Simon's Life in Picture and Song

Ten years ago today, Simon left this life. In the face of such a powerful illness, it was all he could do. And all we could do: let him go. Sometimes the inevitability of his death makes it impossible to imagine things any other way. Sometimes, though, I can free my thinking into a different mode. Simon's illness was a tough part of life for the last three years, but it was not the main part of life. Not ever. Simon was a happy child with a playful spirit and great energy for life and learning.

This video link is a slide show (posted below for a few days only) put together a couple of years after Simon died. Over the past weekend, Miriam and Markus helped me update the photos and create a new movie file to get the quality closer to today's standards. (Miriam is quite handy in iMovie.) It shows his life from birth to death, telling the story whole. The amount of happy is not exaggerated, neither is the pain, but the biggest part is love.

November 2004
Uintah Elementary School
Gemini concert

The song "You've Crossed Over" was written by Laszlo Slomovits, a dear friend and fantastic children's musician in Ann Arbor. He contacted me around the time of Simon's death and said he'd written a song, would that be all right? Laz's song was played via recording at Simon's memorial service in Salt Lake City. Then Laz came with his brother San for a Salt Lake City residency (they perform together as Gemini) sponsored by Simon's memorial fund. They performed "You've Crossed Over" at Uintah Elemenary with the entire class of 100 2nd graders joining in singing and doing sign language on this song.

When we held a memorial service in Ann Arbor in June 2005, Laz and his wife Helen provided the music, including this song. In the slide show, you hear the song once as voice and guitar and a second time with more instrumentation. (I think of the recordings as "living room" and "studio.")

Our Simon slide show

I'm posting this special family video in honor of the 10th anniversary of Simon's death. I'll leave it up only for a couple of days. Simon, you amazing and beautiful child, we remember you!



Remembering Simon from Mary Craig on Vimeo.