Thursday, December 23, 2010
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.
Monday, November 22, 2010
My big boy
This is Nicholas at two and a half, sitting on the stairs at our house on Irving Street, outside Davis Square in Somerville. It was summer, and Nick is holding drumsticks. He had a toy drum set (borrowed from Alex, I think) which he loved to bang on. Some of you will recognize the drumsticks as chopsticks - but you also may remember that chopsticks make fine drumsticks. He's wearing his favorite red striped shirt - red was always his favorite color, from the time he was little.
In my mind's eye, this smile and those dancing eyes are Nick at every age. So many smiles.
It is three years today since Nick's death.
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.):
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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.
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