Dateline: Venice, December 29, 2005

We rode a night train from Munich with real berths and all that. Departed at 11:30 p.m. and arrived Venice at 7:40 a.m. Right on time, Ananda. Kathy was thrilled to fulfill a life long dream of spending the night in a sleeper on a train. Lauren also thought it was quite an adventure. We were served pastries and cappucino at 7 a.m. and then walked out of the train station to find the Grand Canal and catch a boat to our hotel. We have just come from the Doge's Palace. Very impressive. Took the tour, walked over the Bridge of Sighs into Prison. Started the day with a gondola ride since it was sunny and not real cold. Maximilian was our gondolier and we had a good time. We wandered all over through the maze of small streets, alleys, passageways, small courtyards, over canals on small footbridges, etc. Doing lots of walking. I had not realized really what Venice was like in geographic terms, but it is a bunch of islands laced together with bridges and there are no cars. To get to it there is a road and train causeway from the mainland which is a mile or more distant. We have a nice room in a quiet neighborhood, Sant Elena. We can walk there or we can catch a vaporetto, public transit boats, and ride for a few stops. Highly recommend this place as as destination. Everything pricey, but it is a unique destination. Tomorrow we go into San Marco's church or on a boat ride to Murano Island, the source of beautiful glass. I am sending this from an internet point business in a small alleyway that we found by wandering. Lauren is sitting next to me sending email to her friends. We take a day train back to Munich on Saturday so we can see the countryside. So far, we've had the best holiday we could expect under the circumstances, and find our appetite for travel only whetted by this trip. Best wishes for 2006 to all.

Dateline: Christmas Eve in Munich

It is 5 p.m. here and getting dark. I am in Lauren's room while she and Mom are in another building do preparation for dinner tomorrow. We have been having a very good week in Munich on our first trip to Europe. It has been wonderful to spend time with Lauren and meet her friends, see where she lives, and get a sense of the challenge and adventure it must be for her to make her way in a different language and society. Weather has been cold and snowing or raining most of the time. We have quickly learned to dress in layers, and the high importance of a good "schal", German for scarf. It is a central item of dress and style. Tonight Lauren will spend at our room so our family will have Christmas together tomorrow morning. We have presents and a small tree. It will not be the same without our son, but it will be good to be with our daughter. Love your children, people, and have a little love in your heart. Merry Christmas to all. I wish I could be like Jimmy Stewart and get a "do over" for Christmas so I could run down the street shouting for joy. That is not to be, but I will treasure this Christmas in Munich with Lauren and remember it for its pleasures and happiness.

Medical Insurance

I'm on the telephone with a customer service rep at Premera Blue Cross. Two of my EOB forms (Explanation of Benefits) seem to have been calculated by a monkey banging on a graphing calculator. Steven is researching. The usual double talk. Bottom line is I'm confused...as usual. I wonder how many hours a day are lost in the American economy with people trying to straighten out these matters? Yesterday is not too soon for national health insurance. It was Harry Truman's idea in 1948.

Balls On The Wall

Lance Armstrong was in Seattle this morning at a prostate cancer survivor's benefit breakfast hosted by Steve Fleischmann. The event was well attended and jammed the grand ballroom at the Seattle Sheraton. Steve Raible was the host, Steve Fleischmann made some touching remarks about his personal bout with cancer, and Lance was very effective in his new role of championing increased funding for cancer research. I sat at a table with people I had not met, and didn't know when I left, but all had a good time. It was too expensive for me, but I know Steve so I impulsively decided to attend.....particularly since Lance has turned me into such a fan of the Tour De France. Lots of women in the audience, and Lance paid respect to women being honest about breast cancer as paving the road for men to talk openly about testicular or prostrate cancer.

Ed Sullivan Time

You're too young to understand.

Weekend synopsis: clean house, go to motorcycle show at Qwest Field event center, go to Snappy Dragon for chinese food with Ginger and Sheila, repair towel rack in bath, fall asleep watching DVD, cook bacon, read Sunday paper, go to R.E.I. and buy stuff for trip to Munich, meet the girls at Westlake, eat Mexican at Pacific Place, watch the artificial snow fall in the atrium, say good bye to Sheila going back to Cable, WI, go home, blog.

Bought black jogging pants and wearing them now. Pumped about jogging around neighborhood tomorrow morning. We'll see.

My pal Spright, the gray/black/white cat, is zoning out next to me in the swivel chair for the computer. I didn't have the heart to push him aside.

We had a fairly pleasant time at REI and downtown, but on the way home, just K and I in the car, we both were a bit blue about the holidays and no Seth. When the artificial snow fell in the atrium there were a lot of excited youngsters, preteens, etc. and it is hard to see them happy and hard to feel guilty about resenting their happiness and that of their parents.

No Matter Where You Go, There You Are

I'm in Yreka California at the Miners Inn, Best Western. Last stayed here in September 2004 when southbound to visit Geri and Norm in Sacramento. Seth was with Kathy and I on that trip. It was our only road trip with our boy as a young man, and we had a pretty good time. Last night I pulled off the road at the rest area that has the great view of Mt. Shasta. It was dusk and the mountain was sort of lavender against a deep blue sky with two planets shining brightly. Very pretty. Sheila has never been up here before so I stopped so she could see it, and I stopped because I was last there with Seth and Kathy, at the rest area across the freeway. I didn't want to just drive by....it was a bit sad, but I tried to focus my thoughts on the pleasure we had on that trip with him.

Our big trip to visit Lauren is only two weeks away and that is pretty exciting! There's snow on the ground here in Yreka and the air is crisp....just the weather conditions I expect in Munich. Even though it has only been three months since we saw her I am expecting to find a much different young woman. She has been teaching herself to cook, and recently thanked me for all the years of cooking and dishwashing that Mom and I had done.....she hadn't realized how much work it was. Also, she will be much more comfortable with her language skills and get to show us around the city.

Siskiyou Summit is clear and cold today, but big storm expected tonight so we seem to have gotten lucky. It's 8:30 a.m. right now and we're going to hit the road to get over the mountains in just a few minutes. Yesterday we drove here with the goal of being as close to the pass as possible so we could go over in daylight.....looks like our planning has worked out and we got a bit lucky with the weather. We'll be home tonight.

On The Road

Dispatch from Las Vegas. Here to move my Mom from assisted living and my sister from her house. Sister is moving to Tacoma so Mom is,too. Mom doesn't know where she is. She doesn't know she has a granddaughter who can speak three languages, has walked on the Great Wall of China, scuba'd on the Great Barrier Reef, and is studying for a year in Germany. That is too bad. I'm sure she would be proud. She doesn't know her grandson, one of only two, was killed in August. She would have been proud of him, too. Fantastic musician, hard worker, engaging conversationalist, and recent college graduate.

It's a bit cold here in Las Vegas, and windy. It's a strange place. Lots of Hummers and flash cars, and lots of "with it" people, even at the IHOP on a Saturday morning. The demarcation between yards is a change in the color of the gravel, and all the houses are faux stucco in shades of tan, beige, white, dusty pink, etc. Lots of six lane wide thoroughfares that run straight for miles, with cars zooming along at 50 to 50 mph. All of them lit up with orange sodium lights that makes everything look dirty.

Tomorrow we have two "movers" coming to help load the truck. That will take all day and I want to hit the road soon. Got to drive to San Francisco and then to Tacoma with a U-Haul by myself. Hope it has a CD player in it. Looking forward to the drive, except for the pass at Siskyou Summit. Have to count on good weather.

Seth, Lauren, and their mother, Kathy: I love you.

How Can He Not Be Among Us?

Here's a photo of James Seth Edwards, age 23. We called him Seth. He was well on the way to becoming an outstanding guitarist and musician, almost completely self-taught on the guitar. Once he took on something, he was into it. This picture is in front of Mt. Shasta on a road trip in September 2004 with Kathy and I to visit Sacramento. He was a good sport about going to visit family. We had a great time on this trip. Such a lovely person. Today our house is quiet and empty on Thanksgiving for the first time in many years. Seth's sister is in Munich. Many friends invited us to spend Thanksgiving with them, but we are black holes right now and would only suck the joy from any gathering.

We did get out of the house to observe the holiday. We went to downtown Seattle and parked a few blocks from shiny high-rise towers and the Pike Place Market. Down an alley, between two dumpsters we found a small doorway with a locked steel gate. In response to the doorbell a young woman let us in and led us down stairs into a basement.

"Man on the floor!" she shouted, to announce my presence. We entered a large basement with several small rooms surrounding a large open area in which there several round tables. Next to the tables were white metal lockers for the belongings of the women housed at the shelter. It is run by a charitable organization that is part of the Lutheran Church. Usually, the women must spend the day outside and can be in the shelter only at night. But on Thanksgiving and Christmas they can stay inside. We had brought pies and whipped cream and I expected to be washing dishes or something like that. Instead, we chatted with various women and wound up playing hearts. Roxanne Roberts took a shine to us and kept us amused with her obvious intelligence. She has no teeth even though she's probably no more than 50 years old, but I never inquired what had happened or why she was in the shelter. She kept joking she was going to borrow some false teeth so she could bite me......usually because I took no points in the latest hand of cards. There were a variety of women, different ages and races, some of them plainly out of touch with reality. The shelter was clean and nicely painted, but not a window in it. It had a couple of TV rooms, a laundry, showers, and a large dorm area. For most people it would be a grim place to have to be, but for these women it was warm and dry and companionship was possible. As we left, Roxanne went outside with us, and said "hope to see you next year....from the same side of the tracks as you....a volunteer". I hope so, too.

Seth, we found this volunteer opportunity because there is no Thanksgiving in our hearts this year. But seeing Roxanne and the other women was good for us. We needed to do something kind and positive to console ourselves for your absence. No one there knew about out family's pain, but it was the source of any good that we may contributed to those women. The world is full of pain. It's amazing we go on, and that those poor women in that shelter go on. They are hoping for better days, and so am I.

Anger is a Many Splendored Thing

My wife, Kathy, just called me from her work.....in tears. "I just can't stop crying". It irritates me that she is doing that. It makes me feel guilty I am irritated. It makes me feel inadequate in my sorrow for Seth......why am I not broken down into a sobbing mess on occasion? It enrages me towards Vincent Santiago. It enrages me about the millions of people on this planet who behave carelessly and foolishly and then want it to be "an accident" or "or I didn't mean to...." or "I was [mad, sad, distracted, scratching my balls, etc etc]" as if that would excuse killing a person and destroying the emotional fabric of a family. Off with their fucking heads! And don't think I am kidding or speaking in a moment of distress. I am 58 years old and have observed enough of people that my low opinion of the intelligence, emotional stability, and capability to function as an adult of the average person is supported by lots of data. When we tolerate carelessness from adults we make life more difficult for everyone.

The Beauty of Children

No idea what my title on this post means exactly. I just know my life has been so enriched by being a father that there is no way for me to connect with myself prior to children. I can of course remember that time, but my identity has so changed that it seems unreal to think of not being a father. I wouldn't say when I was a young man that I was eager to have children or gave it much thought, but now it seems to have been inevitable, destined, etc. Unfortunately, part of that destiny has included the death of my son. I feel I continue to be a father to him in the way I remember him and the ways we are honoring his memory.

I was blessed to have both a son and a daughter and I am struggling with how to love and cherish her as the special person she is, without our family life being overshadowed by the sadness of her brother's passing. She's a wonderful person who studying for a year at the University of Munich. We are going to see her at Christmas and that is cause for great anticipation. That is Lauren in the picture above in front of a museum in Munich. We love you, darling.

Thursday is Garbage Day

A few elements of living a nightmare. Now that one child is recently dead and the other is studying abroad we have suddenly the season of "the not-full trash can". I used to have to jam stuff in there, but now the can, in its small volume, has empty space to parallel that which we have in two empty bedrooms and in our hearts. Tonight as I put out the meagre discards of two lives, where we used to have four, the moon was up in its full glory. Our boy Seth, when but a toddler sitting on my arm, pointed at that moon over our house, and said one of his first words "moooooon". No more. It is a terrible thing.

Byways of Hell

My son, Seth, was 23 years old. He had just graduated from University of Washington in the Spring and was turning his considerable intelligence and focus towards his passion for guitar playing and songwriting. Even though his band, Courtney Killed Kurt, had broken up, he was planning to assemble a new group when his best friend and musical soulmate, J.T., returned from a summer of travel abroad. Then....bam. A 25 year old man drove up a hill on a side street, accelerating the whole way, and went through a stop sign into an arterial street and struck Seth's car. Dead at the scene. No do-overs. The evil one was not D.U.I. so he wasn't arrested, or for all I know, even written a ticket. Of course, he has no insurance.

I watched the Seahawks last Sunday with a ghost at my elbow and longing in my heart. Seth and I would have been watching probably, or might have gone to the game, but no more. Ever. You see that period at the end of that sentence? Ponder its insignificance combined with its terrible infiniteness. My wife started the day in tears, and is finishing it that way. I tried to talk to her, but she had nothing to say to me. Later she called her sister and they talked at length. Part of me is relieved she talked and part of me is angry she wouldn't talk to me.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Seattle, Vincent Santiago, is drinking a beer and goofing off with his friends. Seth's sister is in Munich Germany at school and started the year telling her new acquaintences that she was only child, because she just didn't know what to say. Our many friends with children look at us with pity, and some hidden relief that it wasn't their child.

Go find a book by Ted Rosenthal. Might be out of print. He died of leukemia in his 30's back about 1974. The book is "How Could I Not Be Among You" and it will break your heart and maybe make you cherish what you have. Ted warns you there is a world of pain out there and it will reach you sometime. Thanks for the warning, Ted, but it didn't help me avoid it. I hope you and my boy are writing songs together.

Why Western Man?

Not for pretension about culture or perspective, but because I love the western United States. The Pacific Ocean, the mountains, the deserts, forests, national parks, the wide open spaces and all that. I was born in Santa Monica and grew up in Tulsa. When I left there it was to Army basic training in El Paso, and then onto Sierra Vista, Arizona for advanced training. Then 12,000 miles further west to Viet Nam, but that is another story. When I got discharged at Ft. Lewis, Washington in October of 1968 I headed straight for San Francisco. Summer of love, baby, and have not ever considered living east of the Rockies since then. I have been in the east and midwest extensively and they are fine places to visit, and many live there, but my internal compass follows the sun back towards high mountains, big spaces, and that crazy left coast from San Diego to Bellingham. Want to know what the U.S. will be like in 20 years, just go to California or really any place within 50 miles of the Pacific Ocean. Like the young man said in "Almost Famous": "it's all happening!".

Seth's Story

Here's a key fact that dominates my life and thoughts now, and will be explored at length in coming posts. My fine young man, my son, James Seth Edwards was killed in a car wreck on August 23, 2005. He was just driving home for dinner about 7 p.m. and was only four blocks from home when a driver ran a stop sign, hit Seth's car on the right side and drove into oncoming traffic. A second car, probably speeding, hit Seth right in the driver's side of his car. He was dead at the scene. My wife and I were eating dinner when several policemen walked up on our front porch. You never want to see them on your porch.

Toe In The Water

Who knows where this little Sunday night adventure will lead? I was introduced to this site/program last night by an old friend. Being a long time, but erratic, diarist and journal keeper this may be a way to create consistent access to whatever I write. Instead of the various piles of papers, ring binders, college notebooks, and piles of photos that surround me in the small study in which I now sit. We shall see.