The house is quiet. Max and Gabe are up trying to ski/snowboard in the rain. They feel close to Sam up on the mmountain no matter what the weather is.  We’ve just come home from a really nice evening at the home of our friends Gretchen and Marshall. Gretchen’sparents, Ed and Sue Gannon are in town. Gretechen had a  sister Stephanie who died in an outdoor accident at age 18 which was 27 years ago. It was both wonderful and sad to talk to the Gannon’s and Gretchen about Stephanie and their path through her loss. It was so clear how much Stephanie was still in their hearts and minds.. It was also clear that they’ve been able to move forward and have lived rich and full lives since her death. That was good for us to see.   We talked about how loss like ours changes your whole view on the passage of time. Sue told us that although it had been 27 years since her daughter died.. it seemed much shorter. We see that too. I can’t believe that it’s almost five weeks since Sam’s death.  The entire time seems like only a week. I think it’s a trick of perspective.. just like driving away from  a hugh mountian.. It always seems to be about the same distance away. Sam’s death is so huge in our lives that it always feels like it just happend. I susupect it will be that way for a very long time …if not forever.. . The good thing about that is that we will not forget him…
    We spent today almost preparing for Christmas… I say almost because there are many things whcih we would normally do that hurt too much to do now. We’re trying to figure out what old traditions we can keep,.. and which ones we can’t . We have also given much thought to what we should ‘get for Sam’.. He doesn’t need presents … but not including him somehow in the gift giving seems so wrong . We have done several things which we think Sam  would have liked. I spent a few hours today welding him some chubnks of metal with his name on them . I’d llike t give these out soe people can leave them in places that Sam loved. We had another idea we liked. Sam had a favorite necklace  which has  a pendant  with his name written phonetically in Mayan glyphs. We had made when Sam  Diane and I went to the Yukatan last June. Sam wore it almost constantly  for the last 5 months of his life. You can see it in many of the slideshow pictures from his celebration.  The image of the Mayan script came to Diane very powerfully during a  Reiki session last week. We knew the symbols were very important to Sam.. The middle symbol is a bird.. which has always been Sam’s ‘totem’ animal . Diane and I traced the gylphs  and gave them to Chris Cleary.. a very cool stonecutter we know in Jericho . Chris sandblased the symbols into the side of a 300 pound boulder. On the other side we etched: “you have your wings – fly free – we will love you forever” . We plan to add his name to in the Spring. We picked up the rock  from Chris this morning.It’s really beatuifull. This evening Max, Mason, Abbot, Rusty and RJ helped me muscle it into place near the barn door. It looks good there… We also  made a donation in Sam’s name to the Seva Foundation to support training of a midwife in a Mayan village. Seva, which means service in sandskrit has some very cool ways that you can give gifts that support health and nutrition across the world. Please check them out.
   Well.. that’s all for tonight… I’m going to go up to Sam’s room and read. Diane and I finally got around to putting up all the posters and pictres we have from Sam’s celibrations up in his room. It’s a very comforting place now… Please come and see it…  Pray for Snow !.. pray for Sam…

-jc