A few weeks back someone came up to me after I’d be teaching in their church and said ‘you’re Sam’s dad right?’ I said ‘yeah.’

He said ‘can I tell you about a moment I had with Sam?’

My heart lit up. Of course! Tell me… And he shared a story of meeting Sam at the local skateboard bowl, and thinking he was a bit crazy because he was immediately dropping in on the steepest section of the bowl with no (apparent) fear.

‘Really?…’ I said. I hadn’t seen Sam skate for a while and the last time he wasn’t in that kinda zone.

‘Yeah… we were a bit worried for him. He was just really going for it!’

I can’t remember where the conversation went from there, but I do remember feeling a real sense of joy simply because someone had chosen to remember him.

After 18 months I imagine some folks aren’t sure what you should say to us or Ellie, or Cosi. Do we talk about Sam? Do we ask about how we are going? Will that cause more pain?

Is it best just to say nothing and allow us to raise it?

Prior to Sam’s death I would have been one of those people wanting to care, but not knowing how to jump in, so then just doing nothing and hoping someone else would have the conversation. What I’ve learnt is that I really value my friends who keep Sam in the conversation and who ask genuine questions about how we are going. We have been blessed with some great people in our life who have stayed in touch and not let him or us be forgotten.

I just spent half the day doing some brick paving in the back yard and 18 months later the thought running through my mind was just a loop of ‘Sam is gone… how did this happen?…’ or some variation of these. I feel like he is ever present in my thoughts – probably more than he was when he was alive even. And while I feel like I’m in an ok place with accepting his death, I certainly don’t ever want to move on – or have him dropped out of the conversation.

If you’re a person who wants to walk with us and keep his memory present (not every conversation obviously – that would be annoying!) then here are a few things I have observed that have been really valuable to me.

• friends just checking in and offering a coffee just to catch up and hear how I’m going. It’s clear they want to know what’s happening for me in regards to Sam so I feel permission to open up and be as ‘full frontal’ as I want or need to be.
• texts and messages sometimes on significant days eg father’s day or his birthday, or even just random texts to say they are thinking of me.
• people who are willing to shift the conversation to Sam at any time and talk about him or their memories of him.

If you are one of those people who just don’t know what to ask or where to start here are a few questions that you could ask that stretch beyond a simple ‘how are you going?’

What have you missed this week?
How has grief come up this week?
How has.… significant event felt with the absence of Sam…?
What do you miss most?
What has been hard recently?
What catches you off guard these days?
What do people say or do that hurts that they may not consider?
What do you feel you need of people at the moment or is it too overwhelming to know?
What are your favourite memories?
Tell me about…
Do you want to process any of the traumatic memories?
How do you find your day to day life harder or different to before?
Is there anything I can be more sensitive of?
What of the future do you feel robbed of?
How are you going managing grief in…… setting?
What is helpful for you when you are feeling … if you know?

The bottom line is please talk to us and keep him in the conversation. We miss him terribly and we love it when people are willing to share memories, or to delve into our lives and ask the kind of questions that go beyond the surface

And of course a huge thank you to those friends who have done this and cared for us so beautifully over this time.