Quiet day,.  Which was welcome after all we’ve had going over the last few days.  I spent the morning wrestling with the water softener… one of the culprits for the sewage backup in our basement. As much as I love making new things,  I am really  terrible at fixing old things.. and this softener is old.. What’s more it meant an hour or so hunched over in the basement.. which is too short to allow me to stand. Mix that in with the damp floors and the lingering aroma .of the last two sewage backups and you start to create that unique old house experience.   To get the memory of the basement out of my head, I tried to spend some time working on the SamStones.org   webpage… . I have most of it there, but I think I could use some help. I’m getting caught in the familiar trap of spending all of my time and energy on one of the less important aspects. E.g. today I’ve been working on the dynamic mapping program that will allow us to see where people have placed or found SamStones all over the world…Anybody who feels they can help me get the webpage finished will be rewarded with at least my eternal gratitude.. maybe more !  As I sat typing on the webpages I realized I was sitting under some artwork that Sam made when he was very young.. the two pictures have sat on the window over our downstairs computer for years.. I love them…  Here they are

     In the early afternoon, Diane, Chai and I went for a wonderful snowshoe up near the sugar house on the Bolton access road. . There was beautiful snow, beautiful views, and nearly tropical (23 F) weather. We did a really nice bushwhacking loop up towards the ridge opposite the Bolton Valley Quad.. The snow was several feet thick in places..  .We could not  have asked for better. 

    After we got back I had a great conversation with my good friend Kerry.. Kerry is an amazing and accomplished guy with a million talents and interests. He  is organizing a group of local artists and craftspeople to help us build a lasting monument to Sam’s spirit.   Kerry has been talking to folks at Bolton Valley , in Richmond  Town and at MMU  high school as possible locations for the piece.. Our thought is to make something fun and kinetic.. e.g. maybe a stylized snowboarder who spins and flips in the wind. If you have some ideas for the piece or a location.. or you enjoy  good (or know someone who enjoys) at design , metalwork, etc.. let us know.

     The day faded into a very quiet evening. Max is still in Quebec so it was the three of us. I really feel Sam’s presence and absence when we sit down to eat. For some reason, we were all pretty low tonight at dinner. The three of us played a quiet game of Clue (Diane won) and things were winding down to bed in a quiet and subdued way. By 8PM. I could barely keep my eyes open, but It was still a little early for Gabe to go to bed,, I don’t know why, but I asked Gabe if he wanted to go sledding. It was like the opposite of what my body and mind were telling me to do.. but sled we did. Gabe, Chai and I spent about 45 minutes coming down our sledding hill. Which is the happy result of an accident in 1995 when a truck accidentally came 2/3 the way down the hill behind our house  .. It wasn’t going back up the hill… so they cut the trees in front of the truck and lowered it down. The result is one of the best sledding hills I’ve ever been on. Our neighbors Barb and Justin  who own the hill have allowed us to rig up some lights for nighttime sledding. It’s a great place.. Max , Sam and Gabe and their friends have been using this hill nearly all their lives.   My memories of having all the kids up on the hill were very strong. Tonight it was fun just being with Gabe. We did some short movies with my new camera.. they’re not ‘art’ but you get the idea how fun it is to go bombing down this hill at night when you should be in bed. .. We  really felt you out there Sam.. we had some great wipe outs that you would have loved.

-jc

Gabe in the snow

Not much to say tonight. I think I have a little of the day-after-blues after the big birthday bash last night    Today wasn’t  a bad day,,, just a little sad.  The same thing happened after Christmas and New Years.  Actually, I’m trying to get better about calling  whole days as being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ most days have elements of both so it’s unfair and inaccurate to label them as being one or the other.  Anyway… I’m finding that having fun is still fun… I just find  that I need a little down time now after doing it.

   Last night things went pretty late.. I think some kids stayed up all night. There were still lots of them around …   Its  always nice having kids around in the morning. Once again Diane managed to cook several shifts of breakfast before I finally rolled out of bed at 9:30. Once everyone left, things quieted down.  Sometime in the morning, Gabe went up on the Mountain and   Max left with some friends to visit Bas and Andy in Quebec.   Around noon Diane. Chai and I got out for a snowshoe with Jen and Tim behind their  house. It was a beautiful trail.. I ran on it several times many years ago when Sam was at Noreen Grant’s   doing Suzuki keyboard lessons.. I remember the pieces Sam composed then.. they were beautiful.

   After the snowshoe, our friend T came by with her two kids. We know T from MMU.. She has been affected deeply by Sam’s death and has had some amazing visions and insights about Sam and his passing. It was her husband who made the Bodhisattva reference to Sam. She made an interesting comment to us about how unusual  and special  it is to be able to see the whole arc of someone’s life.. especially a life lived well like Sam’s .. 

    T had written me a great note earlier in the day commenting on some of the stories in this blog.

She joked that it seemed like I was getting younger as the blog went forward  sort of like the wizard Merlin’s “youthening” or reverse aging process. I like this image of Merlyn..  .since kooks  Merlyn. Dumbledor, Gandolf, Doc Brown  from Back to the Future . have been my heroes since I was a kid.  (Can you see it ? )

I certainly don’t feel like I’m getting any younger when I look into the mirror.. but .when I look into my heart, I think T may be right. As strange as it may seem,. I feel like some of Sam’s spirit has come into me.. into us… since his death. The way Sam’s many friends and their families have come into our lives has been like a jolt of energy for me. I can’t remember a time I’ve felt more alive, felt more love.. or felt this creative. It just sucks that this ‘youthening’  for me. has to come at such a high cost. .It’s one of those strange gifts I’m finding in this tragedy… 

    The rest of the  evening has been  pretty quiet. Gabe had Will over and we all played Monopoly I find I’m no better with fake money than I am with the real thing It was fun hanging out, though. . Carolyn and Selene came by. Carolyn related a sad coincidence story from her recent  trip to Colorado. She was looking for a place to leave a SamStone when she walked into a store  in Colorado Springs. The store owner’s 17 year old  son Asher Crank had just been killed in a skiing accident on Jan 17^th.. The family was just beginning their own path through the journey we’re on.  My thoughts are with them…

   Hearing about Asher’s  family reminds me about the  poem which our friend Sarah sent me a few weeks back .

 

The Well of Grief  – by David Whyte

Those who will not slip beneath
the still surface of the well of grief
turning downward through its black water
to the place we cannot breathe
will never know the source from which we drink,
the secret water, cold and clear, nor find in the darkness glimmering
the small round coins
thrown away by those who wished for something else.

Those small round coins are the gifts that keep coming up for me.. They’re not gifts we wanted.. but gifts just the same.. Thank you Sam..

-jc

I woke up late this morning thinking of Sam. It took me a few moments to remember that today was actually my birthday. I lay in bed for a while thinking about how I felt. It is definitely hard having a birthday without Sam being here with us.. At the same time, I feel like  it’s appropriate for us to celebrate the milestone of turning a year older.  Sam would not have wanted to ruin an opportunity for a party. As I imagined, the day was full of both fun and sad moments. Several times throughout the day I had to go into Sam’s room to look at his pictures and cry.. the rest of the day I spent enjoying myself. I think feeling these contrasts are a good thing..  The more I feel these highs and lows the more I realize I’m having the highs occasionally. .. does that make sense ?
     One of my priorities for the day was to get outside.. because that’s where I feel Sam most strongly. Around 12 Diane, Chai and I piled in the car and drove up Bolton Notch  road to the long trail. We snowshoed in to the west up unto the ridge that’s right across from Robbins mountain. It was a beautiful cold and sunny day.  There was a ton of snow. It was a perfect day for a snowshoe.. The wind had blown the snow into perfect stripes on the western faces of the trees which added a fun extra challenge to following the Long Trail’s white blazes. The climb up to the ridge is pretty steep.. by the time we got up there  we’d burned enough calories to earn our cake. We walked to a nice clearing that I like and decided to turn around. I marked the turn around with my signature naked snow angel.. I try to do this every year on my birthday…it’s a strange tradition. I know.expecially when it’s 5 degrees out and windy.. I got re-dressed faster than I would have believed possible. On way back down I was hit in the eye very hard by a stick… I managed to get a bad scrape and bruise to my right eyelid, just above my eyelashes I was extremely lucky because it could easily have badly hurt my eye… This is one of those good examples of finding good in a bad situation. I’m getting good at that. Check out my eye !:

   We got home around 2:30 After Max and Gabe got home we decided to sing happy birthday and open presents. It was a bittersweet moment .. we lit a candle for Sam and spent a few minutes crying together.and invited him into our celebration.  Once he was with us, we switched gears  and dug into celebrating. Max and Gabe had printed and framed some amazing time lapse photos they’d taken..  In several of them they had drawn Sam in light.. it was so beautiful and sad…  I’ll try to get the originals and post them sometime this week.  Diane got me a great digital camera like Hannah’s … I’ve been wishing for one  to help me with this blog.. . Here is the first shot of my beatiful family from my new camera

    Sam even  gave me a wonderful  present today, too …. In today’s mail were two short  cards of thanks from the woman  who received Sam’s liver and the man who received one of Sam’s kidney’s.. It was such a wonderful connection to have made. The agency is very careful on protecting the identities of donors and recipients.. Now that we know that these two people are willing to communicate, we plan on writing to them . We’ll see where that goes.  I’ll keep everyone posted.
     This evening we had a ‘few’ people over for a potluck.. by the end of the evening I think there were more than 80 folks here. Many of them were Sam’s friends which makes us all very happy. . We really had a good time. I had a few liters of liquid nitrogen left over from last week. We used it for blowing up a garbage can with liquid nitrogen

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 then we used the rest to make liquid nitrogen chocolate ice cream… from goop to ice cream in about 30 seconds. Yum !

Then we made several hundered SamStones. It was a great evening.
   Here’s me contemplating the candels. Five for my family was definitely easier than the 48 it would really take:

   Well.. It’s getting late.. I’m going to finish up now. Thanks to all the people who phoned, emailed, wrote or visitied. We feel very well loved and cared fore. Sam, I feel you with me so much tonight…I love you my son…

-jc

 

The four of us just came back from Sakuras where we had an excellent sushi dinner in early celebration of my 48^th birthday tomorrow.  We ordered a 5^th bowl of miso soup for Sam.. He’s always at the table when the four of s sit down.   It’s funny facing my birthday. Right now, I feel pretty good about it.. though I’m not sure how I’ll feel tomorrow. This birthday.. and any holiday/anniversary is going to feel different without Sam physically here with us.  It’s a change that’s to big to explain. The hopes and dreams I had for my first 47 years have been completely and irrevocably changed by Sam’s death. I don’t mean that I don’t still have hopes and dreams.. It’s that I need to rebuild them all. I’m certainly sadder than I was.. but I think I’m stronger somehow too. It’s so hard integrating that I won’t get to experience some of the things I had hoped to cherish in the future.. Sam driving, Sam’s Graduation, Sam’s wedding, Sam’s kids.. and that feels like a huge hole in my heart.  At the same time I know that I’m still blessed. That thought came to me so strongly at the Reiki session I did today with Marci T. I know that I’m going to live the years to come in a more mindful and thoughtful place.. Even as I grieve for Sam, I’m so thankful for what I have.. my beautiful sons Max and Gabe who are here  with us and the memory and presence of my beautiful son  Sam who feels like he’s everywhere I’m so lucky to have my strong and beautiful wife Diane by my side.. our loving parents and siblings. This amazing community….    Our lives are not perfect anymore  but we have much still to be thankful for.  .. and I know it.. and that’s how I plan to face my birthday tomorrow.. Wish me luck. 

    Diane and I began today talking about the stages of grief table that I posted in the blog yesterday She made a good point about the first column of the table that suggests a timeline for the process. She pointed out how strange it is to try to assign a specific timeline for a process that everyone has to approach differently. It really is dangerous to set an expectation on someone.. or on yourself for that matter.. that after 2weeks we’ll be like this.. after 3 months I’m going to be like that… after 6 months  I’ll be fine.   I’m really dreading the day that someone says or implies  “aren’t you over this yet ?!”  It’s not going to happen like that…. Over it isn’t even my goal.

    Speaking of time, I noticed that  today marks 80 days since Sam died… I was thinking today as I ran that that makes 80 days in a row I’ve spent at least a few minutes crying hard…That’s 80 days in a row that I’ve gone to bed thinking about Sam.. and that I’ve woke up thinking about him.   That’s an amazing amount of time to think of one thing… and I’m just starting at this.

    OK..  I’m going to go write Sam’s name in the snow.. I’ve done it every day there’s been snow on the ground. I hope some other folks will do the same. .. consider that a birthday present for me. Hey Sam.. you’re invited to my party.. always.

-jc

 ps Mike Lawlor was kind enough to forward me a recording of the Skanky Green song that the guys just wrote about Sam. I posted the lyrics last Sunday (2/04/07)..Here’s the recording of  The Ballad of Captain Sam. I love it !