Memories and Chip's legacy of coats

The words “memory” and “legacy” have been heard multiple times a day for the last couple weeks. Sam’s new favorite song is the mournful “House of Memories,” by Panic at the Disco (watch the video here and/or read the full lyrics here). When Sam has a new favorite song, we all are subjected to hearing it multiple times a day while he enjoys it and works to memorize the lyrics so that he can sing along. I have happy memories of hours spent with me chuckling alongside Chip (with plenty of eye-rolling on Chip's part) as Sam played songs such as “Believer,” by Imagine Dragons, over and over and over again on the Alexa in his room. Sam’s “Believer” phase seemed to last forever, but is a phase that forever links me, Chip and Sam in our shared experience with the song.

The lyrics to “House of Memories” are full of words that make me think and make me grieve. Maybe the song is having the same effect for Sam and is a way for him to reflect on and process Chip’s loss. Maybe hearing and singing the words is a way for him to process the grief, as it is for me when I sing along with him and/or dance with him while we sing it together.

The following lyrics from "House of Memories" resonate soundly with me these days when I think of Chip:

“If you're a lover, you should know

The lonely moments just get lonelier

The longer you're in love

Than if you were alone”

“Soft hearts electric souls

Heart to heart and eyes to eyes”

“And when your fantasies

Become your legacy

Promise me a place

In your house of memories”

Hearing the word “legacy” in the song over the last couple weeks always prompts me to think about Chip’s legacy of coats. I wear some of the coats when I go outside to walk Rocky in the cold winter air. Since Chip was a mountaineer, there are plenty of warm coats in a variety of colors from which to choose. I like wearing the coats on my walks and imagining him climbing slowly to the summits of Aconcagua in Argentina and Mt. Vinson in Antarctica. I like recalling him wearing the coats as he sat in the pick up truck waiting to meet me somewhere. I love thinking about him in those coats while he held my hand as we walked towards the grocery store from our parking space. I’ve had no need to wear his raccoon coat that was his grandfather’s, but if there ever was a need to wear it, I would be happy to do so. There are other coats too that prompt memories of him: the suit jacket he wore on our wedding day, his tuxedo jacket that he wore on New Year’s Eve 2018, the orange puffy he wore at his birthday party that I threw him in 2017, and his brown tweed jacket that he wore when he took me to the Inn at Little Washington for my birthday weekend in 2016, the weekend after he received chemo for the first time.

Memories and legacies are so important. I hold them all close to my heart. And as I forge new memories with Sam dancing around the kitchen singing “House of Memories,” I will cherish those for what they are as well as how they make me think of Chip.

Everlasting be his memory, and the memory of all those who have gone before us who have left us things to take care of.