It’s 2PM on Christmas afternoon..  the day has been really peaceful and good.  .. Our expectations about the day were so painful that it was pretty easy to surpass them.   Again.. it’s showing me that worrying about the future is pointless in our situation.

Last night we went to friends Lou and Kathy’s Christmas party. Lou had arraigned for everyone to bring their potato cannons to give Sam a Christmas eve salute.. The twenty or so of us took turns shooting spuds into the starlit sky in honor of Sam. Highlights included a successful launch of a potato launched with a lit sparkler stuck in it.. and a four gun volley fired simultaneously by Diane, Max, Gabe and me.  It was just the sort of tribute Sam would have wanted.. I hope he saw it… We then made a quick stop by our good friends the Kenny’s before going home. Diane gave Jen a ceramic wind chime that she’d helped Sam make at a school program in 3^rd grade. That exchange brought tears to everyone’s eyes… As we drove home from the Kenny’s at about 11:00 we all talked about how to close the day in Sam’s memory. When we got home, Max and I built a large fire outside.. the four of us came around the fire and sent our thoughts and prayers to Sam.. we each wrote him a Christmas  letter and threw it into the fire. We also sent best wishes to Sam’s pet bird Gabby who died this past spring.  Gabby’s death was the saddest thing we’d ever had to face as a family until now.  We put some chemical salts into the fire to create some color and sat there watching the blues and greens of the fire burn up the letters.. It was very peaceful…

    It was 12:30 in the morning before we got back to wrapping presents. We’d had so many visitors that day that Diane and I had barely gotten started on that task. Neither of us had had much energy for shopping since Sam died.. but somehow we still had a huge pile of packages that needed wrapping. .  Sam’s physical absence and his spiritual presence were both so strong to me. I bounced back in forth between peace and deep, deep sadness as we arraigned stuff around the tree. The final scene:  the tree, stocking, presents  looked almost like any other year .. but it was so very different. I will never forget the way I felt as I walked back upstairs.   We finished up at around 2:30AM… and fell in bed exhausted.    

    At about 7AM Diane woke to a knock on our bedroom door.. she thought it was the kids.. but there was no one there. Diane felt it was Sam knocking.  She got back in bed and looked out the window… at this point I was awake, too.. Outside there was the most beautiful sunrise.. the sky was filled with reds and pinks.  A few minutes later we heard  Max and Gabe getting up.. they came into our room and sat on our bed for a bit. We all then went down the stairs together just like in all years .past. but without Sam for the first time. . This time we carried a lit lantern with us. The lantern has was given to us by the Haunted Forest folks and has Sam’s name engraved on it.  We kept it lit all day. Instead of digging into presents first as we normally would do.. we all bundled up and walked up into the woods behind us.. We took with us a big box of stale bread, peanut butter, birdseed, peanuts and old apples all strung on bits of string. We hiked up to the same tree we decorate each year for the animals.. It’s gotten so much taller over the years.  We first all came together in a circle and sent our welcome to Sam.. then had a blast throwing  the food up into the tree.   It looked really beautiful when we were done… We had a cup of hot Chai tea .. then walked home to continue Christmas. The rest of the morning was about 90 percent fun and about 10 percent tears… Sam’s stocking was filled with ‘sam stones’… rocks we’d had sandblasted with his name. We plan on leaving them at places that Sam loved…  As we opened presents, we came together several times to think of Sam…  . Several friends came by to check on us throughout the morning… so we’d stop to be with them.   We were in no hurry to be done. We finally finished  opening everything by about 12:30..  We sat down to a wonderful lunch that Jen brought by. At 2 I crawled away to take a nap..   I know now that all of our Christmases..  all of our holidays …  are going to be different without Sam. I learned today that they will not all be totally sad.. but will have a mix of emotions  I can see that we are going to have to abandon some old traditions and make up some new ones.. I think we did OK today. .. The whole morning was bittersweet to be sure..… but much more sweet than bitter ..   I hear my parent have just arrived downstairs.. so I’ll stop here.. Merry Christmas everyone..   Merry Christmas my son.. please send us snow tonight… I love you so much !

 -jc

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 !