Today, June 1st, Jim's birthday. He would have been 55. It's a beautiful sunny day. The kids are all home. Molly has a soccer game (Jim was their coach.) There's a lot we can do....2 families of geese are with us now, with their goslings, and Chris & AJ are getting their exercise, chasing them off the grass, running around the pond, kayaking across. Mark, our old neighbor, gave us his cat 2 weeks ago, but we haven't seen the cat since (he's gone wild.) Oie & her friend Ted went to the Eagles concert at MSG 2 nights ago (they were Jim's favorite group)....I know today, though it will stir up all the memories and the grief continues, is like every other day, a chance to breathe and discover what unfolds in the moment, and then to feel it. But before I go and sit and practice Knowledge this morning, I want to post the first draft of the epilogue of the book, as today is the 2 year anniversary of Jim's diagnosis.

Here it is:

Epilogue: Memorial Day 2008

It’s Memorial Day weekend, 2 years to the day that Jim first noticed his symptoms, almost four months since he died. I’m here in Wellfleet, Cape Cod with my four kids, my brothers, parents, sister Robin and several nieces and nephews. We’re doing what we always do this weekend, what Jim did two years ago: opening the house, vacuuming out the daddy-long-legs, shoveling sand off the driveway, taking the winter boards off the windows, biking to PJ’s, the local ice cream and clam shop. Time for me to reflect and write …. Jim is gone physically, but very present in my heart, my memories, the breeze off the ocean, the rainbow after the rain, the salt smell off the bay as I ride my bike on the route Jim and I always rode, separately yet together.

Over 900 people attended the Celebration of Jim’s life, the memorial service we had for him on Feb. 9. It was a tribute to Jim, to see how many lives he touched while he was alive. Oie had compiled a slide show set to four songs, and in between each song, 3 speakers each reflected on their life with Jim. At the end of the service, Mark, the MC, announced that Jim had made one final request to end the celebration, and that was the signal for all the cousins, scattered through the audience, to push the button on their “fart machines.” The audience, many in tears, were stunned, then started to laugh. That was Jim, always looking for humor.

I always remember what Linda P. wrote in the guestbook about her father’s death, leaving her mother to raise five kids. She said that her father taught them how to die, and her mother taught them how to live.

The kids and I all witnessed Jim’s death, the breath leaving his body, actually his life, that breath, being pulled out of him though his heart still beat for a few more minutes. It was so stunningly, searingly final. In that moment there was no fear, no uncertainty, it just was. And still, for each one of us, our breath came, one at a time, then the next, then the next, and you just have to go on. Jim taught us that that moment will come for each one of us.

So what am I learning? How to go on….without Jim physically here. I cried and cried, the kids cried, then we went to sleep, then the sun came up and we awoke and breathed and went on. Chris went back to Cornell for his second semester of freshman year. He eventually made up the incompletes from the first semester, pledged a fraternity, became a “brother” and made a lot of new friends, passed all his courses for the second semester, continued his relationship with Katherine, and is now home for the summer, readjusting to life in New Canaan without Jim, hanging out with AJ. Oie was accepted at Colgate, has second-semester-senioritis, a wonderful new boyfriend, Ted, and just went to the senior prom, looking absolutely beautiful and radiant. AJ has his grin, is growing like a weed, will soon surpass Chris in height. He’s struggling in school, deeply grieving for his dad. Molly is still excelling in school, has discovered IM’ing on the computer, plays soccer. We’ve been traveling, skiing and riding the roller coasters at Islands of Adventure in Orlando. On the home front, there are pictures of Jim all over the house. We planted a cherry tree in the back yard, sprinkling Jim’s ashes in the dirt. There will be another tree planted at the varsity high school soccer field in Jim’s memory. The Team Jim Scholarship Fund has been established and funded to present an annual award for a Senior boy and girl who play varsity soccer and embody Jim’s passion for the sport, as well as Jim's qualities of caring, kindness, humor, teamwork, sportsmanship and confidence to follow his or her own path in life.

Even with these outward acknowledgements of Jim’s life, we’re all grieving. I hear the kids’ tears at night. And mine. And where to find the comfort? I can only find it within. Sometimes it’s so painful, I cry until my stomach hurts. Other times I feel the grief coming, and to avoid the pain, I immerse myself in distractions….working harder, finding another errand or project to do, cleaning off my desk. It’s exhausting, grieving. You can only be distracted for so long. So now when I start to feel that pain, the sorrow and the sadness, I allow myself to feel it, breathe into it, breathe again, deeper, then embrace it, let it become a part of me, then breathe again. And somehow when I do that, and stay in the moment and the breath, though the pain is there, so is the comfort of this friend, my breath, my life. And the memory of Jim, my love for him, is all intermingled inside there as well. The love just is. I can feel it, I can feel him saying, “You look good, Laur. You’re okay.” And then I feel myself transforming in that moment. I can’t say it’s healing, I don’t know what healing is. But it’s soothing. And when I remember that at some point I will exhale my final breath, like Jim did, whether it’s tomorrow or 10 years or 40 years, I want to discover, in each breath that I have left, the promise of what it really means to be alive. Not just to make some money, or to buy a new car, or get rid of the geese on the lawn. But like Jim did, to live like I’m going to live, to find the richness, the dance, the love, the exquisite light inside of me. And in that moment, I can be that example for my kids, teaching them how to go on and not just survive, but live.

That was the epilogue. And now one final thing. I found this yesterday as I was cleaning out some files, it's from Jim to me (and to all of us):

Grieve not....

Nor speak of me

with tears...

But laugh

and talk of me

as though I were

beside you.

I loved you so...

‘Twas heaven

Here with you.