It’s Saturday night and I’m at a potluck at Jen and Tim’s house. There are lots of good food and friends around.  There are about  20 people here right now  and everyone I can see has a button with Sam’s picture. That’s pretty amazing considering it’s been nine weeks since he died.  The nice thing about crowds like this is that you can get away with just about anything. I don’t think anyone has noticed yet that I’m over here typing on the computer rather than socializing. J

    In a few minutes we’re going to clear away the plates and start making SamStones. The idea is jelling a bit more each day. Our thought now is to make thousands of fired clayt ‘rocks’ with Sam’s name on the front and our new URL (samstones.org)  on the back. We hope to spread some of Sam’s spirit this way. The website is just barely up at this point. I’m looking for help in making it a good place for info about Sam and some of the ways are keeping his memory alive. We also want to make it easy for folks to get these SamStones so that they can carry them to the four corners of the earth. Sam would think that was so cool.    It feels very good to put energy into something that  passes on Sam’s love and his wonderful spirit.  One of the things I’m finding  that most of the stuff that’s been written about mourning the death of a kid is about ‘coping’… I’ve not come across much on the topic of ‘celebrating’. Sam was/is a joyous spirit.. so just coping seems so inadequate.   I wish there were more resources for grieving folks about how to creatively honor their loved ones…  

   I did start reading a very interesting book on loss today.. “Ghost Rider – Travell on the Healing Road” by Neil Peart, the drummer from the Canadian band Rush. My friend Kevin gave it to me. In one year Piert lost his daughter to a car accident then his wife to cancer all within a year.  From two chapters of reading  I feel a great kinship with the guy as only someone who’s faced this kind of loss can feel.   At the same time it also helps me realize how very different everyone’s path through loss can be. Peart spends a good deal of time talking about how losing a kid estranged him from his wife. That seems unbelievable to me given my own experience. I can’t imagine how’d I’d get through this without Diane. .. while we are finding our own path through grieving.. our love for each other and our family is the one of the main thing sustaining us at this point. Peart also chooses to cope  by getting on his motor cycle and driving 55,000 miles to escape his loss.  I can’t imagine  getting through this without our community… The other thing I realize from reading someone else’s reflections on mourning is they make for weird reading.. it makes me wonder why anyone would read what I’m writing in this blog… :-0

    Ooops,,, I’ve just been caught typing.. I think the karaoke is about to start so I must run and hide.. Plug your ears Sam.. Talk to you tomorrow.

-jc