Their vow to “love each other forever or until the end of time” was made, according to Olivia Newton-John’s widower (Exclusive).
One year after his wife’s passing, John Easterling speaks openly about his unwavering devotion to her.
John Easterling has been searching for light in the shadows for the past year.
“Things aren’t easy,” he admits, “but you always have to just dig.” He lost his wife Olivia Newton-John to breast cancer last August at the age of 73. Olivia was able to keep an eye on the positives at all times. Love is everywhere.
Easterling, a 71-year-old herbalist and businessman in naturopathy, visited Newton-John’s “special place” in Peru in June to have a private ceremony with her ashes there in honor of what would have been their 15th wedding anniversary.
He gained perspective from the trip: “It made me feel lighter within and gave me a very clear direction to move in. I spent 15 years with this exceptional person. Even that experience is worthwhile.
Easterling clings on to the memories they shared while mourning his wife. Although Newton-John would make up for that years later on a movie night on John Travolta’s private plane, he had never even seen the pop star’s famous movie Grease before they met.
Easterling, who was residing in Florida at the time, was invited to Newton-John’s show in Miami when the two were both working with an environmental group in the middle of the 2000s. People in the vicinity of him started crying as she entered the stage while singing “Grace and Gratitude,” he recalled. She is a healer, and that fact smacked me square in the heart.
The two, who shared a love of nature and animals, fell in love immediately. They committed to one another during their years of dating. According to Easterling, Olivia and he made the vow to love one another forever or until the end of time, whichever happened first. “We’re still within that time frame.”
He preserves a memorial table filled with his wife’s favorite pictures and memorabilia at the house they shared in Santa Ynez, California. “There’s no replacing her,” he asserts.
These days, he spends his time working with the Olivia Newton-John Foundation Fund to continue life-saving cancer research surrounding the efficacy of medicinal plants in her honor. Soon he’ll join stepdaughter Chloe Lattanzi at Olivia’s Walk for Wellness in Melbourne to help raise funds for the foundation and her Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Centre.
“Things have shifted, but we have her,” he says. “We have the best of her to drive us forward.”