VIDEO: Chip's 40 Day Memorial Weekend Gatherings

July 10, 2020 was the 40th day since Chip's death. Over the course of the weekend after his 40th day, we memorialized him as well as placed some of his ashes at Mt. Cuba Center, Hagley Museum, and his childhood home in Wilmington.

The weekend was so special to me in countless ways. Perhaps one of the most special happened on the morning of my departure from Wilmington when I showed Chip's parents the draft of the video that Bob Byrne created from the gatherings of the weekend. After they watched the video, Chip's mom, Debbie, said, "I think Chipper had a lot of Bostonian in him. Bostonians always do things backwards." I thought in the moment that what she probably meant to say was that Bostonians do things their own way, and are not easily coerced into doing things a certain way just because someone, or a government, tells them to do things a certain way. After Debbie said this about Bostonians, she followed it up with, "I haven't talked about my father so much in a very long time" (She HAD talked a lot about him over the weekend). At this moment, I thought to myself that the memorial weekend had served one of its purposes: to remember all who have gone before us and to memorialize them in addition to memorializing Chip. My response to Debbie was "Well, may his memory be eternal."

That brief interaction with Debbie ended the weekend perfectly for me.

Bob's video can be viewed on YouTube here.