The house is quiet. Max and Gabe are up trying to ski/snowboard in the rain. They feel close to Sam up on the mmountain no matter what the weather is.  We’ve just come home from a really nice evening at the home of our friends Gretchen and Marshall. Gretchen’sparents, Ed and Sue Gannon are in town. Gretechen had a  sister Stephanie who died in an outdoor accident at age 18 which was 27 years ago. It was both wonderful and sad to talk to the Gannon’s and Gretchen about Stephanie and their path through her loss. It was so clear how much Stephanie was still in their hearts and minds.. It was also clear that they’ve been able to move forward and have lived rich and full lives since her death. That was good for us to see.   We talked about how loss like ours changes your whole view on the passage of time. Sue told us that although it had been 27 years since her daughter died.. it seemed much shorter. We see that too. I can’t believe that it’s almost five weeks since Sam’s death.  The entire time seems like only a week. I think it’s a trick of perspective.. just like driving away from  a hugh mountian.. It always seems to be about the same distance away. Sam’s death is so huge in our lives that it always feels like it just happend. I susupect it will be that way for a very long time …if not forever.. . The good thing about that is that we will not forget him…
    We spent today almost preparing for Christmas… I say almost because there are many things whcih we would normally do that hurt too much to do now. We’re trying to figure out what old traditions we can keep,.. and which ones we can’t . We have also given much thought to what we should ‘get for Sam’.. He doesn’t need presents … but not including him somehow in the gift giving seems so wrong . We have done several things which we think Sam  would have liked. I spent a few hours today welding him some chubnks of metal with his name on them . I’d llike t give these out soe people can leave them in places that Sam loved. We had another idea we liked. Sam had a favorite necklace  which has  a pendant  with his name written phonetically in Mayan glyphs. We had made when Sam  Diane and I went to the Yukatan last June. Sam wore it almost constantly  for the last 5 months of his life. You can see it in many of the slideshow pictures from his celebration.  The image of the Mayan script came to Diane very powerfully during a  Reiki session last week. We knew the symbols were very important to Sam.. The middle symbol is a bird.. which has always been Sam’s ‘totem’ animal . Diane and I traced the gylphs  and gave them to Chris Cleary.. a very cool stonecutter we know in Jericho . Chris sandblased the symbols into the side of a 300 pound boulder. On the other side we etched: “you have your wings – fly free – we will love you forever” . We plan to add his name to in the Spring. We picked up the rock  from Chris this morning.It’s really beatuifull. This evening Max, Mason, Abbot, Rusty and RJ helped me muscle it into place near the barn door. It looks good there… We also  made a donation in Sam’s name to the Seva Foundation to support training of a midwife in a Mayan village. Seva, which means service in sandskrit has some very cool ways that you can give gifts that support health and nutrition across the world. Please check them out.
   Well.. that’s all for tonight… I’m going to go up to Sam’s room and read. Diane and I finally got around to putting up all the posters and pictres we have from Sam’s celibrations up in his room. It’s a very comforting place now… Please come and see it…  Pray for Snow !.. pray for Sam…

-jc

Hi friends.. just a short post before going to bed. Welcome to the first day of Winter… Sam would have hated this weather… freezing rain. I find my moods are very carefully balanced at this point and can go from positive and peacful to darkness with a change in the weather… let’s hope for bright snow in the near future…   Today our house was filled with visitors.. This morning our friend Merril and her dog Sophie came over for walk in the woods. Merrill’s 14 year old dog Suki died last week and both Sophie and Merrill needed the walk as much as we did. One of the things we talked about on the walk was the idea of ‘dog years’. They say a dog packs the equivalent of 7 human year into each year it lives. Sam packed so much living into his 14 years that it was almost like he  too was living in dog years.. After the walk we had a steady stream of visitors including a new friend Chris.. who’s family generously donated a flock of chicks  to a hungry family in Sam’s name. They did it  through Heifer International an organization that encourages charitable gifts of livestock to help folks  We also had a nice long visit from our friend Jill, Sam’s friend Sawyer and his mom , Sam’s friend Devin and his mom and bunch of the usual suspects from Skanky Green. I love the fact that Sam’s friends still come around. There was music in the barn again and that made us smile. I woke up this morning with a long list of things to get done.. and I only got to one of them… that was to remaster the slide show that Sumner and Brittany did for the Memorial service so I can put it on YouTube. It’s still not quite right. The timing is goofy and the music is off.. but it still has me on the floor in a heap in about 30 seconds.. take a look here if you want a good cry. What a beautiful, beatiful kid …  I love you so much my son…. Good night.
-jc

Happy Solstice Sam… We remember all the joy you brought us .. and it fills us on this darkest of all nights.   We’re thinking of you tonight.. as we light the channukah candles and welcomed the solstice we held hands and sent you our love . It’s so hard to know that you are not here with us . Our family has always marked the solstice by decorating a tree in the woods for the animals. We’ve moved that ritual to xmas eve this year. Every holiday is going to be such a hard  and bittersweet mix.  
   It’s just past midnight actually the solstice proper is 12:22 AM .. just as I am writing this.Tomorrow will be a little brighter than yesterday .  let it be so.   For the record, I’m going to see if I can change my writing schedule to late evening instead of writing in the morning. . I’m a night person.. I wake up after 10 AM.. independant of what time I get out of bed. Hopefully writing in the evening will be a little easier …   Today was a pretty good day. The morning was pretty queit. Diane took a walk with some two and four legged friends while I tried to reconstruct my lost blog for Wednesday. We then had a steady .. and welcome.. stream of visitors and calls all day.   It’s so cool when soemone just drops by the house. We spent the morning working on Sam’s memorial scholarships and trying to get ready for xmas… I kow it will be tough.. but we’re committed to making it a meaningful family holiday even as we miss Sam..   We’re trying to figure out how to  honor Sam’s memory and still try to find a way to celebrate. We want to .keep Sam present in our celebrations.  It’s a tall, tall order.
    We stayed home until around 2. Around that time, I got a funny blog comment from Sam’s (and our) good friend Ralph.. His story makes yesterday’s musical coincidence even that much  weirder.. Ralph was home sick and listening to a random MP3 mix on his computer as he was reading my blog. At the moment he was reading it.. the same .. ‘organ donor’ song by  DJ Shadow came on.. .. and it’s a pretty obscure cut .. he didn’t even know who DJ Shadow is…    These conicidences are really pushing the bounds of probabllity for me…. but they aren’t happening to everyone.. I think they only happen to (or are created by) folks who need them… like me.  Speaking of DJ Shadow, .. Diane reminded me that I left out the last  two lines of the lyrics to ‘Building Steam from a Grain of Sand’ that I had posted ealrier …   The full text is::

Those last two lines really do sound like Sam..
    Anyway.. this afternoon, my good friend Tim came by to get me out shopping. We’re learning to say ‘yes’ to any offer that comes up…. since its so hard for us to decide what to do on orur own right now.   We went into Williston to brave the crowds. I managed to pass the ‘wallmart test’.. Ifirst.  was out in public in one of the busiest stores in the area.. and I didn’t lose it completely.. . I did find myself constalty picking up three of an item.. and having to put one back.. or looking at soemthing and thinking to myslef that ‘sam would like that’  ..  that was always hard.  My mind quickly connected anything I saw to Sam..    anything: .a.paint ball gun, a game of twister, a fishing rod  brought up a Sam story in my memory.  I’m finding while some of the memories make me really sad.. not all of them do now. Is that progress ?.  I’m also fininding that our emotional state can change as fast as the weather. Sometimes a story or memory will casue me to breakdown immediately.. while the same thing an hour later will make me smile. I find I’m particulalry suseptible to deep sadness near daybreak and twighlight.. I’m sure there’s something deep in our biology that regulates that.   Tim and I wandered from store to store all evening.. I managed pretty well. overall. It took my several hours to realize that Tim wasn’t really even shopping.. he was just taking care of me…  how can I ever repay that kind of kindness ?
  We got back to the house about 10:30 to find it full of kids.  downstairs Max’s friends were playing the guitar and singing.. Upstairs Gabe’s friends were glued to a vdeo game… it almost seemed normal. We lit the candles  and Diane went to bed… The older kids are now outside looking for the meteor shower that’s ‘s supposed to happen tonight… Are they trying to see a message from Sam ? Can go looking for something like that ? … Well.. I’m looking for sleep now.. we’ve been invited to kike with friends at 8 tomorrow. I’m hreally hoping to sleep well..   t’s been several days since I slept through the night.. We’ll see how it goes. .In the mean time:  Happy solstice to all of you and your loved ones.. happy solstice Sam.

-jc

ps. Several folks have asked for more of the ‘Sam forever’ shirts   and those picture pins .. we’re going to order some more of each. Please let me know if you’d like one and what size. Thanks !

I’m a little written out from trying to reconstruct yesterday’s post from memory… but I’ll try to do today now

Good mourning… (stupid play on words I know ) but that’s how it feels. The day is bright again and our mood is an OK mix of saddness and peace. We’re learning to accept how this mourning process comes to us.. We find it’s OK for us to have spells where we’re happy.. or busy.. or spacing out… and times when we’re deeply sad. Several folks have asked whether we need ‘space’ or ‘time’ to be by ourselves to mourn.. the answer is no.. we get plenty of time by ourselves..we really welcome visitors or invites to do something…please do not worry that your will distract us from our business of working through Sam’s death… we will be working on that forever….
   Yesterday was a pretty good day.. After the MMU organ donor talk I went to visit Jim Cleary a stone engraver we know… he does really cool things with sandblasted granite. Diane’s frend Marci  had a very cool vision of Sam while doing a Reiki session with Diane.. the image was of the Mayan necklace that Sam always wore. It spelled S-A-M phonetically in one using Mayan glyphs. Sam got that necklace when he Diane and I went to Mexico in June. We’re having those images sandblasted into a rock for our garden in memory of Sam…   It was great being around Jim and seeing how he worked with such a hard and lasting material. . I then drove down with good friend Alan to Monkton to visit my friend Homer Wells… a cool inventer/artist who works in metal , plastic, wood and wax (yes wax).I know it sounds strange, but I’m  feeling the need to create and be around creative people since Sam died. I think I’m going to weld something for Sam today…
    Here’s one really powerful Sam story that happend yesterday.. Alan and I had a great conversation in the car…  Towards the end of the drive I was talking to Alan about our life after Sam’s death. I was confidently telling him that I will continue to miss Sam ..at the same time I’m committed to live my life fully and keep joy in my life.. Sam would have wanted that afterall. I dropped Alan off and was driving home on Wes White Hill… The confidence of my conversation with Alan started to fade as I drove down the dark road alone .. I asked outload to no one in particular..  ‘will I really be ok ?!’ At that instance the trip-hop remix ‘Organ Donor’ (!!!!) by DJ Shadow  (http://www.last.fm/music/DJ+Shadow/_/Organ+Donor) came on the radio  (XM satelite station XMU.. one of 140 that we get) .. it’s a *really* obscure track that I always listened to at home. right after that they played any even more obscure  DJ Shadow remix piece “Building steam from a grain of sand”  (http://hype.non-standard.net/track/191711) ..  The opening monologue on that piece is

Pretty cool..  no ?   Please don’t worry that I’m loosing touch here.. Maybe these  are ‘just’ powerful cooincidences .. but I’m begining to see that the word ‘coincidence’ is too dismissive… What do you all think ?
Gotta go enjoy this day now.. Peace out Sam…
-jc