{"id":979,"date":"2007-12-21T05:41:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-21T09:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2007\/12\/21\/thursday-night-remember\/"},"modified":"2007-12-21T05:41:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-21T09:41:00","slug":"thursday-night-remember","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2007\/12\/21\/thursday-night-remember\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday night – remember"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It’s now the 2nd darkest night of the year.. and I can certainly feel it. I drove around most of the day doing holiday shopping in sort of a fog of remembering. It wasn’t as sad as it sounds. There are many happy memories in there.  As I looked for gifts, I found myself wondering what I’d be getting for Sam… I’ve been thinking about the things I will send him this year..: love, connection, appreciation, peace.. fun…. remembering.   We can all give each other gifts like that I find. <\/p>\n

This is a season for remembering. Last Saturday there was a Remembrance service at All Children’s Hospital in Clearwater FL where Sam was after the accident. We couldn’t go.. but Parker’s Mom,  Stacy,  went for us. She helped us get a picture of Sam worked into the service and hung a memorial ornament on the tree there on our behalf. Stacy said that it was a beautiful and powerful service remembering about 100 kids who’d died in the hospital in the last couple of years. I can feel the emotion in the room even though I wasn’t present.  I was glad that Stacy was there for us and for herself. <\/div>\n

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About  two weeks ago Compassionate Friends organized a a worldwide candle lighting as a  remembrance of kids who have died. On that same evening, a few folks form our community participated in a remembrance service at a church in Underhill. Our good friend Gretchen wrote a poem to read at the service. Gretchen’s sister Stephanie died more than 20 years ago when both she and Gretchen were in high school . I just caught up with Gretchen and got her permission to share it here.. <\/div>\n

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Remember (by Gretchen P. Dec 8, 2007)<\/span><\/div>\n

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Remember<\/span>
Look into the flame<\/span>
A candle lit for remembrance<\/span>
Remember<\/span>
Remember my smile<\/span>
Remember my laugh<\/span>
Remember my hug<\/span>
Remember a sunny happy day<\/span>
Remember being in the snow<\/span>

Remember playing music, walking down the hall, watching a parade, swimming<\/span>
  in the river, dancing in the rain.<\/span>
Look into the flame<\/span>
Remember<\/span>
Remember to say my name<\/span>
Remember to share our stories<\/span>
Remember the hole you feel<\/span>
  and fill it with the love we share.<\/span>
My love will never leave you<\/span>
 <\/span>
Remember my family<\/span>
Remember that their loss is heavy<\/span>
Remember that they need your smile and hug<\/span>
Remember that they need the stories you bring<\/span>
Remember that they need you to say my name<\/span>
  Tomorrow, next year, in 10 years, forever<\/span>

Look into the flame<\/span>
Remember the light that shone within me<\/span>
I’ll remember the light that shone within you<\/span>
Remember to keep your light burning as I do mine.<\/span>
Remember that love is like the flame.  When shared the flame does not lose<\/span>
  anything, but only becomes brighter.<\/span>

Remember grief is not eternal but love is.<\/p>\n

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<\/span>I think it’s beautiful and perfectly captures our intentions in remembering those we love.  And we do still love you so much Sam.. I love you all..
-me
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It’s now the 2nd darkest night of the year.. and I can certainly feel it. I drove around most of the day doing holiday shopping in sort of a fog of remembering. It wasn’t as sad as it sounds. There are many happy memories in there.  As I looked for gifts, I found myself wondering … Continue reading Thursday night – remember<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}