Here’s a picture of Sam that his friend Brittany took this past summer. She just sent it to me. What a beautiful kid…  I love you Spam !
-me

Last night was a mix of fun and sadness. We had a quick dinner at the Kenny’s then checked out Richmond‘s Celtic New Year festival. As I said, this first one is dedicated to Sam’s memory. It was really nice… we wondered between several of the venues and checked out some of the great local music. It was great  running in to everyone from town.  We got lots of hugs  It was nice having to make the schlep into Burlington to do First Night.  I hope this local celebration becomes an annual event.

   The Townsends then gave us a ride up to Bolton to see the fireworks. Lots of Sam and Gabe’s friends were up at the mountain enjoying the new powder. The fireworks started at about 9:30. They were so beautiful.. The fireworks were back-dropped by a cool hazy sky. The moon had a double halo (moonbow ?)  around  it for the second straight night.  I yelled Sam’s name as loud as I could during the finale… he loved fireworks.   From there we went down to the Townsends for a combined kids/adults party.. There was wonderful food there as always and many of our friends were there.. Try as I might, though.. I couldn’t get in a party mindset…I just didn’t really feel like celebrating.  I talked to a few folks did a few science things (I brought one of my tesla coils) then sat quietly until midnight. As midnight approached Deb handed out pots. pans and spoons.. The four of us got together and at the stroke of midnight we banged our pots and hugged and kissed with everyone.. The first thing I said in the New Year was Sam’s name…   

     Just after midnight we all piled down to our house for breakfast…  I felt pretty lousy at that point. My experiments have verified that since Sam died I can’t drink any alcohol at all without getting a hammering headache  the two glasses of wine I had 4 hours earlier did me in.. bummer. …  I actually ended up falling asleep when we got home at about 12:30.. when I woke up about 30 minutes later the house was full of people, food and music.  . By about 1AM we had roughly 40 folks in the house and boom.. another party ! This time I was into it. It really felt like New Years… Somewhere in there freezing rain started to fall.. by 1:30 it was pretty clear that anyone who was at our house would be there all night.. we dragged out spare blankets and air mattresses and settled in for a nice big sleepover.. There were many folks still partying when I drifted off to bed at around 3:30..

   Miraculously, I managed to sleep until 10 Diane was already up and pushing our eggs, potatoes and sausage to the 30 or so folks who were still around… People kept eating in shifts for the next 2 hours. Around noon everyone cleared out….   I was the only one home. I think it was the first time that I’ve been home alone since Sam died. I spent the time thinking about Sam.  I was really feeling sad.  New Years Day without him… I just can’t get used to that.. I’ll never get used to that..

I spent some time trying to hack an IPOD interface into my Prius. It was fun working with my hands, but I was so distracted… the job I planned for 1 hour took four. The sun was setting when I finally got Chai out for a run.. my first time outside for the day. We ran by the light of the beautiful full moon .    Diane, max, Gae and I came together for dinner   the first time we’d all been in one place today. We had a candle circle for Sam which felt good.   After dinner we got a nice call from my folks friends the Alexander’s.. who lost a their 30 year old son Eric 12 years ago.  I hadn’t spoken with the Alexander’s in more than 20 years.. but it was good talking to them about their path through loss and healing. It’s funny, . just being able to talk to someone who’s survived what we’re going through now is a great comfort.

 I’m sitting here now thinking/worrying  about the future.. not months or years.. just tomorrow. Tomorrow Gabe goes back to school. Tomorrow’s also the day I’m supposed to go back to work…. or at least that’s the deadline I’ve given myself. I’m having a very  hard time imagining how I’m going to function back at work. After all… it took me more than an hour to organize myself sufficiently to take out the recycling this evening J I know that it will be tough to ramp back up at work   I have nearly 1800 unanswered emails in my inbox and have practically no idea what’s happened at work in the past 6 weeks.   I’ve certainly missed the people at work.. but can’t honestly say I’ve missed the stuff I was working on.  I think this reflects the very drastic shift in priorities that Sam’s death has given me. Will I be able to get my head around work  again ? Maybe it will  feel  good to get my brain active again. We’ll see.    One of the cards we got when Sam died had a picture of a wash machine with a caption “put yourself on gentle cycle” that’s certainly what we’re going to have to do for awhile. I’m planning on going in to work a few hours at a time for starts.. I’ll also be working from home. I’m going to see how much I can concentrate.. and how much I can take. I’ll also need to be tuned in to how the rest of the family is doing…   This will be slow, hard going for awhile.  Wish me luck.. I’ll let you all know how it goes…We’ll I’m a working man again.. better get some sleep.

  Happy New Year everybody.. Happy New Year Sam..

-jc 
 

It’s 3:30 in the morning and there are about 30 people sleeping (actually not sleeping) here because of the ice storm tonight… what a party. I know you were here Sam… Happy new year my boy.
-jc

Today was an incredibly full day.  We woke late.. I’d dreamed of Sam who’d been reborn as a vine of some sort that I was trying to trim. I woke up not knowing what the dream meant .. I just know that I was concentrating hard in my dream.. Diane was also woke thinking about Sam .  In some ways we have to relive losing Sam every morning. We spent some time lying there talking about who we hoped to find or make meaning out of Sam’s death… would we becoming more spiritual ? .. .. would we  devote our life to some sort of public service ?… .  both ?  What keeps people from making big commitments like this under normal circumstances anyway?  One of the things we have found so far is that each of the four of us brings different ways to approach our grieving and healing . E.g.:  Diane’s vision brought us the carved stones and the candle circles we have at dinner, Max’s creativity helped us carry Sam’s Celebration at Memorial Auditorium. Gabe organized the party for his and Sam’s friend this week. I came up with the idea of spreading some of Sam’s ashes with fireworks. This week we’ve been working on creating some ongoing rituals to make sure we each remember and honor Sam each day.. and include him in our family gatherings. Right now I make appoint of talking to Sam every time I look in a mirror  when  see Sam’s face on the button I wear. As I look,  I also can’t help noticing how much Sam’s death has aged me.. I see new creases between my eyes which must come from crying.. I also talk to Sam in the shower.. This morning as I showered I also noticed that I was getting more used to the sound of my own crying.. I don’t think I ever heard myself cry as an adult until Sam died.

     As for family rituals,  we’ve begun coming together before meals, lighting a candle and saying ‘hi’ to Sam out loud. We think we’ll also do a small ceremony on the morning of holidays to welcome Sam into the celebration before we begin celebrating.  I have to admit that I am worried about how I’ll manage New Years Eve and New Year without Sam… It makes me so sad to think about it.. One day at a time though. .. I’ll worry about that tomorrow.

      I mentioned that today was a full day…   we had several big events today. It was really our first full day out in public.  It started with a haircut (yes.. I still need to get a few of them on the sides cut)  Deb Mallow donated the money from  my haircut to Sam’s fund.. What a sweetie… We then went to our good friend Mason’s Eagle Scout board of Review. About 100 people showed up at Brwester Pierce school in Huntington to watch Mason get this important award.. I was very proud of Mason.. he’s worked hard for this award. He’s been a regular fixture in or house for years. He’ always been so helpful.. This summer, he and Sam stacked all of our wood.. Mason’s been here nearly every day since Sam died.. and he’s seen that our wood ring is never empty. He’s a really great kid. Mason asked me to say a few words at the ceremony which I did.. it was pretty hard getting up in front of an audience and speaking. It was also strange.. but  in a way nice.. to be in a large group of people who were not focusing on our family .Now that I think of it,  it was really our first public venture since Sam died.

 From Mason’s Eagle board in Huntington, we went wih Max to an organizing meeting for the Voices Project movie.  The Voices Project, which was the creation of Bess O’Brien from Kingdom County Productions. It was a stage musical that addresses issues important to Vermont high school age kids. http://www.bcbsvt.com/pages/voices/about.html . Voices toured the entire state of Vermont in 2005  ending in a big show at the Flynn Theater in Burlington.  Max did  a great job playing a homeless drug addict in the play … We were really proud of him. All of us were sad for Voices to end last fall… This fall Bess decided to revive the program and revamp it into a feature film with the help of her husband,filmmaker Jay Craven. . The film will be made this summer in Vermont using most of the original cast. The project still  needs to raise about a quarter million dollars to cover filming. If you know anyone willing to contribute..(Including yourself) please let me know.   Thinking ahead to the filming was exciting.. but also made us sad. We kept thinking of the plans we’d already made for Sam’s summer… Mt  Hood snowboarding camp Abenaki with Gabe, etc. That’s why we find we still can’t project ourselves more than two days into the future at this point.

   We wrapped up the day at  a pizza pot-luck  party at Jen and Tim’s there were a bunch of folks there each armed with a different twist on Pizza. It was rally nice. I think I’m addicted to these large community dinners.  I hope we keep them going.  It was very relaxing over there.. Hannah Deene and Dave from Talent showed up with Adah.. They gave us another check for $340 for the Sam fund from ornament sales and donations  We also gave Hannah some more Sam buttons .. if you need one.. please see Hannah at Talent. One very cool other thing happened at the party..  I was outside waling our 83 year old friend Barbara  back to her house.. On the way back I noticed a cool double rainbow ring around the moon. I told everyone about it when I got back to Jen and Tim’s . Our wonderful friend Hannah T went outside to get a picture of it with her digital camera. Here’s the picture she got with her camera..

Hannah’s always been looking for a sign from Sam…. And here it is….. It’s even cooler because Hannah wears a lock of Sam’s hair in a heart shaped locket around her neck .   Wonderfully strange but true…

   Well it’s late.. and tomorrow’s new years eve… gotta get some sleep.  See you tomorrow. Thanks for the snow, Sam. We love you.

-jc