Shattered Glass

Another good day of skiing in the bank. Felt good but I definitely made some rookie mistakes today. No wipe outs though.  My first rookie mistake was a doozy. I forgot my ski boots  at the place we are staying. I didn’t realize it until after we got to the parking lot at the resort (Mary Jane) about 20 minutes away. Mike graciously offered me the use of his truck which I accepted. Reluctantly.  Mike’s truck is massive. It’s a GMC with huge Diesel engine and a lift kit. I’m certain it’s the largest vehicle I’ve ever driven. Getting it out the parking lot at MJ was a little nerve wracking. I knew if I hit another car it was going to leave a big dent. The parking lot was full and full of creative parking so not a lot room to maneuver. I got out unscathed - well, the truck got out without me bitting anything - but I decided I wasn’t too keen to push my luck so opted to not park in the lot upon my return - with my ski boots this time! Instead I parked on the road coming into t...

Went skiing today. As planned. Did ok. No wipe outs. Did all blues except for one blue-black. One was enough. I got down ok but had to work too hard to want to do it again. Planning on going again tomorrow. As long as I don’t wake up with my leg muscles in giant knots I’m going for it. Lots of cramps since I got off the mountain today.  Leaving the house today I wasn’t too sure. The outside temp was -10. By the time we got the bottom of the little valley the house is in, it hit -24. This all happened within 5 minutes. When the sun finally hit the mountain the temp went way up. It had to have been close to 30 so almost a 55 degree swing. Tomorrow should also be a fantastic day to ski - warm and no wind.  I would have really liked to see Damian on a pair of skis. At least once. Or maybe even a snowboard. I think he would have enjoyed it. Maybe not the first day, but I think he would have liked after he got comfortable. At least I think he would have.  But of course I’ll nev...

Today has been a good day. I haven’t left the house all day. Just taking it easy with some fraternity brothers: John, Mike, Mark, Tom and Barry.  I just lost at poker. Not a big surprise considering that I never play. I don’t mind, but it was fun to play for awhile. Before lunch we ate brat burgers. Yeah, they were new to me, too. These are hamburger patties made from bratwurst sausage. WAY better than a traditional hamburger. Leave it to the Iowans to come up with yet another delicious way to serve pork. So good. But if lunch was good, dinner has the potential to be even better. There are 6 enormous porterhouse steaks sitting on the counter now soaking in the salt that was liberally sprinkled on them earlier this afternoon.  I’m looking forward to eating mine. At least part of it. No way I’ll be able to finish all of it.  We didn’t go skiing today - too cold. Minus 2 when we woke up this morning. Hard pass. It’s supposed to be warmer tomorrow so we are going. At least I ...

I’m in Denver. Just landed an hour ago. Waiting for one of my fraternity brothers to arrive. John is coming from Chicago. He’s on the ground but still on the plane so only a few more minutes to wait. After John gets his bag, we will call Mike, also a fraternity brother. Mike is outside the airport in his truck. He lives in Boulder. As best I can tell Mike is a ski bum with a job. I don’t how many days Mike skis every year but it’s a lot. At least it used to be. I haven’t spoken to him for nearly two decades. The two conversations we’ve had in since Damian died have not been about skiing. We have a lot of catching up to do.  It will be interesting (?) to see how the guys treat me this weekend. They know about Damian. Many of them reached out in the days following his death. I would not have heard from them otherwise. That’s as much on me as it is on any of them. Our lives just went separate directions and we lost touch. It’s too bad it took something as terrible as Damian dying ...

Some days I hate my body. Today is one of those days.  Tomorrow morning I'm scheduled to fly to Denver for a weekend of skiing at Winter Park. I'm hooking up with some fraternity brothers that I haven't seen in 20 years. Sounds good, right? Yeah, well about 5 hours ago my throat, all of a sudden, got really sore and it's been getting worse throughout the afternoon. I now feel like crap.  This happens to me ALL THE TIME. Just as I'm about to get ready to go on a trip, I get sick. The same thing happened back in October. Three or four days before I'm scheduled to fly to Las Vegas (for work), I get a sore throat. I took massive amounts of vitamin C in the days leading up to my trip in the hopes that I could knock whatever it was but nope. I no sooner land in Vegas when it erupted into a full blown cold. Take if from me: being at a convention with a cold is even less fun after 2 years of the pandemic than before. Everyone treats you like a leper if you so much as co...

The funeral home called today to tell me that Damian's death certificates had come in. I said thank you, hung up the phone, and sat down to collect my thoughts.  A few minutes prior to receiving the call, I told Dawn that I was having a weird day. She asked me, "How so?" Several times today I had to actively remind myself that Damian was gone. It was like my brain was rebelling against reality, refusing to accept what happened. I didn't have this problem yesterday, or the day before that, and so on. I don't remember the last time I had this feeling. I had it today though, and I couldn't shake it until the call came in about the death certificates. Once I heard those words, my brain gave up the fight. With it came a feeling of defeat or resignation. Whatever it was, it didn't feel good.  Thinking about it now, all I have to say that the timing seems uncanny. Why today of all days I felt this way only to have the funeral home call to tell me in an oblique wa...

I sold Damian's mountain bike (MTB) this evening. Parting with it was not difficult as he barely rode it. What was difficult and caught me completely by surprise was what happened on the way home: I drove by the hospital where Damian was born.  Damian was born just after 3PM the afternoon of Thursday, March 23, 2006 at Northside Hospital. He was 5 1/2 weeks premature. Dawn had gotten a call from her OB the day before saying it was time for Damian to make his grand entrance into the world. Apparently, some test they had run on Dawn the day before that had come back with some alarming results.  The conclusion reached by her doctor being that it was best for both Dawn and Damian if Damian were born ASAP. I don't know that I was ever told exactly what was going wrong with Dawn but they were not messing around – an emergency C-section was ordered and, lock and load, the next day we were parents.  Northside Hospital is colloquially known as "Atlanta's baby factory". Thi...

I got a little sideways with Dawn last night. It wasn't intentional but, in hindsight, it was a little thoughtless on my part. Dawn had called it a night and was trying to fall asleep. I wasn't super tired yet so I continued to pass the time surfing the internet on my phone. Out of boredom, I started looking at motorcycles, visiting websites like Honda, Yamaha, MV Augusta, Ducati and others. At some point, Dawn stirred and asked me what I was looking at (?) so I showed her the picture of the motorcycle I had been studying. She asked me what it was and I told her (Honda NC750x); then she went quiet again. A few minutes later she decrees in stern voice, "You are not getting a motorcycle!" and then proceeded to roll over, away from me, clearly annoyed.  When I asked her what was wrong, she said that I was being selfish and that I should know better than to "...do this now".  A little backstory is probably in order here.  I owned a motorcycle from June 2016 to M...

Computer hacker. That's me. Today I managed to crack the password to Damian's personal computer.  I hadn't touched Damian's computer since he died. Didn't want to. Not until yesterday that is. Dawn tried logging in a few times Friday evening with no success. I tried, and failed, a few times yesterday. But today I got in.  It was through the help of one of Damian's close friends that I got the hint that I needed to solve it. Turns out Dawn and I were on the right track all along, we just needed to make a couple of minor adjustments. And voila, in like Flynn.  Much like Geraldo's live stream of the opening of Al Capone's vault, the payoff was anticlimactic. I don't know what I was expecting when I got in, but what I have found (so far) is all vanilla stuff - a whole lot of gaming apps. A spot check of his email app revealed nothing but spam. The browsers weren't open so nothing nefarious there. What I wanted to find was an answer. Something that wo...

There is a lot going on this weekend, much of which is making me sad. I didn't know it was going to have this affect on me, but here we are.  For starters, this marks the 10 week anniversary of when, in an instant, my life was shattered into a million little pieces. I realize that me calling out the number of weeks each Saturday may seem monotonous, repetitive even, but it's a big deal (to me). Other than a couple of longer business trips, I was never away from Damian for more than 5 days at a stretch. And even then, I was able to talk to him over the phone. To hear his voice. To have him ripped from my life, cold turkey, with no contact of any kind has been really, really hard. Remembering each successive Saturday what I went through, what Dawn and I went through, that fateful day in December is agonizing. It's not that I want to think about. My brain just goes there. I may not wake up thinking about at some point I always do. Eventually.  Today was the Georgia state robot...

Have you heard of Wordle? No, that's not a typo. Wordle is an online word game. It's not an app. You don't download it; you just open the  Wordle web page which is now tied to the New York Times and the game awaits.  The rules are simple: each day you have 6 tries to identify the word of the day (WOTD). Once you solve it or fail to solve it, you have to wait until the next day to play again. The WOTD is always 5 letters (e.g., "AUDIO", "CAULK", "RESIN", etc.). There are no clues as to what the WOTD is; you just have to use the process of elimination to figure it out. The objective of the first couple of tries is to identify letters that that the words contain. Sure, you might get super, crazy lucky and guess it on your first try but that is so unlikely people will probably accuse you of cheating. (Don't be that guy or gal.) Even hitting it on the second attempt is pretty rare. With each try, Wordle does the following with the letters in wo...

Today, I downloaded and started listening to the audiobook for Fight Club. If you didn't realize that the movie was based on a book then you are not alone. I didn't know this either. At least not until yesterday when a colleague happened to mention it during a conversation. My ears perked up when he said that he wanted his son to read it. "Wait. Fight Club is a book?" "Yeah. It was written by Chuck Palahniuk. He also wrote Choke." Another book that I hadn't heard of. Regardless, I was ready for a new audiobook having just finished my last one a few days ago.  I like Fight Club the movie. In fact, I had recently watched it with Damian - he for the first time, me for the first time in many years. It has a good blend of dark comedy, weirdness, engaging story and memorable lines that are fun to quote at the proper time. As with most books that have been adapted into a movie or television show, I assumed (correctly it turns out) that the book would provide mu...

One of things I miss about Damian is his sense of humor. He made me laugh countess times, which is not that easy to do. He could spot irony from a mile away and had an innate ability to frame things in humorous ways, even on topics that were not inherently funny.  One story that I shared at the celebration of life service took place in 2021, during the height of the COVID pandemic. The rate of infections was climbing rapidly as was the body count. In the spirit of "it could always be worse", I foisted upon Damian and Dawn the Hollywood clunker that is "Outbreak" starring Morgan Freeman, Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Donald Sutherland. This is a terrible movie about an outbreak of the Ebola virus in the United States.  With this cast you might be asking yourself, "How bad can it be?" It's terrible. Please take my word on this. If you are reading this blog you are probably already in pain so unless you enjoy suffering you will definite...

Damian was nearly 16 when he died. His birthday is March 23rd; he died on December 11th so 3 1/2 months shy of 'sweet 16'. I mention his age because even after all these years of him being around people still misspell his name. People who, in my opinion, really should know better after this many years. Read: teachers and family members.  Somewhere in the weeks leading up to Damian's birth I had convinced Dawn that "Damien" was a cool name. It was unique without being weird. (Can I get an "Apple" or a "Moonbeam"!) A condition of Dawn's acceptance of my preferred name for our son - full name "Damian Alexander Beisner" - was that we would spell it "D-a-m-i-a-n" rather than the much more common "D-a-m-i-e-n". Dawn's rationale for doing so was that in case she hated it she could call him "Ian" instead. In an ironic twist, while she did come to like his name she almost always referred to him simply as ...

Dawn and I met with our grief counselor (Andrea) again today after a 2-week break. The break wasn't planned, just the universe reminding everyone who is in charge. (Answer: no one.) Fortunately, we held our collective shit together while Andrea was sidelined. There were some touch and go moments for sure, but we did ok all things considered. I'm certain the outcome would have been entirely different had this happened a few weeks ago...But it didn't. And we're ok.  In the second half of today's session Andrea dropped a bomb on us: apparently there are some people who, for reasons I don't fully understand, believe that Damian did not commit suicide but was the unwitting victim of a TikTok challenge. Something called the "blackout" or "hanging" challenge, the objective of which is to choke or hang yourself until you pass out. WTF?! The Internet is a breeding ground for some truly dumb shit. I know I shouldn't be surprised. I work in IT after...

A mix of emotions today: sadness, anger, resentment and bitterness.  Not long after we woke up, Dawn shared with me that she was feeling down and that she was hungry. I told that we were going to go to breakfast - and try to make up for the fiasco that was the previous night's dinner! - and then go walk dogs at the lake. (We had talked about doing it yesterday but it didn't happen.) I knew she needed to get out of the house.  All went according to plan but my emotions kicked in after we got done walking the dogs and I had walked over to our boat. I sold it earlier in the week - deposit has been put down but still awaiting payment of the outstanding balance - and wanted to take some pictures today to share with the new owner. There was lots of activity in the parking lot as a number of sailors were getting ready for an afternoon of racing. Many of the people there were teens. And that made me think of Damian. He has the same model of boat (Laser) that these kids. And that made ...

Written a day late... Time got away from me yesterday. I got wrapped up in a house project and then switched to fixing the forks on Damian's mountain bike - they were stuck in place; would not move up and down like they are supposed to - which carried me through into the late afternoon. After that Dawn and I left for a night out. We went to a charity event at a restaurant & banquet hall in Buford. And had a terrible experience. We walked in at 6:30, left at 9:30 and I still hadn't been served dinner. Dawn got served just before 9PM. Mind you we had ordered dinner around 7:30. We ended up coming straight home where I immediately proceeded to heat up some leftovers in the (new) microwave. (yeah) Some friends who had the misfortune of being with us at the event came over to the house with their food in to-go boxes. (They were sitting with us and ordered the same time we did. They didn't get their food until 9:15.) We salvaged the remainder of the evening with some good con...

The end of another week. The eve of another dreaded anniversary. Tomorrow will mark 9 weeks.  As the number of days and weeks since the day that Damian died continues to climb, I struggle with feelings of guilt related to how much time I spend thinking about him. I've gotten a lot busier with work the last couple of weeks so I'm not sitting around nearly as much as I did before. When I punch out at the end of my work day, I often wonder how I could so easily dismiss him from my thoughts for so many hours at a time. If you had asked me 10 weeks ago, hypothetically speaking, what I could see myself doing after 8 weeks following such a tragedy, I probably would have said something along the lines of: "I see myself lying curled up in the fetal position not wanting to live. And staying that way until I died." And yet here I am. Going on with life. With my life. Yes, I've made some changes but it still looks a lot like what it did from the before. Even to me. Is that wr...

Sold the boat today.  Well, to be more accurate, I have a buyer lined up. He has paid a deposit so I'm considering it sold.  I was wrestling with moving ahead but feel ok doing so now. The tipping point came yesterday when I had lunch with a close friend. I told John I was having reservations about selling the boat. After hearing what I was thinking and feeling, John told me that if he were in my shoes that he wouldn't be able to keep the boat.That it would be too painful to keep around especially considering the reason why we bought it - so Damian and I could sail together. He then said, that, in time, I'll find something else that feels right. And he was right so today I posted it on Facebook and had it sold in less than hour.  I spoke to the buyer and he sounds like a nice guy. Good sailing pedigree (J24, E scow, A scow, etc.) with a wife and a couple of children - a girl who is 11 and boy who is 6 - who are all into sailing. They should have a blast. It makes me feel ...

Late this afternoon Dawn and I spent time with Damian's friends from school. We joined them during robotics practice. The regular season is over; they are now preparing for the state tournament.  When we arrived at school we came bearing gifts. Earlier in the day, Dawn and gathered up some of Damian's computer peripherals and 3D printer filament which we brought with us this afternoon. Soon after we arrived, we had fun handing it all out. Dawn did a great job relating the story of the University of Florida sweatshirt that she bequeathed to one of Damian's friends who is a transplant from Miami.  Damian had purchased a U of F sweatshirt over Thanksgiving break. Not long after we returned home, our dogs got ahold of it one day when Dawn was doing laundry. They proceeded to destroy it in a spirited game of tug of war. The one we handed out today was the replacement sweatshirt. Damian had no knowledge of the first one having been destroyed or the new one having been ordered. ...

I need to find a new hobby.  I plan to walk away from sailing. At least for awhile. Thinking about being on a boat now is difficult. We introduced Damian to sailing early in his life and he stuck with it to the end. He and I sailed together for fun, we raced together, and we raced against each other often. We've taken several sailing vacations as a family. And we had big plans for 2022 that also revolved around our new boat. The thought of doing any of this without him is painful. So for now I plan to stay on shore. I'll reassess every few days to see if I feel like it's ok to go back out on the water, but I'm not going to force it. It will happen when it happens. In the meantime, I'm going to work on the house, try again to learn how to play my guitar, go mountain biking and maybe dabble in some small (?) woodworking projects.  I've been daydreaming about building things out of wood for many years. I don't know what's holding me back. Maybe fear of fail...

I've received some condolences recently that were a mix of the unexpected and the overdue. What is interesting is how I am reacting to them. I'm noticing that I'm calibrating my response based largely on who is on the other end of the line.  Last week I received emails from 2 different people expressing their sadness stemming from Damian's death. One was from an life-long friend of my mothers whom I've never met or spoken to. The other from an old colleague that I haven't spoken to in 3 years, maybe longer. I don't have the energy to respond with anything illuminating or reassuring so I've chosen, for now, not to respond. Is that rude of me? I hope not.  This afternoon, soon after I logged onto a conference bridge, a peer of mine from another company offered his condolences. I don't know what he knows exactly. I don't know who told him - I have an educated guess but that's all - or how much detail he was provided. As he said it, I thanked him...

Work has started taking over. I don't know if that is good or not. I put in close to a full week last week - my first! - and have been working most of today (Sunday). I have a demo tomorrow afternoon and another on Tuesday that I have to get ready for. A few weeks ago, I was unable to concentrate on much of anything. Now it seems that my concentration is coming back. So "yeah"...I think.  I did take a break this afternoon to go to a hockey game with Dawn. It has been several years I think since we last went to one. It was good to get out of the house. I think I can say that I had a good time. And I didn't feel guilty about it either which is a plus.  On the way to the game Dawn and I discussed selling the (new) sailboat. I was going to list it for sale online a couple of weeks ago but I chickened out at the last minute. I just couldn't muster up the strength to part with it. I think I'm ready now to let go. Hopefully I don't get cold feet again.  It feels ...

 **Warning - Contains vivid imagery describing the real death of a teenager.** Friday, December 10, 2021 was a good day. Work for me was going well and Christmas was only 2 weeks away. I was excited. Even more so because Damian and I were set to go sailing the following day (Saturday) on our new boat. Damian had finished most of his classes. I think he had a couple of finals he still had to tackle the following week but most of the pressure of the semester had been bled off over the previous couple of days. The following afternoon, after we got done sailing, Damian was going to a robotics party at a friend's house. This night he was content to play video games online with his friends. When Dawn and I went to bed that evening we could hear him yelling, in the heat of computer-simulated battle, through our bedroom floor from the basement. That was the last time we heard Damian's voice.  Around 3:30 the following morning, I woke up because I had to go to the bathroom. I didn't...

The end of week number 8. 56 consecutive days of not seeing Damian or talking with him. No contact of any kind. It's been a long 8 weeks but then I remind myself (yet again) that this is only the first 56 days of forever. I will never see or talk with him again. Not really. Not the way I so desperately want to.  Today, I went to my work office for the first time in the after. Being there was ok. I had forgotten that I had a lot of pictures of Damian in my office. The pictures are from different years of his life. Some are of just him; others are of the 3 of us. Happier times from the before.  On my way into the office I stopped at my favorite deli to grab a bagel sandwich to go. The owner of the deli, a spunky Korean woman, calls me "Mr. Sriracha" because I always ask for it on my bagel: sausage, egg cheese and Sriracha on a plain bagel. Yum. This morning, as she handed me my bagel and was making change for the $10 bill I'd given her, she asked me how 2022 was going. ...

Gray skies and rain. Maybe I'm talking about the weather. Maybe I'm talking about me. I'll let you decide.  There is a cloud that hangs over me. Some days the cloud is very dark and ominous with little to no light coming through. Some days it's much thinner, like a thin veil of gauze over the sun. Most days it's somewhere in between. Not black, not gauzy, but just solid gray. Thick enough that I can't point to where the sun is in the sky but not darkening the sky either. On occasion, the gray sky is accompanied by mist or a light, soaking rain. The darker the sky, the more likely the forecast of rain.  The gray is everywhere that I am. It is the void. There is no escape from this place. I will be here forever. My hope is that over time, lighter skies will dominate my days, the air will dry out. How long this will take I can't say. No one can. When it does happen, assuming it will, there will still be days that are inky black and lashed with driving rain.  So...

Damian's school robotics team (Lakeview Academy's Galactic Lions, team 5898) made the cut and is going to the Georgia state tournament (to be held February 18th and 19th).  Their head coach put out an email today with all the details.  Probably not a surprise, but I have mixed emotions about this. I'm happy the team is going, but (very?) sad that Damian won't be there. One thing that was more painful than I would have expected was the team photo, taken, presumably, sometime this week, that accompanied the email. Of course Damian wasn't in it. How could he be? That hit me in a tender spot. I imagined him being in the photo for a few moments and then had to look away. Too painful. On the bright side, the other kids in the photo all looked happy which was encouraging as Damian was close friends with most of them. Of course, I've also come to learn that an outward smile can often times be deceiving with the inner self being in conflict while the outer self presents ...

I want to do mushrooms. I've never done mushrooms, but I want to give them a try.   From the little research that I've done, mushrooms - those that contain psilocybin - can make you feel connected to the universe and are purported to be a natural anti-depressant. The big advantage over Big Pharma products is that you only have to take mushrooms once and the anti-depressive effect can last for several months.  And it's all natural. Sign me up. I'll be sure to pack a bag from my "trip"... Speaking of trips, I booked another one over the weekend. I'm going skiing in Colorado at the end of the month (February) with some fraternity brothers. It's been 20 years since I last strapped skis to my feet. I hope it's like riding a bicycle and that the muscles will quickly remember how it works. I am a bit worried though. Since my motorcycle accident (in 2019), my foot will cramp up if I'm on it too long or put it under a lot of strain. Not sure how well it...