I woke up to a beautiful day. Diane and Chai were already out walking with friend Jane and her dogs. Max is in Burlignton with friends and Gabe is still asleep. Gabe decided yesterday that he wasn’t up to being back in school. The change in our morning ritual… eating by himself at the counter.. no Sam to make us late for school… really hit him hard. He told us that he’s OK as long as he’s busy.. but gets sad everytime he has to sit quietly. He wants to take things a little more slowly for a while.. It was the first time I’d seen him really cry since Florida. In some hard way it was good to see him working through Sam really being gone. We are getting to know the meaning of the strange expression “good grief” . We recognize that each of us has a certain amount of sorrow to work through each day.. .. and we must attend to it. The work is pretty simple..our bodies know what to do… and  meter out just enough for us to bear. Generally we walk into Sam’s room and just ‘be’ with his stuff. Sometimes we start goign through the cards and letters we still have to open.. sometimes we read.. sometimes we just sit and cry. It hurts like hell.. but then we feel better and we can go on with our day.  If we don’t make the time to grieve each day we pay for it. We find that keeping busy keeps our loss just out of mind enough for us to function.. but putting it off too long in a day just means it takes over. For example: I spent a good part of yesterday working on a project for Sam. Sam’s friend Jon brought over a Christmas wreath in the shape of a guitar… I spent a few hours welding a statue of a guitar player to hold the wreath outside. I took the form for the sculpture from a picture of Sam at Rock Camp. . In my drive to get the thing finsihed, I forgot to do my grieving for the day.. the crying caught up with me while I was welding… That was a first… Once I forgot to snap my mask down before striking an arc. Sunday I found myself crying hard while installing storm windows… The day before it was while cleaning my lab which was still covered with all the pyrotechnics that we used to launch some of Sam’s ashes. I rellize that in my distracted state I’d left a very dangerous mess   Before that it was while driving and I had to pull over. Today I’ll make time to sit quietly and think about Sam. … it’s safer.
   I’m beginning to hear that we’re not the only ones still thinking of Sam every day. I’ve been getting mail from folks who are reading this blog about how they are integrating  our families tragedy and healing into their own lives.Though it’s bittersweet… we love hearing folks tell us that they are spending more time together as a family because of Sam’s death. I love hearing that some  of my work friends are taking a step back and locking at how crazy hectic their lives have become.    I also really love getting myspace mail  from Sam’s frineds about how they’re pulling some of Sam’s love of life into them… None of this changes the fact that Sam is gone.. but we get the feeling that his spirit is getting passed on and we really, really love that.
   Well…. It’s late now.. I’ve got work (chores and grieving) to do. so that’s all for now. .. We love you Sam…
-jc