Sigh… I just wrote a longish post, then lost it all when my browser failed. I’ll try to re-type it from memory. This is a pretty Zen exercise…
I Just got back from to the hotel from my all day meeting. On the bus back, I was telling my friend Wolfgang that I felt funny several times today because I found myself feeling ‘normal’. sometimes . It wasn’t that Sam was not on my mind. I was thinking about him all day. It was just that I found myself getting really into some good technical discussions, and it felt pretty good to be enjoying my work again.
On the people front, the day was amazing. I must have been hugged by about 50 friends. Our sadness of losing of Sam hits such a universal chord in people that it cuts right through the normal business protocol of quick handshakes. On top of that, I didn’t feel like running around trying to say ‘hi’ to everyone as I would normally do. The combination allowed me to have good, long conversations with several friends about Sam, their families, life priorities, etc. Even though I normally find these meetings exhausting, I found today strangely relaxing…
I had an interesting intersection between work and life this afternoon. There was a talk and panel this afternoon which touched on on-line collaborative communities such as MySpace and SecondLife. After the session., I talked to two of the panelists, my friends and mentors Katherine and Irving., about our experience with MySpace. I told them how Sam’s MySpace had turned out to be such a wonderful way for Sam’s friends to come together to mourn, and heal… I also told them about how much my MySpace blogging had meant to me during this hard time. I think it would be fun to help companies like mine create something like MySpace to use too help build their own internal communities. I was just starting to play around with SecondLife just before Sam died. In Second life I look like this:
Wow… I just spoke with Diane and she told me that our very close friend Mason was in a car accident today on the Richmond-Huntngton road. Thanks g-d Mason was not hurt, but his car was totatled when it slipped on a patch of ice, spun out and hit a tree. Mason told Diane that he had a vision of Sam as the car hit the tree and the airbags came out. I was so freaked out when I heard about the accident that I was shaking. Mason and his family are so close to us.. I am so glad that you’re OK Mason.. we love you ! Thanks for protecting him Sam !
-jc
ps. Diane also told me that while she was up at Jen’s painting SamStones today a part of my blog from yesterday came up. I had said:
I’ve had several people ask my why we’re choosing to be so public about our grieving.. I really don’t have an answer.. we’re just doing what feels right to us. Our friend Jean suggested that people grieve the way they live.. .. and I guess we’re public people…
I guess the part about us being ‘public people’ didn’t come out right. I didn’t mean that the outpouring of love from our community was because we were public people.. That was because Sam was who he was… All the folks who are wearing Sam’s picture or helping us make SamStones.. or writing his name in the snow are publicly showing the world how much they care about Sam and miss him.. . And I’m missing him very much right now.. Here’s a picture of him as ‘Wonderboy’ at
