Friends.
   Jen Kenny just called and asked me to invite anyone interested to a BYOP (Bring Your Own Pizza) party at her house tomorrow (Sat) at 6PM.  She also asked me to pass on an invite to anyone interested in making more ‘sam stones’ to feel free to come by her house anytime and she’ll get you started. What a wondeerful friend !  What a wonderful community…!
-jc

Last night was amazing. Gabe had the idea to invite some of his and Sam’s friends over for a mid-vacation party/sleepover. Kids started showing up around 7PM. By 10:30 or so there were about 40 folks here spread all over the house and barn. A bunch of our friends brought over every imaginable type of food… the place was jumping from about 8 until about 3AM when things started to quiet down. It was both wonderful and surreal having so many of Sam’s friends and their happy chaos in the house and not have Sam in the center of it all. His spirit was everywhere, though.  The kids kept going into Sam’s room to hang out, look at his stuff.. see the pictures we have and swap stories. It was good for everyone I think.   The ripples of Sam’s death are still going through our community and these kids really seemed to need/enjoy coming together and rolling in Sam’s memory.  

After folks were finished eating, we cleared the dining room table and set the group to work making ‘sam stones’. Wonderful friend Jen had brought over a bunch of clay and some ‘sam’ name stamps she’d made out of sculpy.  The idea is to make small lumps of clay with Sam’s name imprinted in them to leave at spots that Sam loved. I really like  the idea that  people might find the stones and see.. or even speak.. Sam’s name.   It was a hoot sitting around the table, hands covered with glop and talk about Sam and everything else.   By the end of the evening we’d made 100’s of these things in every shape and size.  Here’s a picture of the stones on the table drying. Jen picked them up this morning to dry, stain and fire them. They should be ready for spreading sometime next week. If you want a few to spread around, let me know. 
    The house started waking up I shifts around 8 this morning… I waddled down at around 9:30 to find a houseful of sleepy kids and a busy kitchen full of friends cooking for them. My parents managed to sleep until about 11 even though the noise of the morning was right outside their door.  The house produced another 2 hour feast  for breakfast then we started ferrying kids up to Bolton to enjoy the snow we got last night. It was great waking to snow. (I just heard that this December is the warmest ever on record…. What would Sam have made of that ?! ).. It’s almost 2PM and their must still be 10 or so kids spread throughout the house. As things quiet down the mood of the house is still peaceful and light. It’s strange to know that we’ll be sad later…  but I know we did a good thing by inviting the world into our space again. The love we feel from our friends and family is sustaining us right now.

    Speaking of the love of friends.. this morning we received a wonderful gift from my college friend Chris in Tucson (Thanks Chris !) . He sent us a ‘Ben’s Bell‘ Ben’s Bells is a foundation set up by Jeanette and Dean Packard after the death of their son Ben. The idea of the foundation is to foster acts of kindness and healing. They promote the creation of these beautiful ceramic and brass bells which are spread randomly through out the Tucson area (and beyond.. evidently). People come together to create the bells as a way of community healing. They don’t sell the bells either. .. The only way to get one is either  to find one. or be given one from the org.. (they call it being belled, I think). It sounds like a great way of spreading love.   Check it out…

      Well.. it’s 2pm and I’m still in my pajamas.. it’s time to start the day.  I thin the rest of the day will be quiet.. I love you Sam….

-jc

I woke today feeling much more peaceful… I could still remember the deep pain I felt yesterday … but it let me be this morning. I lay there for about awhile thinking about Sam and sending him love.  Diane woke up and it was her turn to wake up sad. It’s like that now.  I’m so grateful that we have the love and closeness that lets us talk about where we are in the moment and be there for each other.  We talked each other out of  bed and downstairs to start the morning routine:, start the fire, open the shades, feed Chai, made tea … I find that starting our day is a bit like trying to get a rusty lawn mower started.. some days   we can start on the first pull… some morning we try and try and can’t get started.. This morning our day sputtered to life on the first pull.   … The snowstorm promised for last night didn’t deliver.. so we pushed each other outside for an early morning run. It was cold and wet.. but still felt great to be outdoors…  As we ran Diane told me about a grandfather’s clock in the Harry Potter book she’s reading with Gabe. The clock has a hand for each member of the Weasely family that shows what’s going on in that person’s life… where they are and how they’re doing.  (e.g. Mortal Peril)   We decided that we needed one of those to keep track of the different emotional roller coasters the four of us are on.. On ours the each person’s hand would point to words like  peaceful, in denial, angry, very sad, optimistic, spaced out, preoccupied, buoyed by friends, etc….   it would help us and our friends figure out the shifting emotional weather of our house.   

   These different emotional cycles are one sign of just how much of the healing journey you have to take on your own… You do it with your loved ones and friends… but you heal on your own.. one moment at a time.. one thought at a time.. We’ve gratefully fallen into the arms of friends and family just to get through the past five weeks.. Our job now have to learn to stand on own two feet again.   To that end… we’re spending the day preparing for some sort of party that Gabe has planned for tonight.. Like last night’s snowstorm, we don’t know whether to expect 3 friends or 30. It’s will be a mix of Gabe and Sam’s friends.. but those are mostly the same people anyway. It will be fun whoever shows up…    and fun is good for us we’re told J ,

    Oh.. Speaking of friends, a cool thing happened yesterday. Our friend Keith came by yesterday to say hi. Keith splits his time between Bolton and St. Petersburg , Florida… He helps run the snowboarding program here in the winter and works on boats while in Florida. Keith just happened to be in St. Petersburg when we went down after Sam’s accident. He came and visited us in the hospital which was a great comfort to us.. He’s up here now for a few days visiting friends. Last night  he came by with a plain white snowboard that he’d had all the kids at Bolton sign. He’s taking it down to Florida to create a small memorial to Sam near the site of his accident. It will be good to have a memorial to Sam down there. What made me even happier was that Keith told me that he and a buddy are starting a program in Sam’s honor to take inner city Florida kids to the beach. We really, really love it when we hear that people are being moved by Sam’s spirit to help other folks. 

    I hear the house stirring.. it must be close to 11AM…   I’ve got a cool idea for something I’m going to build today for Sam if I can get to it…    Now I’m going to go shovel out the barn to make way for the party tonight.. Whether it’s 2 or 30 it will be fun to have the house filled with gross middle school humor again… Be there or be square Sam..

-jc

ps. One of the spotlights in our kitchen got really bright.. buzzed and burned out just as we came in the house after our run.  I think these coincidences… or ‘connections’ (better word) are a result of us being so open right now… Open both as in exposed and raw.. and  open as in receptive. I hope I can hold on to the receptive part.

The day after Christmas. I woke today in deep sadness. Christmas and its preparations are past. I was so proud of myself and my family for the real joy we were able to bring to our Christmas celebration yesterday. We found many ways to honor Sam and bring him into our observance of the day. It could not have been a better day given where we are.  I have tried to be optimistic and uplifting in these posts when I can, but I also want to be true to myself about what I’m experiencing.   The reality of Sam’s death comes into my life a little more each day. Christmas brought me a little relief because I was able to focus a little on getting ready for the holiday.  I know it sounds crazy… but  I realize now that we all carried  a secret wish for a  Disney style Christmas miracle would let us be closer to Sam somehow  yesterday… maybe we were. 
     My parents drove in from MA yesterday afternoon. It’s very good to have them up with us. Our friends Joan and John (Max’s girlfriend Jessie’s parents)  had invited  all of us over for Christmas dinner. It was so good of them to share their Christmas with us.  . It was a really nice evening.. good company.. good food.. family games.. and gifts.   We understand how brave and compassionate someone needs to be to offer to share their time with us during these holidays. We deeply appreciate it. The later it got the more quiet I became. By the time we left around 10, I was deeply sad.  Diane drove us home because I couldn’t  because I was crying too hard. When we got home, we took our lead from Max in creating a closing moment for the day around Sam. We held hands around Sam’s rock outside, lit a lantern and spoke our Christmas wishes to Sam out loud.   Diane and I then quietly walked up to our favorite rock in the fields above our house. We sat there for a while looking down at our house.. at our lives.. and cried. We had to just be in our sadness then.  We walked back home and went to bed.
    Now that the day is past, there’s nothing to punctuate the unfocused sadness I feel at many times during the day.   Nothing external, at least…. I realize that I’m going to have to create my own reasons for getting out of bed in the morning.   I think being ‘here’ for Max, Gabe and Diane is going to be my main drive for the next few months.   I’m also going to try tapping into the creative urges I’ve been getting to ‘make stuff’ in Sam’s memory. (If anyone has any cool ideas please share them with me.)
    Speaking of making stuff… We’ve received many amazing gifts in Sam’s honor over the last week. Last night Jessie handed us a gift wrapped box… Inside it was nearly $300 she’d collected from kids at the High School for Sam’s Fund.  The day our friend Grit’s daughter Lindsay donated the money that she was going to spend on Christmas presents to the fund. We heard that only thing on Sam’s friend’s Sawyer’s Christmas list was a rail named in Sam’s honor at Bolton.   We’ve also had trees planted for Sam, goats and chicks donated to hungry farmers, magic rocks, paintings, poems, songs ….  all offered in Sam’s amazing memory.   It really helps fill up our hearts.  Well… the house is beginning to wake up ( it’s 11AM 🙂  I’m going to go and build this day from scratch.. Help give me strength Sam….. Peace.

 -jc