Allison Anne Anderson

Allison Anne Anderson came into this world calmly with the summer sunlight in June 1993, peacefully and watchful and smiling. She struggled for health her first year of life, then blossomed into a child so magical and beautiful that strangers stopped to tell her. Gentle fairy fingers, huge doe eyes and fluffs of yellow hair, she loved colors and music and giggles and shoes. And she loved to watch her big sister, Jacqueline.

She made up her own songs and sang them in her crib when she woke in the morning. Her imaginary Friend Squirrel often traveled with her, sometimes hitching a ride on the top of the car. At 8, she drew a picture of God and beneath it wrote, “God sort of looks like this, but He can change to look like anything he wants. Also, I think God can make copies of himself.”

She played drums and sang in a band, and at 10 she played the Broken Spoke in Austin, starting her set by belting out “Hound Dog” to an astonished crowd.

As she grew, she loved the stars and the Zodiac and stories about the world. She believed butterflies are guides because they are symbols of transformation. Those guides loved to flutter around her.

Spiritual, she loved the outdoors and taking her puppy, Luna, to Zilker Park and Barton Springs. She was always losing track of time and getting locked in Common Ford Park after closing.

She saved her money and bought her own little red car, which she loved and took good care of.

A giant yellow stuffed rabbit joined her in her first hours of life, a gift from her grandparents. Her yellow friend lay with her as she drifted out of the world on a quiet January night in 2014.

A graduate of Westlake High School, Allison was attending Austin Community College. She hoped to become a counselor to help people struggling with substance abuse. Her family and her friends were the most important things in the world to her. In her last journal entry, she wrote:

“I have made mistakes, but the person I am today, I love. I’m not fixed, but I’m healing. I have come further than one could fathom.”

She is survived by her mother, Dana Anderson of Austin, her sister Jacqueline Anderson and partner Vanessa Lopez of Round Rock, her father A. Scott Anderson and his partner Catherine Clark of Lakeway, her grandparents Bill and JoAnn Derrick of Keller, TX, grandmother Eleanor Anderson of Dallas and a family of aunts, uncles cousins and friends that love her.

Visitation will be held at Cook-Walden funeral home at 6100 North Lamar Friday, Jan. 17 from 6-8 p.m. Services for Allison will be held in a service at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 18 at All Saints Episcopal Church, with burial following At Austin Memorial Park. A reception celebrating Allison’s life with family and friends will be held at the Church in Kinsolving Hall after the cemetery service.

Those wishing to do so may honor Allison with a contribution in her name to the All Saints’ Episcopal Day School, Communities for Recovery, or with random acts of kindness and beauty.

ALL SAINTS’ EPISCOPAL CHURCH OVERFLOW PARKING

If you park in the UT garage on Saturday, January 18, 2014, you will receive a reduced $2.00 rate when you have your parking ticket validated outside of Kinsolving Parish Hall (located in Gregg House behind the Church). When exiting the garage, drive to the exit gate and insert your validated ticket and pay $2.00. (DO NOT go to any kiosk before exiting the garage.) NOTICE: IF YOU DO NOT HAVE YOUR TICKED VALIDATED, YOU WILL HAVE TO PAY THE FULL AMOUNT WHEN EXITING THE GARAGE.