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We Love you, Chris.

We Love you , Chris.

We Love you, Chris.

We Love you, Chris

We Love you, Chris.

We Love You, Chris.

We love you, Chris

We love you, Chris.

We love you Chris.

Love you Chris

Bland…

November 1996 Chris Bland joined our wrestling team at Bel Air High School. He may have started a few weeks late which adds to the challenge. Our team was stacked with tough kids and talent and practices were excruciating. You would be hard pressed to find a tougher challenge than wrestling. Chris was walking into a room stacked full of talent, experience, and tough young men. We found out quickly how tough and resilient Chris was. It was impressive. As a new wrestler you have a large bullseye on your back, you are going to be tested and hit harder than any other person in the room over and over again. It was a right of passage and he never gave up. Every day after school for two long hours Chris would take the punishment with a smile on his face. He was like a piece of iron, a compact funnier version of ROCKY! Blood and sweat all over the room, he would pop back up again and again and again. This work ethic and toughness won all of us over quickly and forever. We knew he would always get back up and be a great teammate. He was just that and more.

On the funnier side of things, I can remember walking into the old dark foul-smelling team room after a practice and the stereo was blasting DMX’s new album. There he was on top of the lockers, big smile on his face dancing like Michael Jackson or Chris Tucker in Rush Hour, yelling every word to the song. Pretty sure he growled at me. I am laughing hard writing this. He was one funny dude and no matter the challenge or setback he brought our team together with his humor and toughness.

Years later Chris would be our left wing attackman on our varsity lacrosse team. It was the same work ethic that secured him that spot. As a fellow vertically challenged lacrosse player I respected the people he out-worked and the time he put in to start in that spot. We all did. He was scrappy as hell and we could count on him. He would pick the biggest guy on the field and go after him. It was so much fun to watch and inspiring to be a part of. We may have also engaged in some joint trash talking to our opponents here and there, just to keep them honest.

These are just a few of the many memories we have as teammates of Chris. From day one we respected his hard work, toughness and humor. We always knew that he would do anything for us. Chris, you made many of us better and for that, thank you buddy. See you again.

-Pat Rose

The kids!

What we remember most about Christopher is more about his mom, Cathy. She was so happy, so excited to find out that a long awaited baby was on his way. Christopher was loved and cherished from the very beginning of his life, and his parents were the most loving and devoted parents one could have.

Just a reminder…

Being the youngest of five boys, I had never been the biggest before, not even close. So I never really enjoyed roughhousing until Chris came along. As my wife, Leslie, said, we often visited Ted and Cathy when Chris and Matt were very young. When they reached about four or five years old, our visits always included the very physical game of “vegetable chopping,” which evolved over the years and which seemed a great way to burn off the seemingly boundless energy that Chris ALWAYS had.

I don’t recall how it all started, but it evolved into salad making. We would arrive after a long trip and within five minutes I’d stretch and yawn and say “wow, after that long drive I’m super hungry for a big salad.” I’d look over at Chris and Matt; their eyes would get HUGE and they’d get these expressions on their faces that I’ll never forget. Sort of like sheer terror mixed with sheer delight.

I’d snag them both by the arm or leg, drag them into the living room, and introduce them to the rug, piling them on top of each other. “Well, we’re going to need to chop up some carrots,” I’d say, using both my hands like a karate chopping-style massage. Chris and Matt, of course, would pretend they were being tortured, with overly dramatic facial expressions. But oddly, neither of them would run away. “Now we’ll need some lettuce, but it’s better to tear it than to cut it,” I’d say, and proceed to tear off their arms and legs while making ripping sounds. “How about a head of cauliflower?” Chris might offer, after which I’d tear off his head.

Suddenly both of them chimed in with ingredients they’d clearly been saving up. “What about shredded cabbage” or “How about some boiled eggs?” I’d follow their suggestions to the letter, and we usually ended by mixing up the salad and dumping it into a bowl, a process that required the two of them becoming entirely tangled up with each other and getting repeatedly stirred about. I now see why French Chef Julia Child was always out of breath.

Roughhousing had never been such a delight for me and even now, 30 years later, when making a salad I think back fondly on those human salad-making sessions when I’d terrorize two young children and chop them within an inch of their lives.

Love to you

Chris was the first baby I ever knew very well, ever held, ever had much to do with at all and it was a thrill for me to watch him grow. He was such a happy child. And wicked cute. Early on in his life, my husband, Mark, and I lived in Massachusetts, north of Boston. But we usually visited for summers or sometimes on our way to visit our extended families in Virginia.

Most of my earliest memories of Chris were when we were together with my husband, Mark, who had this weird game he made up. He would roughhouse with Chris and Matt, like they’d be sitting on a couch and he would kind of bang on them with the sides of his hands and they would roll over giggling as if it was the best thing ever. They called it chopping vegetables, I think. Not sure how that got started but they always did it when we got together, along with any games they liked to play, and riding around their long block on trikes and little-kid bikes. Lots of fun stuff.

One year, I think my mom had just had a heart attack down in Charlottesville so I ended up driving down 8 hours from Mass all alone, planning on spending the night at Ted and Cathy’s before heading south the next day.

So, I was pretty tired and stressed when I drove up to 703 Bedford Rd to see the entire family, all hanging out in the front yard, probably not to greet me exactly but that’s how it felt. And there was Chris. He saw the car and either they told him it was mine or he recognized it, and he came running towards it, stopping carefully at the sidewalk, visibly holding his excitement in check in his little body, jumping around, laughing, head swinging back and forth, a huge smile on his face, a little energetic bundle of loving joy.

“Aunt Leslie! Aunt Leslie!” I felt so lucky to have Chris in my life. What a welcome after such a hard day. And as I approached him, he had with even more joy in his face, all the joy only a child can express, he again shouted, “Aunt Leslie. Aunt Leslie!” And then his tone changed to pure adulation and quiet awe, enunciating clearly, beyond his years: “Does this mean UN – CLE (Pause for a breath) MAWWWWK is here?”

Gee, I guess I should have learned how to play chopping vegetables!

RIP little man.