okay we mark the day that Sam’s strong heart, liver and kidney’s helped save 4 other peoples lives. The decision to opt for organ donation was the easiest and hardest decision we ever had to make . We knew that Sam with his generous spirit would want that.
Organ donation is an amazing process of matching and caring for two people, the donor and recipient . One of the most important components is to know what the donor would have wanted.
you can honor Sam’s memory by having that conversation with your loved ones. Make sure they know what you would want if you are ever in that situation.. and I hope yo never will be
You can also honor Sam’s memory by giving bloo. Itoccurred to me recently is that there’s one way almost everyone can “donate life”.. Thats through blood donation. It’s one of the only ways you can donate something from yourself to save another persons life and do it again and again . The Red Cross thought that was interesting and wrote this story about Sam, Organ donation and blood donation
We are in Oregon visiting Gabe..Today our friend Pat sent this photo and movie a friend made today of a rainbow hitting our house.. Its just the way Sam would send his love 🙂
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 !
