germany and Norway. The Sugar Hill mothers expect people to think of them as strange with their dedication to their sons’ memories, but they can’t help themselves. Their loss has permanently scarred their lives. Some people think when you put them in the grave, that’s the end, but it was just the beginning of the pain for us, Shadburn said.

   Shadburn didn’t let anyone touch her son’s room for eight years. She finally moved all his belongings into storage so her son Philip could have his own bedroom, but she and her husband agree that they will keep Adrian Shadburn’s belongings. It will be there as long as I’m alive, declared her husband, Morris Shadburn. When Christopher found out her house had been robbed last year, she was more worried about her son’s wallet and other personal effects inside a safe than any other family possession. The thieves broke open the safe, opened the medical examiner’s sealed bag and stole the three dollar bills in Damon Christopher’s wallet. If the police had brought everything back (including the money), I would never know if those were Damon’s dollar bills, Christopher said.

   Christopher will return to her son’s grave this week to put his Christmas tree up. She never minds coming to the graveyard. The worst part is leaving him or not coming here because you think he’ll be all alone, Christopher said.