It’s the first day of winter and it feels like it. It’s not that cold.. high 20’s and windy.. but the gray sky just signal the long cold months ahead.

The gray skies were the backdrop for Kate T’s funeral at Good Shepard Lutheran this afternoon. It’s hard for me to talk about it much. It is so hard to see a bright young life like Kate’s cut so short. It was also so very hard to see Tom and Beth and family going through this… I felt so sad.. and at the same time.. I felt centered and calm. Death has such a different meaning to me now.  I know that there is nothing that we or anyone can tell them to ease the process of surviving.. … nothing that will make it go quicker..  I  admire their ability to stand in front of the congregation of their friends and talk about Kate.. I know what that takes to do.. Somehow your heart gives you the strength to do what needs to be done. I wish them all peace.. Kate too.. I wish it with all my heart.
  

I remember thinking last year after Sam’s Memorial service that it was so remarkable that everyone there… except us… could leave that place and return to the ‘real’ world and their daily lives.. How could that be ? Still.. I found myself returning home to my workshop to work on a project I’m building for Gabe.    It does feel funky to right about that after writing about Kate…  Still life goes on… It has somehow for us.. never the same.. but it goes on.

The project we’re building is a 10 foot shotgun rail for snowboarding.   Gabe and trevor helped me cut out the leg braces out of 1.5 inch square tube stock.. They seemed to like the sparks.

After half a day in there I have metal dust and splinters in every pore of my body. tomorrow we will  weld on the legs and we can try it out. I find making stuff .. especially stuff for my family.. to be one of the most meditative and healing things I do.

Gabe and Trevor abandoned me on the early side to my sparks in order to bake a pre Christmas cake…   It was yummy.. so it was a good trade-off

Later in the evening we went up to Jen and Tim’s .. Jen’s sister Coco is in town . It was good to see them. Tim was playing bartender and made us drink these weird blue drinks … I’m still seeing things.. I think . 

We spent a good part of dinner trading Sam stories.. Especially ones about the remarkable coincidences we keep having since his passing. We had Chai up there to see there dog Wilbur and cat KrunkBeast.. Their other dog.. and our good friend Freddie died earlier this week. He was a great dog… I could tell that Chai missed him…

I did manage to catch the cat  Krunk playing Katzilla in the Christmas scene.. un for your lives !

We got home around 11.. but Gabe and Trevor were not tired enough to sleep.. They went out and had a snowball fight while they could. The snow’s going to get pretty messy tomorrow.. we’re expecting up to an inch of rain.. on top of the 2 feet of snow.. it’s going to be a mess.

Time  settle into winter..and the holiday week. Keep warm everyone.. old your families tight.. and please send love to Tom, Beth and Kate …

Gnite all.. Goodnight Sam.. We love you
-me