Friday night – Sam’s Yahrzeit – Eight years

November 21, 2014 johncohn Leave a comment

Tonight marks eight years since Sam died…

I still have trouble writing sentences like that..

We always mark that day by burning a candle all day. (In my culture we call it yahrzeit..).. the bright flame cheers me up.

We miss you so much my son Your smiling face is still everywhere around us.. Your friends are still very much part of our lives. Tomorrow we will all gather and climb the mountain and celebrate your fun and gentle spirit .

I think you’d be happy with how we are all doing..

I was just looking for some pictures to post of you and got lost in looking at them. What a beautiful boy you are..

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the last eight years has been such a strange journey.. with you and without you at the same time. I took some time tonight and looked back on each of those years. I can connect with myself at each of those days and feel exactly how i was feeling on that day.. No matter how much time passes, you do not seem any further away..

I wonder if someday I’ll look back on today and realize it was still the early in the journey

Alreight my boy.. time to sleep.. and maybe dream of you.. it still happens sometimes

i love you forever

nite all. nite sam

-me

Thursday night – this night

November 20, 2014 johncohn 1 Comment

eight years ago i was sitting in this exact spot.. when we got the call that our son Sam had been in an accident and would not survive. . There are so many things about that night and the days after that I cannot remember.. that I cannot allow myself to remember. ..

But I do remember standing right here.. holding diane and gabe. Max was away at school… and sam was down visiting friends in Florida..

He’d called me that afternoon and left me a message.. After he died I listened to it again and again.. every day for months…

here it it is.. I love listening to it still..

He said he’d call us later.,. he probably did.. but I don’t remember..

I do remember that he said he loved us.

Sam has been part of every day since.. I still love that boy as warmly and fully as I did the last time I saw him.. he’s still a presence in my life and will always be..

These next couple of days are hard to process.. tonight is the day sam’s soul left his body, tomorrow the day the world recognized that, the the day after the day his organs saved four other people.

I’m stuck here in the future not able to stop my son from walking off that curb… though I can reach out to him and send him love and peace..I can also send that love and peace to myself and my family as we started that long and hard road that lead me back to now..

I love you my son and wish you peace..

nite all, nite sam

-me

Wednesday night – Easing out

November 19, 2014 johncohn Leave a comment

I’ve spent all day easing out ..

easing out of work…

of projects..

of travel…

of phone calls..

I’m trying to get back to a quieter space for a little bit.. at least until after Thanksgiving..

I’ve been running too hard and not making enough differnce in the world as i’ve done it.

Time i think for some new thinking

but first …

.. oh, wait.. i’m thinking again..

nite all, nite sam

-me

Tuesday night – play machine

November 18, 2014 johncohn Leave a comment

I had a great opportunity today to help IBM with a social networking campaign they are working on.. it’s all about the concept of Play.. and it came along in parallel with and in harmony with my own focus on the subject. The campaign is on IBM’s Tumblr channel.. IBMblr. Today I was helping ntroduce the Play Machine.. A very cool physical computing machine created by makers Jeff and Rajeet. The device is hooked to statistics from the IBMblr site using the Tumblr API’s and some cool IBM technology including our SoftLayer Cloud, MQLite and NodeRed.

When someone ‘likes’ one of our pages on IBMblr .. the machine drops a few kernels of of popcorn are released down a chute into the path of a heat gun which causes them to pop !