Speed of Life

by Gregg Chadwick Gregg Chadwick Salish Sea 30"x24" oil on linen 2014  Two years ago on a technicolor blue day, I stood on the deck of the Wenatchee ferry cutting through the choppy sea from Seattle to Bainbridge Island. The vessel was named for the Wenatchi people who originally lived in the shadow of the Columbia and Wenatchee Rivers in Eastern Washington State. We are riding on a ship of memory. In the Yakama language,  w enatchi  means "river flowing from canyon." The Wenatchee River was home to a vibrant salmon run prior to the damming of the Columbia River which impeded the salmon's journey. Like the fish, the Wenatchi tribe was also blocked from its ancestral waterways as the US government rounded up the Native Americans in Washington State and collected them in reservations far from their native lands.  I often think about the rivers, lakes, towns and cities we have named after the original Americans. The absence of most of their cu...

Sometimes music is the balm that soothes our pain. I am remembering my lost nephew Luke one year after his passing and sending musical empathy to my brother Kent Chadwick and his wife Cathy. Peace

Spreadsheets can save him by Kent Chadwick Where’s the pattern? What ratio will show he’s getting better, that he’ll breathe again on his own? The ventilator pushes puffs of warm air through our son’s trachea every time his brain asks for oxygen, into his second set of lungs, damaged too soon by pneumonia, scarred and stiffened. The machine ka-shooshing eighteen or more times a minute to make Luke breathe when he needs, and it graphs his breath, reads his volumes, scoring the resistance—centimeters of water pressure—ready to alarm and warn of dangers, displaying seven variables in LED orange with each breath, repeatedly—and I stare. My hope has fallen to this new machine, that maybe, maybe its gentler aid can coax Luke’s lungs into recovery. What numbers, what ratios show progress?, something the doctors no longer expect. Is it peak pressures to tidal volumes? 89 to 760 Or his diaphragm’s nerve activity to the ventilator’s support level? 62, 70 to 1.5 What is significant? What is just ...

Deo Gratias for Luke - The composer Johannes Ockeghem's canon, Deo Gratias , is sung by nine choirs of four voices each. The formal structure of the work is intricate yet creates an incredibly haunting musical space. Johannes Ockeghem was born in 1410 in Saint-Ghislain (now in Belgium) and died in Tours, France in 1497. (Hat tip to Eamonn Fitzgerald )

Saffron Hugs at Luke Chadwick's Memorial Luke! Programs at Memorial Service General Chadwick USMC Semper Fi Luke's Graduation Photo at Memorial Service Peg and Bob Chadwick Ali Chadwick Plays for Her Brother Honoring Luke Post Service Hugs and Greetings for Cathy and Kent Chadwick Thoughts of Luke Hover in the Chapel Cathy's Flowers and Dana's Badge Cathy, Kent and Ali at the Celebration for Luke Bainbridge Fire and Rescue Workers Gather to Honor Luke at the Memorial Service MarySue Gazing at the Bainbridge Sky After the Memorial Service Cassiel , Grandma and Grandpa Flowers for Luke Evening Glow After the Memorial With Luke's Obama Sticker Cassiel With Dante 100 Years of Hallelujahs SunBreak for Luke A photo essay on A Celebration of Luke Chadwick's Life: Lean On Me at Rolling Bay Presbyterian Church, Bainbridge Island, Washington on September 6, 2009 Photos by Gregg Chadwick Luke's Celebration ended with a recording of Frank Sinatra singing New York, New Y...

Now breathe deeply - or perhaps it's better to laugh loudly and cheer clearly beside still waters to maybe skip easy on those green pastures near that big leafy tree dear wide-wondered Luke, the universe's courageous high holy, love only deep hugging, song-laughing open-handed friend. -Brian Bajari (after reading Luke Yen-hui's obituary) He's a beautiful man. I'm crying with you - even though I know he's "flying with the angels." Thank you Luke for your world-embracing love. Your smile that captured hearts wherever you went.

Update: A Photo Essay on "A Celebration of Luke Chadwick's Life: Lean On Me" at Rolling Bay Presbyterian Church, Bainbridge Island on September 6, 2009 Luke at Disneyland with Cassiel Chadwick and Kent Chadwick July 2007 Update : If you have pictures of Luke that you would like to post, I will upload them here on Speed of Life as a celebration of an amazing life. Please leave a comment below and send any photos to greggchadwick@earthlink.net. Luke Yen-hui Chadwick, died August 22, 2009 from acute respiratory failure after 3-months’ hospitalization at the University of Washington Medical Center. He was 22 years-old and a 2007 graduate of Bainbridge High School. Luke was born Yu Yen-hui September 20, 1986 in Taipei, Taiwan. He came to Washington state to his adoptive parents, Cathy and Kent Chadwick, in 1988. By then he had already contracted the progressive lung disease secondary pulmonary hypertension. Growing up, Luke focused on what he could do, as opposed to what he co...

Update: A Photo Essay on "A Celebration of Luke Chadwick's Life: Lean On Me" at Rolling Bay Presbyterian Church, Bainbridge Island on September 6, 2009

Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band Something In the Night May 23, 2009, 50 Rte 120 East Rutherford, NJ 07073 As a Jersey boy, when life gets rough I tend to "turn the radio way up loud, so I don't have to think." And I tend to turn to my (slightly) older brother for his wisdom and comfort. Now it's my turn to offer a strong back and a shoulder to lean on. Life can seem cruel, unfair and oh so brief. I deeply understand the pathos when Bruce sings, "As soon as you got something, they send someone to try and take it away." Kent, maybe because he was born in Virginia, rather than in the state that became known as much for its factories and boarded up cities, would reject the cynicism in that line. Kent having learned much from our Marine Corps dad, instead, finds hope no matter what life throws his way and Kent knows how to soldier on. Luke Chadwick Gestures Against the Fading Light Kent's son Luke received a double lung transplant a year ago and has ...