I’m still in Tucson.   I woke early and called home and spoke with Max. He told me that there was a good dumping of snow back at home.  I hpe it sticks. Max is starting his two  classes at Champlain today. I hope it goes well for him. I’m really missing my family out here.
   Last night was pretty peaceful. My meeting broke up at about 5:30 which gave me an hour before my next round of meetings. The sun was setting over the mountains as I drove away from the IBM site. I pulled the car over and walked into the desert a few hundred yards..,, you didn’t have to go far until you could no longer see anything man-made.  The desert was so very beautiful. The ground was covered with dry gravel and sand . The plants were an other-worldly mix of various types of cactus, dry brush and stunted trees. The wind blowing through the dry ground cover made  it sound like a movie western. I gathered up a small pile of white rocks and used them to write Sam’s name on the ground.  I sat there thinking about Sam until the stars came out.. I then walked back to the car and went off to my next meeting.

    The work part of our dinner meeting was pretty brief.  We quickly moved on to personal talk. My table had a really amazing emotional mix. We talked a lot about Sam. A couple of my friends from the Tucson site, Glenn and Ken, had not yet heard of Sam’s death.. so I had to tell them. I find that to be the hardest thing to do.   I learned that my friend Ken from Tucson  had lost a 23 year old sister to an aneurism when he was in his young 30’s , We talked about how he and his parents handled grief and healing. He told me how his sister’s death profoundly changed his parents. It’s hard for me to hear that I will probably always be diminished. .. but maybe that’s the way it will be.    My friend Steve was at the other end of the table Steve lost his wife in October from a fast-onset cancer.  Steve told me that he’d been writing short fiction for several years. Since his wife’s death he’s been writing short pieces about the experience. Last night he sent me some of his writing.. it was very powerful. One piece was on the topic of how he answers the ‘how are you?’ question. Steve and I are going to grab some time and talk more about ‘how we’re doing’ later today. Also at our table were my friends the Rothwells from Canada.  I learned last night that Judy Rothwell is a Reiki master  (and lively spirit) . We spent some time talking about Reiki. Despite some of my initial skepticism… my Reiki session with Marci last week really seems to have helped me find a better emotional balance.  My friend Carolyn from NY/Australia was also sitting at the table. She told us all the story of her near-death experience four years ago when she went into spontaneous cardiac arrest.   Medics did CPR on her for 14 minutes before reviving her.. she then later arrested and was revived again in the hospital.  She was on life support in a deep coma for four days. Her husband made them take her off the respirator to see if she could breath.. and she did. She went on to full recovery and now has an implanted ICD defibrillator  to prevent this from happening again. It’s so cool to hear Carolyn hear about the peace she had during her near death experience. She was surrounded by light and angles.  The experience changed her life. She says that she no longer fears death and realizes that there’s something ‘more’ out there. Carolyn wrote Diane and I a long letter after Sam died which described her experience. I’d like to get the three of us together to talk about it more. It’s very comforting for us to hear.    Carolyn’s husband is actually writing a book about her experience.. and is currently looking for a publisher.

   My good friend Lori from Austin was also at our table. Lori was telling me that Sam’s death really. Affected her relationship with her own son. She also told me that she’s named a tree in her back yard after Sam. It had brilliant fall leaves on it the day she heard about his accident…  Sadly, Lori also told me that a friend of hers son was just killed 2 weeks ago in a freak BB gun accident. Lori is going to send me the mom’s name, 
     As dinner was winding down, my boss’s boss Vijay showed up at dinner. Vijay was one of the IBM exec’s that flew up for Sam’s visitation hours at our house. He was in town for a completely different set of meetings so it was a pretty unlikely meeting.. Vijay was really supportive.. he told me that Sam’s death has affected many folks in our organization .. and that folks are talking more about work life balance. Making family time, etc.   Vijay also encouraged me to really take it easy and take whatever time I need in my path back to work.. You can’t ask for a better message from your boss. I’ll never forget how supportive my management has been.  
    We broke up at about 10PM.. I went back to Chris and Wendy’s and spent some nice time with them . One of the things that came up was the Buddhist parable of the ‘mustard seed’  that I posted a few days back. Wendy used to be a nun (!) and she told me the very different Christian parable of the mustard seed . Our friend Gretchen also brought this up last week. Her sister Stephanie used to wear a mustard seed in a necklace before she died

 Jesus  said therefore: “What is the Kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in the garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches. “ (Luke 13:18-19)

     Interesting how the same symbol has such different meaning.  Well.. speaking of mustard.. it’s lunch time out here. Gotta run.  I’m on my way home tonight . Eager to see everybody. Fly with me Sam..

-jc

ps. Here’s a snap of me and a new friend