I woke this morning with no idea where I was. I was looking at a crib when it came back to me that I was still at my freinds Ruchir and Rashi’s house in NY. I find that it takes me much longer to come to my senses every morning when I wake up.. It always takes me a couple of minutes to sort through what;s real and what’s not in this new reality. I often have vivid dreams with Sam in them .. and every mornign have to let go a little again…
I got up, showered, dressed and said a quick good bye to Ruchir. He’s such a great host and such a good freind… He even fixed me a little aloo gobi pratha sadnwich for the road.. I had to get on the road by 8 in order to make a meeting in Burlington… The drive back was peaceful and uneventful.. I spent most of it on the phone in work calls. Just before White River I was talkign on the phoen when I saw one of the most beutiful rainbow’s I’ve ever seen in the sky. it was incredibly bright and incredibly close. I almost ran off the road.. It looked close enough to touch.. I had the sense that I was driving through it. I did my best to get a picture from the car.. Pictures of rainbows never do them justice.. but this one was really amazing…
Here’s my attempt to get the whole thing in a picture from a moving car.. note it had faded by this point
Just as I was takign these pictures my phone rang.. but I was on a call so I couldn’t answer.. when I checked my messages 15 minutes later I found out that it was my buddy Homer calling to tell me that he was lookign at an incredibly bright rainbow in the field across from his house.. and it looked so close that he could touch it. That may not seem so odd.. but he was in Monkton and I was in Windsor.. Hours of driving apart…
I called Homer back and told him of the time that Sam and I were driving on route 2 near Richmond.. We saw a really beutiful rainbow.. Sam said.. “Dad.. can we find the gold pot ? “.. he’d heard the legend of the pot of gold at the edge of the rainbow.. I started doing my scientist dad thing and began explaining the water droplets and refraction and how you could never….. then I stopped myself and said… ‘why not ?’ We sped up and zoomed down route 2 and followed the rainbow most of the way up Bolton mountain road before it dissapeared..
I felt the whole incident was trying to tell me something.. but what ?!
Oy….
On the topic of Rainbows. our dear good friend , and guru Tim K wrote a poem about/for Sam and gave it to us last week. It really captures Sam’s spirit.. the shock of his passing, and the path we’ve walked since. I think it’s amazing..
By the way.. the background is a picture of the double rainbow that appeared over our house a few days after Sam’s passing. Tim is one of the many folks who got pictures of it.
That’s all for now.. Love you guys.. love you Sam -me
I’m writing from Max’s dorm room down at Pratt. It’s about 11:45and we just got here after a very peaceful drive down. It was good to have that time together in the car.. We didn’t talk much.. it was just nice being together listening to music.I’m not going to write much this evening. Max and I need to make the rounds of his friends. Several of them have made donations to the Friends of Sam art auction that’s happening at JDK this Friday..I’ll put the details on that at the end of this post….
One important thing to note is that it’s been exactly one year tonight that I began keeping this blog. I have written in it at least once a day through every one of the 365 difficult days in the years since Sam’s death. I honestly think this writing has been the single most healing and helpful thing I’ve done in trying to integrate Sam’s passing . The feedback I’ve received about this journal.. and the connections I’ve made and strengthened with the folks who read it have helped me so much in the past year.
I’ve started to re-read entries from last year.. in no particular order. .As I look back on it sometimes it’s been very sad.. others times news.It is a record of how busy I’ve kept myself.. maybe too busy.. andIt shows me how self absorbed I’ve been ..I’ve often wondered what it would be like to be someone else reading this blog …I’m not sure I’d want to know this much about someone else’s life.
Diane and I tell people now that we no longer believe that there are any real coincidences.. everything means something. I think it’s really … weird/cool/amazing that not only did today mark the year anniversary of this blog. .. but it also marked the 100,000th viewing of the blog. It happened at exactly 11:40 this morning while I was talking with my friend Homer on the phone.. and I just happened to catch it hit 100,000. . It’s like seeing your odometer got to 100,000 . It doesn’t mean much.. but it only happens once..
So.. severalfolks have asked me if I intend to keep writing now that a years up. As I said last Tuesday.. the year mark feelspretty arbitrary when it comes to marking Sam’s passing..Just because it’s been a year doesn’t mean that I don’t need to stop doing the things I do to bring Sam into my life..I can’t imagine stopping my writing now.. at the same time.. I can’t predict the future..For now I’ll keep at it.
Looks like Max and I need to go collect some artwork..which reminds me.. We want to get the word out for the silent auction that the Friends of Sam are holding at JDK this Friday night. The kids have been making and collecting art for several months .. There will be paintings, hand made glass, pottery, musical instruments, welding.. every possible medium. Even some of Max’s art school buddies are contributing their works. All the proceeds of the artwork goes directly to helping local kids.I think this is going to be a very cool adult-oriented event. Please help us get the word out ! Here’s the info on the event:
Friends of Sam Art Auction
Event: Friends of Sam Silent Art Auction
Friday November 30, 2007 from 6 to 9pm
Hosted by: Jager, Di Paolo, Kemp (JDK), 47 Maple St
Burlington VT
Please Come and enjoy an adult’s night out.
There will be hors D’ oeuvres served, music played and a cash bar.
Donations at the door
Proceeds: To benefit the Vermont Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf
It’s a slow friday night. Not much happened today. and that’s just fine with me. It’s nice having a day with no special significance.. and nothing planned. Gabe had spent the night up with friends on the mountain.. Max slept in.. I decided to take the time to weld up the frames for the fused glass projects the kids are doing. The glass is for the Friends of Sam Art Auction next Friday at JDK.. (I’ll post details as soon as I have them) . The projects will start with a 10 by 10 inch plate of clear glass. The kids will then create designs using bits of colored glass which we’ll then fuse together using Jen’s kiln. It’s a really beautiful effect. Jen and I designed a really simple holder made out of an ‘H’ made out of 1/2 inch mild steel welded to a section of 2 inch angle iron . It’s amazingly relaxing and healing for me to work with my hands like this. Welding is such a zen sport.. it’s so cool to transform a bunch of chunks of steel into a designs. We started from whatever we could find in steel stock at our local home depot.. which isn’t much
It’s satisfying to mass produce things too .. it must be the same appeal as quilting.. or needlepoint.. or accounting.. or things like that. Here’s the finished product..
By the time I was done I’d welded and ground off severalponds of metal.. the floor was covered with steel dust.. the perfect place to write Sam’s name. I still find a place to write it every day.. (sand, mud, snow, rocks, vegatbales) /
Around 2, Diane rescued me from the fumes of welding and dragged me outside for a snowshoe. We had to take Trevor up to teh mountain to meet up with Gabe.. so we started from there with Chai takign the lead. There was a ton of new snow. it was beautiful .. We got part way up the mountain and ran into our friends Tom, Silas, Brad, Parker and Jake. Tom took a bad fall the other day and got cut on the ice as we were coming down from the top of the mountain on Tuesday. He says it looks worse than it is.. I hope so
Here’s silas Multipierced Brad
Parker.. who is up visiting for the holidays.. It’s really good to see him. Sam was visiting Parker with their frind Eric when he was killed. We feel such a strong connection with both those boys now..
… and our buddy Jake.
We took a nice hour loop n the backwoods trails.. It seemed like midwinter up tehre.. (it was 17 degrees and windy.. so it felt like winter too !)
We came across this guy pointing to a gnarly jump made out of stone way out in the woods..
Here’s a beutiful snow spirit I saw
On our way back we found this bus parked way high on a trail with this crazy jump on top of it.. I can’t imagine how it works.
By the time we got back to the car we were pretty frozen. .. I had major icycle action in my beard.
Around 5 we headed up to Jen and Tim’s to make soem more SamStones.. there was a big Halo match goign on. Nate tried to give me a lesson in the game.. I’m completely hopless at it. Not good news becasue I’m supposed to be figurign out how to promote video game technology in education.
Tim and Jen have a beuatiful picture of Sam above their computer.
Around 7:30 Our friends Lee-Ann , Linda and her daughter Andrea showed up from Endicott. Linda is Diane’s best friend from when she was a kid.. and Lee-Ann was her frist baby sitting job !. They’ve all come up for the Sam Concert tomorrow. it’s great seeing them !
We’re really excited about the benefit concert tomorrow night.. It looks like it’s goign to be a great show.. we’ve got the music, food and parking all set.. now all we need is the people !. You can find details here. Please come down and help us make some noise for Sam ! we love you Sam…
Today, another milestone. Our first.. no actually.. our second Thanksgiving without Sam. .. And, like all these milestones, it was not as I imagined it would be. We actually had a very fun and peaceful time. There were some very sad parts… but as I say often.. there are sad parts to all our days now.. every one of them..
The day began aith an 8:30 ‘fun’ run.. (nothing is truly fun at 8:30 in the morning 🙂 This one was organized by our firends Dwayne and Maureen in memory of their son Jarred who died on this date, Thanksgiving 6 years ago.. Today was also Jarred’s birthday. The Race today was to raise money for the Jarred Williams Foundation which helps kids with brain cancers and their families… About 100 runners showed up this morning in the 32 degree drizzle.. it was actually a good day to run.. Maureen was there welcoming the runners
Our neigbors francis and Ginney were there
Max came and met up with is old buddy Augest Dwayne Williams and his daughter Danielle welcome the runners and describe the course.
Diane signes us up… Diane and Max opted for the 5K walk I signed up for the 10K run.
All of us lined up and ready to go… get ready, get set…..
I was tag number 93..I talked to Sam for the whole run. I came in in the middle of the 10K runners pack.. not my best time, but one of my proudest.
I was finishing my run about the same time that Diane was finishing her walk..we finished in the drizzle cold and wet and feeling good. We got home to find that one of our new nifty mousetraps had worked.. Here’s our first hostage…
I escorted him (or her ?) across the bridge and let him out.. I offered him a cracker.. but he wanted nothing of it.. I came back to the house to find Gabe awake. He and Diane were eating soem of the crepes i’d made. I abstained.. I was saving myself for dinner.
Our freind Carl was over.. here he is looking demonic.
Around 2 we all bundled up and drove up to teh Townsends. It brought back powerful memories to me. Exactly one year ago today we flew in from Florida after saying goodbye to Sam…as soon as we got home we drove up to the Townsends where all of Sam’s friends had gathered. we all looked at pictures and cried together.. I will never forget that feeling of collective saddness and the overwhelming love of Sam’s friends that night.
Today felt very different.. The kids were already at work eating when we arrived..
As always at the Townsends, te food was amazing in all aspects, taste, variety, quantity and display.. It’s always a gourmet experience up there.
Our friend Jen artfully arrainged her plate. They even had lots of veggie stuff for us.
We got to meet their new pet rabbitt, peter.. He kept coming over to check us out as we ate.
I kept noticing the gloves and coats on the mitten rack (which the girls and I made).. They looked like tow people hugging.
Our friends Hannah, Dave and Adah were there.. Hannah’s due in 4 weeks. I liked the way her pregnant belly looked in a Sam shirt.
Deb’s freind Eric was running a contest to see who ate the most. We all had to weigh in. I think the winners were either Nate or Marie K. I think they ate soemthing like 4 pounds.. I ate a mere 1 pound.. and was quite satisfied. .
Afterdinner, Tim plugged in teh Karaoke .. It was really fun watching folks sing.. and reading the words to soem of these songes.. (Did you every look at the words to teh song ‘Drink Wine’ ? .. or ‘Looking out my back door ‘ ?… pretty strange)
Tim has ana amazing voice.. who knew ?!
The kids gathered to watch us adults make fools of ourselves..
Adah got into it too !
The music drove Peter the rabbit back into his cage.. which has a Sam button prominantly displayed.
As you can here.. teh content and delivery varied widely !
At about 6 Kevin showed up.. Today was his brithday. Sam’s death last year really tool awayKevin’s birthday.. we wanted to make sure that he had a proper party this year.. we’d gotten a cake forhim.. He seemed happy and surprised.. He’s such a good kid !
Diane wearing her DJMSG t shirt. We made these many years ago. I treasure mine.
As I was sitting there listening to the singing I came across a great set of articles in National Geographic about the human heart. It had a big thing on transplant. Today was the day that Sam became an organ donor. I’d ask you all to take a moment when you can to discuss organ donation with your family and friends..
The article talked about what a wonderful organ the heart is.. and how much it can withstand. My firends, I’m here to tell you that it is truly amazing what the human heart can withstand. The past year we have been subjected to the very worst thing that can happen to a family.. and survived.. Every day is hard.. yet every day we’re a little stronger..
Today is Thanksgiving and I can say that despite our tragedy, I am truly thankful for what I have.. I have two wonderful kids.. Gabe and Max.. I have a wonderful and loving wife, Our extended families are all doing well. and love us and support us. We have the most wonderful and supportive community and group of friends.. and we live in one of the most beautiful places on earth. .. and we have Sam’s memory and his wonderful wonderful spirit deep inside us and helping us be strong.
I want to wish you all a happy and thoughtfull Thanksgiving. Recognize what you have in this life.. and pass on your good fortune
