This is what I wrote 4 years ago yesterday.. It was my first entry in this blog.. complete with misspellings..
Friends,
Our beutiful son Sam died this Monday while
having the time of his life with friends in Florida. . Our feelign of
loss is overwhelming.. but so is the feelign of love that we’re getting
from our community and family.. Sam was such a special person. He
packed so much living into his fourteen years. He was one of my best
friends. Like many people, I wanted to be more like Sam as I grew up.
He was one of the most honest, true and real people I’ve ever met. He
was so passionate about everything he did… his music… his
snowboarding.. his sports.. his friends.. his family. I can still feel
his strong arms hugging me as he did every day when I came home from
work. Sam is not goign to be around to hug me now.. but I promise to
keep his memory alive and pass on his wonderful spirit. All of you
reading this blog could do us a big, big favor by doing the same. Pass
on the Sam… love your families, love your friends, be true to yourself
and be passionate about what you do. The more Sam we pass around.. the
better our world is going to be.
I’m going to do my best to keep
blogging for the first year after Sam’s death as a way of working
through things. Our lives are forever changed by losing Sam.. but they
are forever brightened by knowing him as only parents can. Remember
Pass on the Sam
Love -John
]
If you’re reading this … chances are that you know I started this blog 4 days after Sam died..I started writing as a way of working through my new grief..that and as a way for our family and friends to keep track of how wwe were doing. Frankly, it became exhausting to answer the heartfelt question ‘how are you’ so many times for so many people.. Over the past four years this blog has helped me work through the unthinkable.. at times it’s been the one place I felt I could get words around my thoughts…. as time passed.. it became a mix of what I was thinking.. and what I was doing.. sometimes it captured my most painful feelings.. other times it was only what I was doing with my day.. There were times I couldn’t wt to sit down and write..there were other times I couldn’t stand the thought of having to recount another leaden day.. I almost quit writing so many times..
I never did… so .. with the exception of my time on the colony, I’ve written every night for four years.. That includes at least a dozen countries, probably 80 hotel rooms . Sometimes I’ve had more than a thousand readers in a night.. sometimes as few as 90… As of last week when #$%@ing myspace changed their system there were between 400 and 600 folks reading every night..with just about 480,000 reads. I even wrote code which blonks the lights in our ell tower every time soemone reads the blog. I started blogging in myspace because that was the only thing going at the time…. I had a myspace page.. as did each of the three boys. Now myspace is almost an anachronism.. At its best, it was certainly the worst blogging environment. Now.. they’ve made it worse…
Last week Myspace made a bunch of changes in order to try to keep up with Facebook. In making the changes they’ve taken away the ability to go to a post on a particular date, ..they’ve invalidated all the links I had to prior blog entries. they’ve taken away the RSS feeds that I used to copy my blog to facebook, twitter and my own website htttp://johncohn.org .. they got rid of the cutom headers I used to point folks at the samstone webstie and the sam foundation. they also broke the method I used to blink the lights in our house when someone reads the blog. . and they the have provided a way to back up your content.. or retrieve your old posts. Luckily, I sensed something changing when the interface changed suddenly 2 and a half weeks ago. I quickly wrote some PYTHON ode to grab all of my old posts.. .. not a moment too soon, the next day they removed the method I used to track the content backwards in time.. What pisses me off most is that they have not answered a single of my email queries.
So… I think I’m going to have to move my blog.. I worry that when I move it.. folks will loose contact with me.. but.. I do need to do something.
Will you come with me if I change where this blog lives ? Please let me know…
Right now.. I’m going to sleep…
more tomorrow…
looks for changes in this blog
ntite all, nite sam…
-me
I just wanted you to know I am glad to be able to continue to read your very interesting and often very inspiring and tender daily thoughts. I don’t get around to reading every day, but whenever I do, I am touched. As I think you know, I am a therapist in one of my professional roles, and your journey can be very helpful to the people I work with from time to time who have experienced profound loss. Hey, put me in your thoughts now and then during the next week as I journey to Haiti, leading a team of medical professionals to try and help out in the slums of Port-Au-Prince. Over the last several years, Haiti has become a part of my journey. I am sure I will be dealing with profound loss there, but also, inspiring stories of hope, like yours.
Peace,
Cathy