Again it was interesting in a detached sort of way to stumble through all these correspondences and see all the stuff that had been keeping folks busy and aggravated for the past 6 weeks. Many of the notes had requests for stuff that was now late.. For each I had to write a short couple of lines explaining why I’d been derelict in my response. Sam has provided me the ultimate ‘dog ate my homework’ excuse. Even so, it is so hard to have to tell people what happened to Sam. Each time I do, it’s another small land mine that goes off on the page. Each time I relive the whole story in 1-2 lines again. I always write something like.. “I apologize for being slow to respond. I’ve been out since the death of my beautiful son Sam 6 weeks ago.” Is that too much information? “I’ve been out due to a death in the family” is too generic and cold.. ” .. due to the death of my son” is too impersonal… I’m not out to shock anyone… but I want to say/write Sam’s name… and I want them to know that he was/is beautiful. In addition to the tough job of telling new people about Sam’s death.. I’m finding that many folks who already know the story are not sure whether they can talk about Sam.. or even mention his name. I had a good friend tell me that he didn’t want to upset me by bringing up Sam’s name… I’ve got news for you folks…1) I’m upset already.. nothing you say is going to make it worse (or, sadly… better)… 2) Sam is all I think about.. Not mentioning him denies Sam’s existence… it starts to erase him. Mentioning his name helps me keep his memory alive. I want to hear stories about him. Please let me hear them.
Another work thing I did today was that I decided to take that first business trip next week. It’s actually to
I also did an interesting non work thing today. I went to see Marci Taft, a massage therapist and Reiki healer. Let me tell you.. this is a big step for me… I’ve never been particularly open to non-traditional healing methods like Reiki. .. but Diane and Max have gone to Marci and have gotten great relief through her hands on approach to energy balancing. It was during one of these sessions that Diane got her vision of Sam’s Mayan necklace and the bird image on it. I went in hoping to also get some glimpse of Sam’s spirit.. even if it was something locked away in my head. It was a very cool experience.. very relaxing and energizing.. but I got no distinct visions. I think the kind of ‘sign’ I’d love to see is not something you find when you go looking for it.. Well.. actually.. I did get a brief mental picture of Sam smiling on a yellow and red backdrop holding a key out for me… OK.. I guess that’s pretty wild. .. but what does it mean.. and where did the image come from ?
We are now trying to take a Sam walk or run every day just to spend time concentrating on Sam, thinking about him… and sending him love. Tonight Diane and I took a beautiful walk in the full moon. We went up to our rock and sat talking about how ‘unreal’ it s not having Sam in our lives. We keep coming back to the ‘why’ questions.. Why Sam ? Why Us ? Why Now ? .. those are such hard questions.. I really struggle with ideas like Kharma that would lead us to believe that Sam or we did something in this (or other) life to ‘deserve’ his loss. I also can’t buy the notion that a knowing G-d chose to take Sam for a higher purpose.. or to punish him or us.. I don’t think that nature is either merciful.. or malicious Any more than a hurricane or earthquake or sunset is merciful or malicious… So why then ? I get the feeling I’m at the very beginning of a long spiritual journey where I try to make sense out of what happened to Sam..
-jc