If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!                              

R. Kipling, 1895

 

Zermatt

It's been six years since Nick's great European adventure. He and Elizabeth went to Europe. We had all planned to go, but I had to go to Panama, so they went, and Alex stayed in Boston.

Nicholas had wanted to go to Zermatt. They flew to Paris, then traveled by train to Geneva, and from there to Zermatt (Elizabeth was experiencing a bit of her Swiss roots, but for Nick this was pure adventure and the Alps). The weather in Zermatt was cloudy and unseasonably cold on the day they had planned to take the cog railway up to the top.

I'd never heard of this attraction. If you're like me, you need to know a few details. This is what the official site says:

"With its sunny viewing platform that can be reached throughout the year, the Gornergrat, at an altitude of 3,089 m above sea level, has been the top tourist destination in Switzerland for the last 111 years. The panorama is considered to be one of the most beautiful: the Monte Rosa Massif with the highest Swiss mountain (the Dufourspitze at 4,634 m above sea level), and a view over the second-largest glacier in the Alps, the Gornergletscher, as well as 29 peaks higher than 4000 metres – and everything almost so close that you could almost touch them. You can climb up to the Gornergrat on the highest open-air cogwheel railway in Europe, which departs directly from the railway station in Zermatt. From here, you can climb the mountains 365 days a year with trains every 24 minutes – over impressive bridges, through galleries and tunnels, idyllic forests and alpine meadows, passing rocky gorges and mountain lakes. At your destination, you will find the highest altitude hotel in Switzerland, the 3100 Kulmhotel Gornergrat. Complete with restaurant, observatory and shopping mall."

Here's what Nick saw.  His narration:

 

 

For what he missed, go to the Zermatt site's video clip, which shows the more normal summer view from the top.  There is also a good video of the cog railway trip and the viewing area at the top, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gDOmJIKu_8.
 
Enough from me.

Candle in the wind?

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Macbeth, (Act 5, Scene 5), spoken by Macbeth upon learning of his wife's death.  I like this part because I think it captures the devastation at learning of the sudden death of a loved one.  Shakespeare is said to have published Macbeth in 1605, about 10 years after his own son Hamnet's death at age 11 in 1595.

I repeated this part of Macbeth's speech to myself often after Nicholas's death.

Macbeth's speech continues,

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

This part doesn't speak to me.

What are we doing here (2)?

Alex turned 25 on Thursday. A quarter century of being parents for us. I can still feel the moment when he arrived as though it was a few hours ago. How it feels to be the father of one living child, and not two, is a much more complicated matter. It is always jarring, especially on good days, like today. Nick's absence is like a pendulum - it swings away at times, then comes hurtling back.

Eschatology

Four years ago today our lives as we knew them ended. Raising children, we worried about them when they were sick, when they were hurt, when they were late coming home, but the nameless dread of being a parent is so much more than I would ever have imagined. I learned that through long, terrifying hours at Lahey, after the horrific site of my car wrapped around a tree, the roof and doors peeled back so that the Lexington Fire crew could extract Nicholas, Frank and Paul. So many dreams ended that night, so much new reality was born. The falcon cannot hear the falconer.

Palimpsest

Nick's friends: This is a random post and a work in progress - it's been I while, and I thought it would be good to do a post on some of Nick's friends, now that he lives mostly in my and their memories. Why now? I suppose because many things come together - Nick's birthday, Mothers' day, Sara's graduation, the anniversary of Alex's graduation and of Bowdoin graduation, and Angie's graduation, each a writing and rewriting of life changes and memory onto a particular, glorious time of year. So, in no particular order: Will - should be finishing up his Fullbright year in Colombia! Will's semester abroad in Chile, parts of which are recorded in http://gringogigante.blogspot.com/, was memorable for many things, including the strongest earthquake since 1960 (not Will's doing). Sara - graduating! I am so happy - this was a tough thing to do. Sara wrote a piece for Newsweek, one year out: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2008/12/05/remembering-the-perfect-boy.html. Frank - law school, Science Olympiad, front seat. Paul - graduated, back seat. Steve - Maine 3 - any one I have missed above - you guys have been great! Danny, John, Will, Shosh, Sophie, Zoe, Linda, Bobby, Angie, Ping. An amazing group. You write the next chapters.

Christmas 2010

Christmas is here again. I thought as Elizabeth and I were wrapping presents how perfect life was, and we did not know it. Sometimes it feels like the space between us and Nicholas is thinner, somehow. I think about how excited he and Alex would get about Christmas, the delicious tension between believing in Santa and trying to lift up our bed to see if there might be presents hidden there. Must close, as it's late. That's all for now.