Today is the day we mark Sam’s passing. It’s been 18 years since we traveled down to Florida to be with him on his last day.
Not a day has passed since when we don’t think about him, talk about him… feel his presence. We love our son and brother and miss him everyday. His smile still brightens our days,, What a fun and loving kid ! Its a sad day.. but I did more smiling than not..
For many of the last 18 years we’ve marked this day with a hike up Bolton and a sometimes with a potluck and samstones making.
Over the last several years we’ve often been out of Vermont on this day. This year, we’re in Portland with Gabe. Today we took a hike for Sam up Powell Butte, a beautiful park on the outskirts of Portland.
we took a quiet walk in a very beautiful place. We found a good place to drink a redbull and place a samstone.
It felt pretty good
All through the day we heard from friends letting us know they were thinking of Sam.. We really appreciated that folks were thinking of Sam.
One quick story about that. My friend Shmul in Israel texted me about Sam from a Grateful Dead “Wall of Sound” festival put on to push back the darkness a little. I thanked him and told him that Sam could play China Cat Sunflower on guitar. .. it was his favorit GD song.. Shmul immediately texted back that “China Cat’ was playing at the festival when he got my ttxt on that.. Pretty cool
Later in the day. the three of us went out for Sushi.. a family tradition that Sam loved too..
Sam.. my son . we love you and miss you every day. You will always be with us.. I love you !
Today it will be 18 years since Sam was hit by a car. We got the call that he’d been in an accident about 9PM.. and our lives changed forever
Earlier this day in 2006 he left us this message..
His last words to us were ‘Love you , bye”… I love that
I cant believe its been 18 years. We love and miss Sam every day..
Sam is still so much in our lives,.. his memory, his face..
his stories are still everywhere for us.
For example>>> Just yesterday I was looking for a picture (which I still haven’t found) of a contraption Sam built to allow him to strum the guitar even with his arm in a cast.. that got me lookign through our thousands of pictures for e every picture I have with Sam and a Guitar.. Here they are..
Funn, quiet day here in Portland. I worked from home-away-from-home (WFHAFH) most of the day. It was cold and rainy here in Portland (as It will be until next May). This afternoon , Diane and I did some more work on Gabe’s basement .. One thing we came across was Gabe’s Halloween costume. He went to a Lab party as “Workign From Home (WFH)” wearing this Zoom screen .. pretty funny !
THis evening we went over *with Thai food) to see our good friends Tucker, Hailey and their baby Winslow.. We had a bunch of building supplies from Gabe’s basement that we were bringing for Tucker to use.. he’s an excellent contractor.. It is so fun seeing Winslow growing.. He’ll be 7 months old this Thursday ! Super cute ! It was great catching up with Tucker and Haily.. THey tolkd us about their summer trip to the Rainbow gathering which sounded pretty awesome !
We had another fun and low key day here in Portland. I got soem work done during the day. We also did some cleanup for gabe. We did some minor repairs around the house . The big accomplishment was taking a packed carload of stuff to t Goodwill. Gabes basement has become a packed with stuff tha previous roomates no longer want. GOign through that stuff and finding out a way to give it a second life was fun and rewarding.. The whole house feels lighter for moving that stuff on.
Since we needed the car for Goodwill, I dropped Gabe off at School and picked him up. When I poicked him around dusk we saw the most amazing display of crows.. Diane and I had seen a similar thing in the park yesterday. Gabe says its a new-ish thing.. but the crows have taken over the city. At dusk every spot on every tree by the river has its own crow.. Cool to look at and listen to
Diane made squash curry tonight .. really nice
Nite all, nite sam -me
ps. When I was in a hardware store this morning I spotted this.. Looks like the org Hackclub I belong to has some competition !
