Today was an incredibly full day.  We woke late.. I’d dreamed of Sam who’d been reborn as a vine of some sort that I was trying to trim. I woke up not knowing what the dream meant .. I just know that I was concentrating hard in my dream.. Diane was also woke thinking about Sam .  In some ways we have to relive losing Sam every morning. We spent some time lying there talking about who we hoped to find or make meaning out of Sam’s death… would we becoming more spiritual ? .. .. would we  devote our life to some sort of public service ?… .  both ?  What keeps people from making big commitments like this under normal circumstances anyway?  One of the things we have found so far is that each of the four of us brings different ways to approach our grieving and healing . E.g.:  Diane’s vision brought us the carved stones and the candle circles we have at dinner, Max’s creativity helped us carry Sam’s Celebration at Memorial Auditorium. Gabe organized the party for his and Sam’s friend this week. I came up with the idea of spreading some of Sam’s ashes with fireworks. This week we’ve been working on creating some ongoing rituals to make sure we each remember and honor Sam each day.. and include him in our family gatherings. Right now I make appoint of talking to Sam every time I look in a mirror  when  see Sam’s face on the button I wear. As I look,  I also can’t help noticing how much Sam’s death has aged me.. I see new creases between my eyes which must come from crying.. I also talk to Sam in the shower.. This morning as I showered I also noticed that I was getting more used to the sound of my own crying.. I don’t think I ever heard myself cry as an adult until Sam died.

     As for family rituals,  we’ve begun coming together before meals, lighting a candle and saying ‘hi’ to Sam out loud. We think we’ll also do a small ceremony on the morning of holidays to welcome Sam into the celebration before we begin celebrating.  I have to admit that I am worried about how I’ll manage New Years Eve and New Year without Sam… It makes me so sad to think about it.. One day at a time though. .. I’ll worry about that tomorrow.

      I mentioned that today was a full day…   we had several big events today. It was really our first full day out in public.  It started with a haircut (yes.. I still need to get a few of them on the sides cut)  Deb Mallow donated the money from  my haircut to Sam’s fund.. What a sweetie… We then went to our good friend Mason’s Eagle Scout board of Review. About 100 people showed up at Brwester Pierce school in Huntington to watch Mason get this important award.. I was very proud of Mason.. he’s worked hard for this award. He’s been a regular fixture in or house for years. He’ always been so helpful.. This summer, he and Sam stacked all of our wood.. Mason’s been here nearly every day since Sam died.. and he’s seen that our wood ring is never empty. He’s a really great kid. Mason asked me to say a few words at the ceremony which I did.. it was pretty hard getting up in front of an audience and speaking. It was also strange.. but  in a way nice.. to be in a large group of people who were not focusing on our family .Now that I think of it,  it was really our first public venture since Sam died.

 From Mason’s Eagle board in Huntington, we went wih Max to an organizing meeting for the Voices Project movie.  The Voices Project, which was the creation of Bess O’Brien from Kingdom County Productions. It was a stage musical that addresses issues important to Vermont high school age kids. http://www.bcbsvt.com/pages/voices/about.html . Voices toured the entire state of Vermont in 2005  ending in a big show at the Flynn Theater in Burlington.  Max did  a great job playing a homeless drug addict in the play … We were really proud of him. All of us were sad for Voices to end last fall… This fall Bess decided to revive the program and revamp it into a feature film with the help of her husband,filmmaker Jay Craven. . The film will be made this summer in Vermont using most of the original cast. The project still  needs to raise about a quarter million dollars to cover filming. If you know anyone willing to contribute..(Including yourself) please let me know.   Thinking ahead to the filming was exciting.. but also made us sad. We kept thinking of the plans we’d already made for Sam’s summer… Mt  Hood snowboarding camp Abenaki with Gabe, etc. That’s why we find we still can’t project ourselves more than two days into the future at this point.

   We wrapped up the day at  a pizza pot-luck  party at Jen and Tim’s there were a bunch of folks there each armed with a different twist on Pizza. It was rally nice. I think I’m addicted to these large community dinners.  I hope we keep them going.  It was very relaxing over there.. Hannah Deene and Dave from Talent showed up with Adah.. They gave us another check for $340 for the Sam fund from ornament sales and donations  We also gave Hannah some more Sam buttons .. if you need one.. please see Hannah at Talent. One very cool other thing happened at the party..  I was outside waling our 83 year old friend Barbara  back to her house.. On the way back I noticed a cool double rainbow ring around the moon. I told everyone about it when I got back to Jen and Tim’s . Our wonderful friend Hannah T went outside to get a picture of it with her digital camera. Here’s the picture she got with her camera..

Hannah’s always been looking for a sign from Sam…. And here it is….. It’s even cooler because Hannah wears a lock of Sam’s hair in a heart shaped locket around her neck .   Wonderfully strange but true…

   Well it’s late.. and tomorrow’s new years eve… gotta get some sleep.  See you tomorrow. Thanks for the snow, Sam. We love you.

-jc

Friends.
   Jen Kenny just called and asked me to invite anyone interested to a BYOP (Bring Your Own Pizza) party at her house tomorrow (Sat) at 6PM.  She also asked me to pass on an invite to anyone interested in making more ‘sam stones’ to feel free to come by her house anytime and she’ll get you started. What a wondeerful friend !  What a wonderful community…!
-jc

Last night was amazing. Gabe had the idea to invite some of his and Sam’s friends over for a mid-vacation party/sleepover. Kids started showing up around 7PM. By 10:30 or so there were about 40 folks here spread all over the house and barn. A bunch of our friends brought over every imaginable type of food… the place was jumping from about 8 until about 3AM when things started to quiet down. It was both wonderful and surreal having so many of Sam’s friends and their happy chaos in the house and not have Sam in the center of it all. His spirit was everywhere, though.  The kids kept going into Sam’s room to hang out, look at his stuff.. see the pictures we have and swap stories. It was good for everyone I think.   The ripples of Sam’s death are still going through our community and these kids really seemed to need/enjoy coming together and rolling in Sam’s memory.  

After folks were finished eating, we cleared the dining room table and set the group to work making ‘sam stones’. Wonderful friend Jen had brought over a bunch of clay and some ‘sam’ name stamps she’d made out of sculpy.  The idea is to make small lumps of clay with Sam’s name imprinted in them to leave at spots that Sam loved. I really like  the idea that  people might find the stones and see.. or even speak.. Sam’s name.   It was a hoot sitting around the table, hands covered with glop and talk about Sam and everything else.   By the end of the evening we’d made 100’s of these things in every shape and size.  Here’s a picture of the stones on the table drying. Jen picked them up this morning to dry, stain and fire them. They should be ready for spreading sometime next week. If you want a few to spread around, let me know. 
    The house started waking up I shifts around 8 this morning… I waddled down at around 9:30 to find a houseful of sleepy kids and a busy kitchen full of friends cooking for them. My parents managed to sleep until about 11 even though the noise of the morning was right outside their door.  The house produced another 2 hour feast  for breakfast then we started ferrying kids up to Bolton to enjoy the snow we got last night. It was great waking to snow. (I just heard that this December is the warmest ever on record…. What would Sam have made of that ?! ).. It’s almost 2PM and their must still be 10 or so kids spread throughout the house. As things quiet down the mood of the house is still peaceful and light. It’s strange to know that we’ll be sad later…  but I know we did a good thing by inviting the world into our space again. The love we feel from our friends and family is sustaining us right now.

    Speaking of the love of friends.. this morning we received a wonderful gift from my college friend Chris in Tucson (Thanks Chris !) . He sent us a ‘Ben’s Bell‘ Ben’s Bells is a foundation set up by Jeanette and Dean Packard after the death of their son Ben. The idea of the foundation is to foster acts of kindness and healing. They promote the creation of these beautiful ceramic and brass bells which are spread randomly through out the Tucson area (and beyond.. evidently). People come together to create the bells as a way of community healing. They don’t sell the bells either. .. The only way to get one is either  to find one. or be given one from the org.. (they call it being belled, I think). It sounds like a great way of spreading love.   Check it out…

      Well.. it’s 2pm and I’m still in my pajamas.. it’s time to start the day.  I thin the rest of the day will be quiet.. I love you Sam….

-jc

I woke today feeling much more peaceful… I could still remember the deep pain I felt yesterday … but it let me be this morning. I lay there for about awhile thinking about Sam and sending him love.  Diane woke up and it was her turn to wake up sad. It’s like that now.  I’m so grateful that we have the love and closeness that lets us talk about where we are in the moment and be there for each other.  We talked each other out of  bed and downstairs to start the morning routine:, start the fire, open the shades, feed Chai, made tea … I find that starting our day is a bit like trying to get a rusty lawn mower started.. some days   we can start on the first pull… some morning we try and try and can’t get started.. This morning our day sputtered to life on the first pull.   … The snowstorm promised for last night didn’t deliver.. so we pushed each other outside for an early morning run. It was cold and wet.. but still felt great to be outdoors…  As we ran Diane told me about a grandfather’s clock in the Harry Potter book she’s reading with Gabe. The clock has a hand for each member of the Weasely family that shows what’s going on in that person’s life… where they are and how they’re doing.  (e.g. Mortal Peril)   We decided that we needed one of those to keep track of the different emotional roller coasters the four of us are on.. On ours the each person’s hand would point to words like  peaceful, in denial, angry, very sad, optimistic, spaced out, preoccupied, buoyed by friends, etc….   it would help us and our friends figure out the shifting emotional weather of our house.   

   These different emotional cycles are one sign of just how much of the healing journey you have to take on your own… You do it with your loved ones and friends… but you heal on your own.. one moment at a time.. one thought at a time.. We’ve gratefully fallen into the arms of friends and family just to get through the past five weeks.. Our job now have to learn to stand on own two feet again.   To that end… we’re spending the day preparing for some sort of party that Gabe has planned for tonight.. Like last night’s snowstorm, we don’t know whether to expect 3 friends or 30. It’s will be a mix of Gabe and Sam’s friends.. but those are mostly the same people anyway. It will be fun whoever shows up…    and fun is good for us we’re told J ,

    Oh.. Speaking of friends, a cool thing happened yesterday. Our friend Keith came by yesterday to say hi. Keith splits his time between Bolton and St. Petersburg , Florida… He helps run the snowboarding program here in the winter and works on boats while in Florida. Keith just happened to be in St. Petersburg when we went down after Sam’s accident. He came and visited us in the hospital which was a great comfort to us.. He’s up here now for a few days visiting friends. Last night  he came by with a plain white snowboard that he’d had all the kids at Bolton sign. He’s taking it down to Florida to create a small memorial to Sam near the site of his accident. It will be good to have a memorial to Sam down there. What made me even happier was that Keith told me that he and a buddy are starting a program in Sam’s honor to take inner city Florida kids to the beach. We really, really love it when we hear that people are being moved by Sam’s spirit to help other folks. 

    I hear the house stirring.. it must be close to 11AM…   I’ve got a cool idea for something I’m going to build today for Sam if I can get to it…    Now I’m going to go shovel out the barn to make way for the party tonight.. Whether it’s 2 or 30 it will be fun to have the house filled with gross middle school humor again… Be there or be square Sam..

-jc

ps. One of the spotlights in our kitchen got really bright.. buzzed and burned out just as we came in the house after our run.  I think these coincidences… or ‘connections’ (better word) are a result of us being so open right now… Open both as in exposed and raw.. and  open as in receptive. I hope I can hold on to the receptive part.