The last time I saw Sam, February. I took a few photos of Tyler, my brother-in-law, making him laugh. After Sam passed, one of my observations was that Tyler was closest in age to Sam of all the in-laws, and I am one hundred percent sure Sam thought of Tyler as his friend. Tyler had a way of saying Sam’s name a long “Saaaaaaaammmmmm” that made him laugh til he couldn’t breathe. I can still hear his laugh in my head; it still brings me to tears.
Today Sam would have turned 34. When I met him he was nine-months-old, the little brother my mom flew to Michigan to bring home to us. She met him at the airport. A Korean attendant from the orphanage carried him off the plane that took him from his birthplace in Seoul to the States, where he became ours. I didn’t understand all the nuances of Sam’s differences when I was eight. I was excited to have a new baby. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t hold his head up or that he had many, many seizures every day. Our baby was home. Back then our big family was small- there were four of us kids- and we welcomed Sam, number five, Jaybo’s first brother and roommate. My sisters and I adapted our “Aunt Bridget, Aunt Erin and Aunt Meghan” imaginary world to include adopted Cabbage Patch dolls from all over the world. We used words like microcephaly and cerebral palsy as we built playhouses under the living room table, incorporating words we heard our parents discuss into how we played. It’s a gift, isn’t it, how children use play to adjust and adapt?
Sam died June 11. I wrote about that in a previous post, and it continues to feel unfair to lose someone during a year already oversaturated in grief and loss. As the days and weeks progress and distance that awful day from the present tense, memories come back in snippets, tiny commercials advertising who we lost. I find myself grateful, daily, for the way photography became a part of my story midway through Sam’s life, because they help make his memory tangible.
My 9th birthday and a rushed cake-ice cream-present routine because Sam wasn’t doing well. The seizures were part of his life, but a trip to the hospital eventually led to the conclusion he needed extended care at Miami Children’s.
Surgery on top of surgery, Mom gone for weeks. Aunt Bridget staying with us with her littles in tow. Sam coming home with scars, brave by necessity.
He didn’t get to choose courage but he demonstrated it so often. Doctors thought he would be unable to understand much of anything. We quickly realized he understood us. We could make him laugh. We tried to help when he cried. I knew, even as a little kid, that he loved me. I loved him too.
Tiny Sam in an orange life jacket at the beach, Dad swimming out with him, carefully. We still lived in Florida then, and the beach was a standing weekend date. We rode “elevator waves,” the waves out past the breakers that pulled us up off our toes, gentle. He loved being out there the same as any of us.
His first day of school. We cried when he got on the bus. Our baby, going away, beloved by teachers and therapists and aids from the get-go.
His first wheel chair. Debo’s birth, when he first became a big brother. He’d expand that role seven more times. Taking him to the movies, to Disney, to meet the babies when they arrived.
When Mom had cancer, I helped care for the kids, and Sam, by that point was in the mix.
He had good days and bad days. He laughed at the boys a lot. He was a part of us. We are not fully ourselves without him.
At church, accepted. He LOVED the music. In public, sometimes stared at. At weddings, dancing in his wheelchair. At Christmas kicking his foot during the family show. “If you’re happy that it’s Christmas, where’s your foot?”
Sam as an uncle, holding Betsy, Georgia, Bennett, Beatrice, Jameson, Freddy, Maggie, and Annie. I am convinced he was the happiest meeting those babies. He met our little Finnley but COVID meant he never got to hold him.
The moments come into focus crisp and then fade too quickly. Death stings and the ache lingers. I find myself grateful, daily, for the way photography became a part of my story midway through Sam’s life, because photos help make memories tangible. I don’t have wise words or deep thoughts about Sam on his birthday. It’s hard to have a sibling with so many challenges, but it was not hard to love him. At the memorial we had for Sam, my brother Jono observed that for a man with exactly one word, his famous “huh,” Sam made hundreds of friends. Hundreds. Because while Sam wasn’t always happy, when he was, it was downright contagious. His playful spirit lifted the spirits of all in the room.
Sam didn’t love the camera. I didn’t know on that night in February that I’d take the last photo of Sam I’d ever take. That it would be the last time I kissed his forehead or asked him to show me his foot. He lived a big, beautiful, brave life, and I will love him forever. No one in my family knows quite what to do today. Some of my siblings went to get tattoos together, and they’ll gather tonight. I made a pumpkin pie and have tomato sauce cooking, because those were his favorite foods. And I’m writing these words and sharing some photos, because it’s something. If you’re a friend or client who didn’t have the privilege of knowing Sam, maybe this will give you a sense of who he was.
He’s gone- an eternity and a flash over these last weeks- our beloved forever little boy. I miss him.
