It’s just before 9PM on November 20^th.  Sam, exactly one year ago to the hour you started to cross that street with your friends and left this life. I’ve been thinking about  you every moment  since. I miss you so very much.  You always loved life and had the most wonderful gentle and generous spirit. Your spirit continues to do good in the world through us and your many friends..  We feel your presence  always.You are loved by so many people Sam.. you always will be..  Be at peace my son.

-dad

 

ps. Here’s the message Sam left on my phone a year ago today. I love hearing his voice.

 

 

 

   I’m somewhat at a loss for what to write this evening… on one hand, today was full of lots of fun and interesting stuff… on the other hand.. today marks the anniversary of Sam’s last full day as we knew him.. I’m torn between the ‘real’ world and the world that’s so much bigger.     That’s such a big deal.. yet at the same time.. what’s a year mean ?  Tomorrow marks the time it took for the earth to circle the Sun … after our son left this world. 365 times the earth has tuned on it’s own axis. Is it really different from all the days that have passed since Sam’s death ?  I don’t know, but I’m guessing that, in many ways,  tomorrow’s going to be like most of the others.. I’ll wake up grappling with the fact that Sam is gone. I’ll take comfort in the love of my family.. I’ll feel buoyed up by the folks in my community.. and I’ll have some really dark times missing Sam.. In the end, I’ll take stock of the day and record the parts I care to share in this commentary..   I am guessing that will be the rhythm of our lives for quite a long while.. Maybe forever,. Tomorrow is different  only in that our society chooses to recognize it as significant.

   So much has happened in this past year to think about.. we’ve had literally thousands of folks come in to our lives to share their care an feelings. Sam’s spirit has been passed on through the efforts of  his good friends in the  Friends of Sam movement.  The FoS have raised thousands of dollars for local kids… The funds that folks have generously donated to the Sam Cohn foundation are allowing kids across Vermont to enjoy snowboarding. music, and camping , all things our Sam loved. Sam’s name is on about 4000 SamStones made by his friends and now spread across every continent on the  globe..  We get messages daily about folks placing or finding them in some of the most beautiful, spiritually meaningful  and politically important sites from across the globe.   Sam’s many friends continue to write to him publicly and privately in his MySpace  sharing their thoughts and love for our son. This has shown me the healing power of the internet and the global community it supports. Sam left our physical life, yet his spirit seems to be magnified in so many ways..   The mystery of his passing is with  us every day.  Why did this happen to Sam? What does it mean ? How can this be ? Where is he now  ?  Questions that will never get answered…

   So much has changed in our lives… but one thing has not… the love we have for our kids… for Sam..  I love you so much my son.. Good night…

-me

 ps. If you haven’t already, please share a story, though or wish for Sam on the SamStones story page here.

So… Now begins our week of remembrance to mark the one year anniversary of Sam’s passing  We have several things planned this week in honor, memory  and celebration of our wonderful son, brother and friend.   We want to let folks know what’s up so you can participate either in person or in spirit with us..

We can not mark Sam’s passing with a single day. Tuesday the 20^th marks the anniversary of Sam’s accident. We know that Sam’s spirit left his body within moments of being hit..  The 21^st marks the day that he was declared brain dead, so that is the day we mark legally as the day of his death. By the end of the  22^nd Sam’s heart was  in another’s body keeping her alive. Each of those events brings its own memories .

Here’s what we plan to do this week. Please pass this info around to friends who may not be reading this on the blog.

Tuesday the 20th

This will be a day for our family to come together. We  don’t have much planned. We’ll be at our house laying low and thinking of Sam. 

Wednesday the 21st

We would love all of you who are close to Sam and to us to come and share part or all of the day with us.  You are welcome here even if you don’t know us well,  yet need the connection with Sam for yourself. We have several things planned for the day. Please come.

Noon  – Weather permitting, several of us are planning a trip up to the Bolton fire tower… where we released some of Sam’s ashes last year… we’ll meet at the base lodge at  noon.  

5 PM  – we’ll meet back at our house for some quiet remembrances, community  and a pot luck. Please bring warming soups, bread and/or salad to share. We’ll be playing music and making SamStones.

7PM – Please join us in lighting a candle for Sam. There’s no significance to the time.. it’s just a time where our friends around the world can join us in lighting a candle for Sam and sending him love. If you can be with us, that is wonderful… if not, please light a candle for Sam on your own..

7:30 PM on – We will have a bonfire, again weather permitting, You can join us to add something to the fire to mark the year as a remembrance of Sam.. it can be a message, a story, a poem, a song, artwork, slide show, anything. If you can’t join us in person, please add a story to the SamStones story log here. or add a comment on Sam’s Myspace . I’ll be putting copies  of both of those into the fire.    We’ll be holding  a ceremony I learned at the Solstice a two years ago with friends in Austria.. we’ll make a wish for Sam, ourselves or our world then jump over the fire to make it so.

Again, If you do come, please bring something for the potluck. Chairs to sit on around the fire, an offering to burn, musical instruments, songs, art anything you’d like to share.   If you have questions please call us at 434-3576

Thursday the 22nd

Thanksgiving morning, we’ll  be joining our friends the Williams in their 3/6K walk/run in memory of their son Jarred. We’ll all be running/walking in our Sam shirts. I’m not quite sure of the times, but I’ll post them when I get them. Please show up an help us support the Jarred Williams Foundation which helps raise money for families of kids with brain cancers. 

We’ll be doing Thanksgiving with friends.. so we’re being well cared for…

Friday the 23rd

Friday will bring some down time. My family will all be coming from Boston and some of our good friends from Diane’s home town will also be coming in…  Not much planned for the day but leftovers.

Saturday the 24th

On Saturday, we’ll be holding the 2^nd annual Sam Cohn Memorial concert at the West Monitor Barn on route 2 in Richmond. You can find details here. The concert will be a fund raiser for the Sam Cohn Foundation and will feature a ton of local bands. It will be a great show ! We’ll need some volunteers to help with parking, running the door, serving pizza/drinks, set-up and clean up. We’re having a planning meeting tomorrow at 6PM at our house on logistics for the concert. If you want to volunteer please show up.. or let us know if you’re available to help.

It’s going to be a hard week .. and a good week.. I can feel both . Thank you all for the wonderful love and support you’ve given us over this past long and tough.. and somehow beautiful year. We will never forget it.. we can’t…

Love you all.. Love you Sam..

-me

 PS. Remember, if you can’t join us this week in person, please add a story to the SamStones story log here. or add a comment on Sam’s Myspace . We’d love to hear from every one of you. Thanks !

Friends…
   Next week marks the one year anniversary of Sam’s passing. On Wednesday, Nov 21st we’re goign to be doing a quiet fire ceremony for Sam at our house. One of the things we plan to do is toss things in the fire as a way of honoring Sam..

OK.. On to the day.. and it was a very good one. We woke up latish and worked around the house for a bit. Job 1 was removing all the fireworks from the car…  It felt much safer to drive fter that.. After an hour or so of that.. I drove into town to return the spring board we’d borrowed from Tom and Erika and to drop off the large box of foodshelf items we’d collected at Halloween ( I know, we’re slow) .
After that I went and spent abotu 3 hours at the final ‘Voices for the Lake’ seminar which was being held at Champlain College. We got a great set of demo’s of various blogging, forum, and video cgame technology that we may try to use to promote Lake Champlain’s ecology among folks on both sides of the lake. It was great harign from the Champlain Game design kids again. i’m so impressed with them everytime I see them. We also heard from my friend Michael who helped start Front Porch Forum here in Vermont. Front Porch Forum is an emil based community building program.. It’s pretty cool. The Forum we use for Jonesville doesn’t get much use yet.. I’m hoping by positng this link here we can help build it up.

   I got home mid-day .. I went out for a short run and when I came back. the house was full of people again. it was great seeing all of the college kids returning for Thanksgiving. Here are Carolyn. Liz, Selena and friends…

And Connor , Justin and John

Around 4 we all jumped in the car and headed into Burlington for the evening. I was loved this  bumper sticker in the car next to us..   If you don’t read Thomas Pynchon. you probably wouldn’t think it’s funny. if you do read tom pynchon then you think everything is kinda random and funny. anyway…

First stop was Climb High  to see the premier of Angus, Alex and Max E’s movie the ‘Tonar Project’. Tonar was edited by Angus and produced by his dad Burt.   Climb high advertised noise and distruption.. but we broght our own. There were about 60 folks there to see the movie.

.. but first a word from our sponsors

Lots of good skiing and boarding.. and some spectacular wipe outs.

Even some R-rated parts !  (THis is just before the R-Rated part !)

Our Pirate Float in pond skimming last spring even made the closing credits. My feet got cold just thinking about how cold that water had been !

The whole project was dedicated to Sam..  The real premier of the movie is at the Jericho Community Center on December 1st. All the proceeds from that showing are going to Sam’s fund.  We really appreciate the kids doing that !

After that snow moview, we hurried over to the Flynn to see the lates Warren Miller Movie.. ‘PlayGround’. . I had the honor of having my ticket taken by our  dear friend Abbot , who was ‘ushing’ for the eveing.

Now.. I’m not a ski or snowboard guy.. so I wasn’t sure I was going to like this movie.. but the scenery and music were so good.. that I could have been watching backetweaving.  and still likes it. it was great..

We saw a ton of folks we knew there.. I may well have bene theonly non boarder/skier in the building

There were soem raffles at the Intermission.. One of the prizes wwas a clear ‘Mad River Rocket’ sled… and guess who won !!.. Hey, hey Max !

From there we walked over to ‘A Single Pebble;/   It was Tim’s birthday and we wanted to take everyone somewhere fun and nice.   Single Pebble is my favorite Chineese restruant on the planet.. and that includes all the places I’ve eaten in China ! .

Tim and I got help ordering .. but we got too much help. I think we ordered about twice as much as the 10 of us could eat !!!!!

Nate entertained us by scaring us with his evil glare..

Evil

Eviller

Evilest

I was so stuffed I could barely move…   As we left I put a SamStone in the resturant just for fun..

On the way home tow street lights went out as we passed under and then we saw the most big and beutiful shooting star.. Sam was right there with us in some way…

I love you all… love you still Sam..

-me

ps. Please remember to write us a Sam story for the fire… why not do it now  ?