Funny morning. Last night was the home visiting hours for Sam. The folks from Giffords brought Sam’s body here around 2. As I helped carry Sam’s coffin in to the house, my shirt got causght on the door and tore a bit.There’s an old Jewish custom of tearing your clothes while in mourning.  I took it as a cool sign of Sam  We had some quiet time with him until about 3 when people started showing up. The house was packed from about 3:30  until about 10:00 . There weere still people filtering in around midnight. By our quick counts of the guestbooks we had more than 800 folks come by to pay there respects to Sam. It was unlike anthing any of us expected. It was sad  and cool at the same time. It felt so great to be around so many folks who loved Sam. We loved  hearing so many stories of what a great kid Sam was.  The whole thing felt more like a party than a funeral. There were many kids in and out of the house… music and food everywhere. I was surprised how easy the kids found it to go in and ‘talk’ to Sam   There was just about as much laughing as there was crying.
   I was also amazed at how many folks from IBM drove or flew up from New York  to pay their respects. My friends at IBM have beenr eally wonderful to us duing this tough time.. you really can see that the company has a great soul when things like this happen.
   We finally had the house mostly clear at about 1:30 this morning. Several of Max’s friends sayed over with him. They slept in the room with Sam. We all slept well. At about 8 this morning the folks from Giffords came to take Sam to be cremated. We came togethr as a family and figure out what we wanted to go with him. We all wrote letters, tossed in guitar picks, cans of red bull, pictures,  and other things special to Sam. (You wonder what an archeologist in the future would make of the stuff )  We carried Sam out of the house and together watched him drive away for the last time.. I’ll never forget how that felt….      After a few quiet minutes life started to return to the house.. frends came over, food was cooking, music was back… life goes on… remarkably…  
    One interesting sidebar.. .in the continuing saga of electrical distubances around Sam’s death, the internet and phones all freaked out a few minutes after he left. All calls to the repair center give a ‘all circuits are busy’ recording.. (I’m typing this using my phone as a modem. )  I figure it’s just Sam doing his thing…
   We love you Sam.. we miss you so much

-jc
    

Today is the storm. Visiting hours start at 4 today and will last until everyone has been through the house. Sam’s will be here in both body and spirit. I feel this will be the hardest day yet.So many poeople want to say goodbye to Sam. We said our goodbyes a week ago… for many this is the first time.  People don’t know what to say to us and we don’t know what to say to them. One thing I’ve found is that it’s not the words that help. It’s the presense and the feeling. Diane has taught me a ‘trick’ to help get through greeting new people. As you hug someone, you can actually feel the other persons heart. I know it sounds funny, but that reassurance of life repeatesd a few hundered times is a really wonderful gift.
    Today will be filled with a wierd mix of the mundane and the profound… should we put out cookies ? how do we continue our lives ? Should the font on the program be in bold ? What will Sam’s birthday be like for us.  Sometimes it’s like a hazy unreal dream… sometimes it’s too sharp and real. Nothing is like this…. nothing. We see Sam in everything we see or touch.. As wierd as it sounds, I’m getting to my first plateau of peace abotu this. I like being surrounded by my son’s stuff and his pictures. I know he is here.
I hope that helps us get through the day.. If you’re reading this..  I hope you come by and visit us this afternoon. We love you Sam.
-jc

Today is the calm before the storm. There are fewer visitors here today but still a steady stream. The community is taking such good care of us. We’ve had friends cooking, cleaning, repairing, coordinating.I comforting. We will never forget this.    Today our familys start filtering in and we have to help them say goodbye to Sam. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone.. I also know it’s goign to be pretty hard.
    In the midst of our sorrow.. we’re noticing some cool stuff. We feel Sam everywhere. I want to write down two incidents just to capture them.

– One night while we were still in Florida, Max was walking between the respite house and the hospital. He suddenly felt Sam’s presence very strongly. He stopped and looked around and of course saw nothing. He asked Sam for a sign that it was him. At that instant, the street light across the street exploded… not dimmed, not went out, exploded with sparks…..

– Yesterday we all went to a very nice and very sad assembly at Sam’s school. The entire student body was in the gym to share memories and music for Sam. They have a fancy PA system that they use for events like this… about 5 min into the one hour program the PA just flipped out… the mike stopped working and there was a load noise in the background. After a few attempts of whacking the mike the hum stopped and the mike worked again.. until someone tried to speak… then it happened again. Once again.. they whacked the mike.. it started working.. until they tried to use it again.   They had to bring in a back up.   Max got up and told the family electrical disturbances story. (electical devices always freak out when I’m agitated.. I once blacked out Richmond after a minor traffic accident freaked me out) When Diane and I got up to speak.. I ended my piece with a statement of knowing that Sam was all around us. At that instant there was a huge BANG in the big PA system…. It was very cool

We feel you Sam ! We love you
-jc

Tuesday morning and the house is quiet. It’s really strange walking downstairs and not seeing a ton of people. Our house has been full of busy people.. and full of love all this week. Last night when Jen Kenny brought over dinner there were about 20 people here Folks are really helping us pull together the rest of this weeks activities, helping us manage the phone and email and coordinating folks who are coming in from out of town. We feel like we’re in a safe but sticky cocoon.
    Things are definitely not back to normal… but some semblence of the real world is creeping into our lives. I’m back running again and I get such great sense of Sam when out running in the woods. The house is full of music again as it always was… somebody always has a guitar in their hands.  The dog still wants to play tugawar…. I can see the old rytthm of our lives underneath all this activity. I still worry about how it will seem in the dark days in the middle of winter. One thing that’s becoming clearer to me is that each of us is taking in Sam’s loss differently. There’s no roadmap for grieving.. tehre are even some kinda nice surprises in all of this in terms of things you learn about yourself and those close to you.  Anyway…
    We’re off to the high school to participate in an assembly about Sam. It’s wierd to be center stage on this.. One funny thing.. Sam’s band.. Black Night Vengance was not allowed to play at the assembly because their music is ‘innappropriate’.. funny.. no 🙂  More tomorrow peace out

-jc