New Beginnings  - (SMILE #1)

 

91 Smiles for Christopher Annis started in the mind of an eight year old boy who had a wonderful idea in the wake of two tragic events that happened within days of each around the third week of December 2012. On December 14, 2012 there was a tragic shooting in Newtown CT where 27 people were killed. On December 17, 2012 here in Oregon a friend and coworker died. Our Friend was Christopher Annis and he was a funny, endearing, engaging, brilliant accomplished person who just lost his way. Chris would do anything to help anyone. After the school shooting which was national news, Anne Curry of NBC is attributed to coming up with the idea of everyone doing 26 acts of kindness - one for each of the victims in the Newtown School shootings - as a way to honor the memory of their victims. While I was as upset as anyone else over the Newtown event, it was soon eclipsed by a tragic event in my own life.  I was a coworker and casual acquaintance of Chris Annis. We were in the sales department, along with his best friend Patrick. We sold things all day long, and Chris was a very good salesperson.   

 

My son Spencer met Chris one time  but he made an impression on him. Spencer, who is 8,  is a huge sports fan and his favorite team is the Oregon Ducks Football team. When they won the Rose Bowl the previous year  Spencer ran out the front door screaming and we did not see him again for 45 minutes.   Most people do not choose to work on Thanksgiving Day, but Chris and Patrick did not mind because of the extra money involved.   I could not work that day as we were going to Seattle to visit friends and we had made the plans a year previous. No way to change our plans  but Bill My husband, was making his "famous" delicious fattening Pecan Pies  that he makes twice a year only.  I told him to make an extra one  and I would take it in to work for the people there who had to work on Thanksgiving Day.  We could drop it off on the way out of town.   We went in to work and  Joe ( our Supervisor) along with Chris and Patrick were there.  They had all heard my funny stories about Spencer and how he was a complete 8 year Old Walking Sports Encyclopedia, and how neither Bill nor I ever knew what he was talking about.

 

 Spencer walks in and he and Joe immediately start talking Ducks Football... They have a big discussion about what the Ducks Need to do to win (or whatever) Pretty soon Patrick mentions  that Chris played for the Ducks in Football in College,  that he was a Punter. Well,  you could have knocked Spencer over with that one.  I had no idea  that I was working with a "real Actual Duck" as Spencer put it, and I was impressed but Spencer was just BLOWN AWAY by this news.  Furthermore I told him that this Duck lives right around the corner from us in Canby.  We stayed a few minutes , wished them all Happy Thanksgiving, left the pie and hit the road for Seattle.  I had bought a DVD for Spencer to watch on the way up - "Milo and Otis"  and he did  watch it  but he NEVER EVER stopped talking about Chris, and the fact that he knows a REAL DUCK and this REAL DUCK lives like literally around the block.  Later I had heard that everyone liked the pie  and true to form, Chris had four pieces. I was very grateful for how sweet  they all were to him  and spent so much time talking to him.

 

 That was Thanksgiving Day, and it really starts the Holiday season off, at least in my life it does. It is a time when we all get so busy trying to get all of the school obligations  accomplished and holidays prepared for and PTA things ( I was Vice President of Trost PTA this year) and School things and  just so many obligations.  Soccer is winding down, basketball is starting up.  Parent Teacher conferences, PTA events and Fundraisers... Buying presents... all of these things on top of getting to work every day. My days started at 4 AM and usually did not end until 10 PM at least 5 days a week.  We all got busy and maybe we did not notice as much as we should have when Chris started to really lose his way in late November and early December. I could always make him laugh,  he always made me laugh... but it was clear he was troubled.  Not being as close to him made me unaware of maybe signs or something ... but on December 17th, Chris took his own life.  All of us -  later - not JUST his very close friends and family, etc  but everyone,  people like me, who had known him only for 7 months,  we all wondered what could we have done? How could we have helped?  We searched our hearts, our minds,  our memories for what we might have missed -  clues... etc...

I did tell Spencer that his beloved Real Duck had died, and he got extremely sad.  However  this was after a local mall shooting a week previous  and also then the Friday before,  the Newtown shootings.  It seems like the world was going crazy and I barely knew what to tell my Spencer.

 

I went to Chris's beautiful memorial service at Canby Christian Church  and I am so very glad that I did.  His best friend Patrick  - also a coworker of ours -  got up and spoke beautifully and eloquently from the heart  about his childhood friend that he lost.  Many other friends told stories about Chris and being there I got to know him in a way that I never had. It was a bittersweet heartbreaking day all around.  In some ways I got to know him better than I ever had, and the Chris they knew and the Chris I knew started to look more like each other.  However, I also realized  what a total loss it was to lose such a fine person at age 28,  how much pain he must have been in and I did not see it,  and it made me full of regret about all that I did not know about him until after it was too late.  The entire experience was a mournful, shocking,  frustrating, regretful,  sadder-than-sad celebration of the life of a wonderful person that no one will ever forget, and one of the saddest days of my adult life.

I did not bring Spencer to the actual service because I thought he was too young to really understand and I also knew that I would be openly upset throughout it and I did not want to upset him further. I took him to my dear friend Kari Richey's house  until it ended, and I talked to Patrick, and signed the book etc. I did everything I could do, but left there completely full of sadness. I cried for a full 20 minutes after I got to my car.   When I picked up Spencer at Kari's he told me that he wanted to go to the church and at least say hello to Patrick and maybe sign the condolence book etc.  and so, though he was wearing muddy shorts and a U of Oregon hoodie and sneakers, I took him back there. hH signed the book, he met Chris's parents, and talked to Patrick for a while.  I took him to the front of the church see the closed casket and explained to him that Chris was inside of there  and soon he will be buried in a cemetery, etc.  Patrick came and talked to Spencer and then told him there was a big scrap book of all of Chris's accomplishments and awards and things in the other room, that he should go look at it.  I looked at it with him and was amazed to discover even more things about this great guy - he was a Championship HS Basketball player,  he loved to eat,  loved to laugh,   played for the ducks, Graduated from the Honors Business College at U of Oregon..   Spencer noticed that his number on one of his teams was 91.

 We finally left the church and Spencer and I talked in the car for a bit  about what he had just seen.  We were parked across the street from the front door of the church.  A man approached us and asked me if I had any jumper cables, his battery was dead and he had to get back to Tigard. I told him I did and that I would give him a jump but that I did not know how to use the cables.  He got his car started and  was soon on his way.  I had just heard all of these stories about how Chris went out of his way to help so many people all of the time.  I remember thinking at the time  Chris would have liked that I did this.   Then as soon as we got back in the car they started to carry his casket out to the waiting hearse for its trip back down to Grant's Pass where he was buried.   We watched that for a little while but it was so painful to watch, I decided to finally just drive away.

 

A few days later Spencer  and I heard about the Anne Curry Idea of 26 Acts of Kindness for the Newtown, CT victims.  Spencer said that we could do that for Chris. I agreed that we should and Spencer said  We should do 91  because one of his team jersey numbers was 91.

 

I later saw Chris's mom again when I dropped a card off at her house and I told her about the idea. I joked that it made me wish that he had had a slightly lower jersey number  but that Spencer and I were absolutely determined to do this.  I posted it on Facebook and a friend suggested I blog about it.   I said that I might  but only if Spencer blogs with me. 

 

SO.

 

Act 1 was that dead battery jumpstart after Chris's memorial for a guy and his older parents in a whilte Lexus.

 

 While I was trying to seek  out the next Act, I noticed that acts of kindness were going on all around me.  Just yesterday I was back at work after the Holidays and I was sooooo sleepy so I scrounged all of my change together for an overpriced diet coke from teh vending machine. I THOUGHT Id had $1.40 but it turned out I was a dime short.  One of those friendly but kind of nutty Apple Tech Support employees were there and they just gave me the dime I needed.  SO SWEET!  I have no idea who he was or how to give him back his dime... but I do remember about  a month ago CHRIS ANNIS did not have the correct change for the stupid drink machine  and even the change machine was empty!  he came up to me  and asked me if I had change.. which I did not  but he was also trying to get $1.40...  I just gave him $2  which was the smallest I had. He thanked me and I just said "Oh,  Chris  whatever... Its two bucks.  Don't worry about it..."  and we both smiled   etc...

 

His SMILE is what everyone remembers about him  I think more than anything. There was this AMAZING picture of him Framed at the Memorial and I really wanted a copy of it...   I thought about sneaking up to the front after it was empty and simply taking a picture of it with my newfangled high tech phone. However -   how tacky is it to take pictures at a FUNERAL?  I refrained... but I imagine that if Chris could see the debate going on in my head  he would have flashed his great smile....  Just like the last few weeks that I saw him... just like in the picture.. Like the smile when I made him laugh when I did this CRAZY MINNESOTA accent that I do sometimes.... I did it for him that last week and he was laughing.  He was all about smiles  Like the one he brought to my face a few days before that when he made a realllly funny comment to a customer and I laughed really loud...  Like the one  when I lent him $2.00 for the WRONG drink to come out (no matter what buttons you push on that stupid vending machine) Or the one I had after the Apple guy gave me a dime and enabled ME to get the WRONG drink. I did not mind. Caffeine is Caffiene.

 

Acts of Kindness are great. Twenty six of them?  Even better, but for Chris, he was all about SMILES. Putting them on people's faces, laughing all the time... I think it is time we honor him by making at least 91 people SMILE.  Spencer and I are going to try to get 91 Smiles out of people by just doing nice random kind things.  Whether it is getting ONE person to smile 91 times or 91 people to smile once... I dunno. We will see how it goes. It's a new journey, a new beginning.  Feel Free to join us.