Monday, November 22, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
King of Terrors
Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!
Rev. Henry Scott Holland, on the death of Edward VII, 1910
It was such an ordinary day. Tuesday the 20th of November, 2007. Nicholas came home from Bowdoin for Thanksgiving, on the bus. He arrived at South Station just before noon. I was working at 185 Kneeland Street, across Atlantic Avenue from the station, and Nick walked over to see me. He was carrying a duffle bag of clothes and his messenger bag, crammed as usual with books, his laptop, iPod, and so on. He had called from the bus, and we had agreed we would meet at the office and then go home together. He came up to my office on the seventh floor, we said hello to a few people, then left. I had arranged to take the afternoon off, and the following day. We were both hungry. I suggested we walk up to Chacarero, on Province Street, and get a sandwich before heading home. It was cold, and the walk was a hike - it might have been smarter to get on the subway at South Station. The restaurant was quiet. We ate our sandwiches, chatted a bit with Juan, and then walked up to Park Street. I called Elizabeth to say we were catching the train. We were pretty loaded down, between my briefcase and Nick's stuff. The station was filling up with students heading home, but the ride out to Alewife wasn't crowded. We talked a bit about how the term was going. Nick was feeling good about it - Organic Chem and French were hard, but he thought he could stick with them. We talked about Abby and the cats. Ordinary conversation. We picked up the car at Alewife and drove home. I can't remember what we did when we got home. So wonderfully ordinary.
Nicholas, you are never out of mind.
We love you,
Dad
Rev. Henry Scott Holland, on the death of Edward VII, 1910
It was such an ordinary day. Tuesday the 20th of November, 2007. Nicholas came home from Bowdoin for Thanksgiving, on the bus. He arrived at South Station just before noon. I was working at 185 Kneeland Street, across Atlantic Avenue from the station, and Nick walked over to see me. He was carrying a duffle bag of clothes and his messenger bag, crammed as usual with books, his laptop, iPod, and so on. He had called from the bus, and we had agreed we would meet at the office and then go home together. He came up to my office on the seventh floor, we said hello to a few people, then left. I had arranged to take the afternoon off, and the following day. We were both hungry. I suggested we walk up to Chacarero, on Province Street, and get a sandwich before heading home. It was cold, and the walk was a hike - it might have been smarter to get on the subway at South Station. The restaurant was quiet. We ate our sandwiches, chatted a bit with Juan, and then walked up to Park Street. I called Elizabeth to say we were catching the train. We were pretty loaded down, between my briefcase and Nick's stuff. The station was filling up with students heading home, but the ride out to Alewife wasn't crowded. We talked a bit about how the term was going. Nick was feeling good about it - Organic Chem and French were hard, but he thought he could stick with them. We talked about Abby and the cats. Ordinary conversation. We picked up the car at Alewife and drove home. I can't remember what we did when we got home. So wonderfully ordinary.
Nicholas, you are never out of mind.
We love you,
Dad
Monday, October 18, 2010
Surprise finds
Memory is funny. Things lie half forgotten, only to spring to life again unexpectedly. I was searching through old photos last week, and came across this one.
This was December 2002, at a Central Artery children's holiday party (a Santa-centered holiday, obviously). The organizers had asked for volunteers, and I talked Nick into coming in to help. This was Christmas of his eight grade - he was 12. We had the usual crowd of small children - this was the year before the opening of I-93, so the project was still in full swing, with lots of field offices, in addition to the staff at the 185 Kneeland Street building.
Nick agreed - we figured he'd be wrapping presents or serving cake and juice. Bill Edwards, who ran the project controls group for the Artery, was Santa (I never did find out why Bill did this, but he did it for years and was an outstanding Santa). Somewhere in the course of the morning, someone asked Nick if he would help Bill - be Santa's elf, and Nick must have said yes.
I liked this photo because it captures Nick's gentleness, particularly with children. He continued to play the elf for several more years, and I think was the elf the last year the project held a party - probably 2005.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Labor Day again
It's Labor Day again. That means my birthday has come and gone - I am now 55. Hard to believe.
We first went to Ferry Beach in 1992. Nick was 3, Alex 6. Gail had contacted Elizabeth about organizing a crew reunion, to be held on Homecoming Weekend, Labor Day. We talked about it, and thought it would be fun, and the boys would like the beach. So began a tradition. We have spent nearly every Labor Day there since.
Alex and Nick were so little when we first went. We stayed in Rowland Hall, ate at the Quillen, and mostly talked about the ways our lives had followed sometimes parallel paths, though seldom intersecting. The boys met Owen and Heather, Jack and Reed, others. The Labor Day weekends that followed charted growing up.
Our last time there together was 2007. Alex drove up and joined us on Saturday, I went up to Bowdoin to get NIck Friday night. I nearly fell asleep at the wheel on my way up, just outside Freeport. Very scary. I asked Nick to drive back to Camp Ellis. He was a good, competent driver. I woke up as we were getting off at the Old Orchard Beach exit.
It was like old times, being children on the beach again. For the sand castle competition, they sheepishly built an inverted "negative space" castle (a conical hole). This is Alex putting finishing touches on the "castle," and Nicholas "helping" by leaping into the hole (photo by Chuck S.):
.jpg)
This being Ferry Beach, they got a prize - ice cream certificates for the store.
We first went to Ferry Beach in 1992. Nick was 3, Alex 6. Gail had contacted Elizabeth about organizing a crew reunion, to be held on Homecoming Weekend, Labor Day. We talked about it, and thought it would be fun, and the boys would like the beach. So began a tradition. We have spent nearly every Labor Day there since.
Alex and Nick were so little when we first went. We stayed in Rowland Hall, ate at the Quillen, and mostly talked about the ways our lives had followed sometimes parallel paths, though seldom intersecting. The boys met Owen and Heather, Jack and Reed, others. The Labor Day weekends that followed charted growing up.
Our last time there together was 2007. Alex drove up and joined us on Saturday, I went up to Bowdoin to get NIck Friday night. I nearly fell asleep at the wheel on my way up, just outside Freeport. Very scary. I asked Nick to drive back to Camp Ellis. He was a good, competent driver. I woke up as we were getting off at the Old Orchard Beach exit.
It was like old times, being children on the beach again. For the sand castle competition, they sheepishly built an inverted "negative space" castle (a conical hole). This is Alex putting finishing touches on the "castle," and Nicholas "helping" by leaping into the hole (photo by Chuck S.):
.jpg)
This being Ferry Beach, they got a prize - ice cream certificates for the store.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Christmas 2000 - Nocedal
We spent Christmas 2000 in Santiago, then went south to Futrono for a few days. This is the patio in our house on Nocedal, in La Reina, Christmas Day. Peter, Alex, Sofia, Nicholas, Damian, Siri, and of course my dad. Nick and Alex liked having Christmas in the summer, as well as visiting my dad, Mina and Jorge, and Peter, Chabuca and the cousins.
Nick and I made one more trip to Chile to see my father after this, in 2003. My dad died suddenly at home in Santiago in June 2004, the morning after Alex graduated from high school, so we went to Santiago then, and because we knew we would be selling the house and didn't know when we would be able to come back, came back for another visit in late July.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Found a stone
The Rodeo's are selling their house. They have been angels - Marta was there with Nick and the boys before the Fire Department arrived, and has been kind to us ever since. The tree Nick hit is there - one of the ironies of this whole thing is that to look at the tree you would never have known its tragic moment.
Mrs. Monti will do a stone marker - it was her idea that we find a stone. Tess and I found one over two years ago, just off a path in the woods. It's taken me two years to get the stone down off the hill. Now I need to drive it to Quincy.
I think it will just say:
Nicholas
+22 Nov 2007
It's a field stone, and it will go down flat. I want to get it set in place before they sell the house.
Mrs. Monti will do a stone marker - it was her idea that we find a stone. Tess and I found one over two years ago, just off a path in the woods. It's taken me two years to get the stone down off the hill. Now I need to drive it to Quincy.
I think it will just say:
Nicholas
+22 Nov 2007
It's a field stone, and it will go down flat. I want to get it set in place before they sell the house.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Estabrook
We walked the dogs across the school yard yesterday, heading for the conservation land on the other side. Abby puffing up the hill, Tess running back and forth, trying to get me to throw her tennis ball. It was a beautiful evening - tall thunderclouds with their tops lit by the setting sun, a bit humid still, but cooler than after the thunderstorms earlier in the day.
Estabrook is like a path of memories. Mrs. Hopkins' kindergarten classroom on the corner, the one Nicholas used to be terrified to go into. We used to go in the side door, and get as far as the coat rack, then Nick's courage would give out and we would sit on the boot bench outside the classroom. Sometimes as we got close to class time, Mrs. Hopkins would look out and say hello to Nick, cheerfully (or terrifyingly, I suppose). Other times we would work our way into the room, maybe get as far as the reading circle or the play house.
From a long perspective, I know now that Nick was completely used to having Alex with him. Alex, it seemed (to him), always knew what to do, was never frightened, was bigger, would always protect Nick. Going places with Alex was not scary. Nick worried - nameless terrors that seemed to have started at Eliot-Pearson, with the equally sweet (and inexplicably terrifying) Carol Henrichs. Maybe it wasn't so much that school was scary, but I guess the idea of spending the day there, by oneself, was a bit much.
There were so many happy days. Bringing Abby to school for show and tell when she was about 9 weeks old (?), charting "a puppy's progress" for science fair, helping to build the play structure and later the outdoor amphitheater (with Len Morse-Fortier), Ms. Donahue (who also had Alex), art classes with Mrs. Shurtleff, Nick's introduction to music - recorder, then 'cello (bass would come later, at Diamond), Mr. Horton (Nick never did get himself sent to his office), Mr. Banks' gym classes. The wild fringe of the playground, home to many warrior camps, forts, and so on, and the playing fields - Nick's flirtation with soccer, mostly - baseball was mostly at Fiske and in town. Bad days too - breaking his foot running across the breezeway in Cub Scouts, roofing important balls and rockets. But on the whole, in my memory of it, Estabrook for NIck was love.
to be continued...
Estabrook is like a path of memories. Mrs. Hopkins' kindergarten classroom on the corner, the one Nicholas used to be terrified to go into. We used to go in the side door, and get as far as the coat rack, then Nick's courage would give out and we would sit on the boot bench outside the classroom. Sometimes as we got close to class time, Mrs. Hopkins would look out and say hello to Nick, cheerfully (or terrifyingly, I suppose). Other times we would work our way into the room, maybe get as far as the reading circle or the play house.
From a long perspective, I know now that Nick was completely used to having Alex with him. Alex, it seemed (to him), always knew what to do, was never frightened, was bigger, would always protect Nick. Going places with Alex was not scary. Nick worried - nameless terrors that seemed to have started at Eliot-Pearson, with the equally sweet (and inexplicably terrifying) Carol Henrichs. Maybe it wasn't so much that school was scary, but I guess the idea of spending the day there, by oneself, was a bit much.
There were so many happy days. Bringing Abby to school for show and tell when she was about 9 weeks old (?), charting "a puppy's progress" for science fair, helping to build the play structure and later the outdoor amphitheater (with Len Morse-Fortier), Ms. Donahue (who also had Alex), art classes with Mrs. Shurtleff, Nick's introduction to music - recorder, then 'cello (bass would come later, at Diamond), Mr. Horton (Nick never did get himself sent to his office), Mr. Banks' gym classes. The wild fringe of the playground, home to many warrior camps, forts, and so on, and the playing fields - Nick's flirtation with soccer, mostly - baseball was mostly at Fiske and in town. Bad days too - breaking his foot running across the breezeway in Cub Scouts, roofing important balls and rockets. But on the whole, in my memory of it, Estabrook for NIck was love.
to be continued...
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