I can’t believe it… but I’m still sick. I usually blow through these kind of bugs in a day or two, but I think my resistance is down.  I’m taking some sort of over the counter cold meds and it’s got me so zoned out that I can hardly think. I’m sitting here at 4PM trying to recall what if anything I accomplished today. I had several work calls, but I’m hard pressed to remember a single factoid from any of them. One interesting think to note, I have cried less today (so far )than any day since Sam died. I attribute that to being in a drug and disease induced walking coma.  Again, the anesthetic value of being zoned out is a ‘nice’ side benefit of being sick..  OK.. I guess there are limits to looking for gifts in bad luck.
   As I’ve been sitting here writing two friends have come by bringing food First  friend Deb with her killer macaroni and cheese… (I mean this stuff is so good there’s a black market for it. ) Then friend Sue with matzo ball soup and chocolate !..  Both had been reading this blog and told me they felt sorry for me that I was sick. It’s so very strange when someone tells me that they’re reading what I write here.  Writing  this is  such a powerful way to work through some of the things that my family and I are facing around Sam’s death. I hope it isn’t  taken as whining… I.e. I’m so sad.. I’m so sick, etc.   Whatever… I really appreciate the food and the company this evening.
     One of the other projects for today was to help Max figure out what he’s going to do next semester. The plan always has been for him to return to Pratt in Brooklyn for Spring semester to finish off  the coursework he missed after Sam died.  As the Jan 15 start date for Spring at Pratt got closer, none of us felt really comfortable with  the idea of Max going back down to NY by himself. All of us still have daily breakdowns where we need each other for comfort.. Even at our best emotional times we’re working at diminished intellectual capacity due to the ‘fog of grief” … which is the way one of the books put it. Over the last few days we’ve been trying to figure out options that  would allow Max to keep making progress in college.. and also allow him time to heal. Today he decided (and we agreed) that he’s going to take his spring semester here in VT then return to Pratt in the Fall. While he’s here he’s going to take 2 classes at Champlain College and finish off his incomplete work from Pratt,.  He’ll then transfer this course work to Pratt when he goes back in the Fall. We’ll make it work for him to get to Pratt 3-4 times to see friends and use their editing, darkrooms, etc that he’ll need to make up his incompletes.. The Deans at Pratt (Student Affairs and Liberal Studies) and the folks at Champlain have been amazingly helpful and accommodating as Max tries to  figure out a plan that would work.   I’m really happy that Max has decided on this ‘take it slow’ path… I’ve heard several  stories form other grief survivors who jumped back into their lives too quickly.. and paid for it later. I don’t think he’ll ever regret taking this extra time to heal… I hope..
It’s so tough being a parent under ay circumstances. Under our current circumstances it’s even harder. …  I just want my kids to be happy .. All three of them.
    Which reminds me.. Both food bringing friends tonight had interesting Sam-ish stories to tell. Sam’s  friend Sawyer came by with his macaroni toting Mom this evening.. He told me that a few days ago they were driving towards Bolton on the freeway in the afternoon.. It was still somewhat light.. All of a sudden he saw an intense white light hovering over Bolton. The light didn’t appear to come from anywhere A few seconds later it was gone… Our friend Sue told us that tat she saw a green and purple light enveloping the left half of the moon during the fireworks at Bolton on New Years Eve. It was the same purple and green light that she’d seen wafting out of the left side of an air vent at the gym a few weeks back. As she saw it she was thinking about Sam…and she’s a skeptic she says.   weird but true.
   Well.. One more night and I think I will have cracked this bug. I plan on feeling better tomorrow…   Actually .. That’s like saying I plan on being happy tomorrow. We’ll see. G’nite Sam… bummer about the rain
-jc

Still sick.. Fever.. Sore throat.. Thick head.. That on top of the general fog  that we all live in since Sam’s death .. and my  built-in  spaciness.has me running at about  10 %. .of normal consciousness.  Being so zoned out has a helpful anesthetic aspect. .. unless  of I have something that must get done. … like work I spent the day in telephone calls trying to catch up with everything that’s been happening at IBM in the past 6 weeks. Whatever I do, I find myself only absorbing about half of what I hear. I hope it’s just because I’m feeling sick.
   In the middle of my work day I finally started going through the many emails I received in response to  Sam’s death. It was so nice.. And so, so hard reading all of the heartfelt sadness and good wishes from my work and other email friends .There were hundreds of notes.. Some were 1-2 lines.. Others were pages. By the time I got to the end of the list I was basically lying in a heap on the counter. So much love.. So much sadness.   While looking through the mail, I also found some of my speaking notes from  Sam’s celebration. I am getting the feeling that I’m not doing enough to make good on the promise I made myself up on stage at Memorial that night.. I wrote that day ” I’m going to choose every day to honor Sam’s memory. To move forward, not backward. To do something good for the world. I’m going to try to take his (Sam’s) passion into my own life and become a better person for it”  Today I feel more like I’m being swept along and not getting to chose anything. I feel like I need to find a place to stand solidly before  I can start moving forward…  and I’ve yet to find/build that solid place.  I’m going to make some  time to meditate on that over the next few days/
     Right now I’m going to crawl into bed with a hot cup of tea.. Sorry for such a short post this evening. I’ll pad it by including a beautiful poem that our good friend Avery wrote about Sam…  This is for you Sam.
-jc

PS. I jacked up the font size on the blog so I can write without glasses. Hope that’s OK for everyone

Ugh..… I’m lying in bed with a fever and sore throat. Not bad for my second day back at work.. eh? Sick as I was, I did manage to get a full day of catch-up work in. I managed to weed my original list of 1770 non spam emails down to 16 important ones. What does that tell you? 

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 Tucson .. not Phoenix..(Chris… eager to see you)  and I’ll be gone 2 days, 3 nights. This will be a big step for me.. so I’ll let you all know how this goes. 

   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..
   Anyway.. gotta sleep now.. G’nite Sam.. we love you

-jc

 ps. Thanks to my good friend Clint for howling at the moon with us last night

 pss. Jen K. asked me to pass on that many folks left dishes up at her house last Saturday.. Any dishes not picked up this weekend will be made into dangerous art (she didn’t say that.. I just made that up)

 psss. Friend Avery told me that she and Sam’s friends Morgan and Brian were talking about Sam and Bolton night riding today  in Health class when the lights blinked off and on … Sam again

Here’s a picture of Sam that his friend Brittany took this past summer. She just sent it to me. What a beautiful kid…  I love you Spam !
-me