It's been two months since I lost you my love. You're in my thoughts and heart always.

i carry your heart with me (e.e. cummings)

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Chis and my sister worked hard to have two of the the most beautiful homes first in San Rafael and currently in Ventura. If you could see Chris's detailed inlays in the family room cabinets, his bay windows, fine furniture and woodworking you would be astounded. Everywhere you look in their home you can see tributes to his artistic and creative abilities. Both MB and Chris created a virtual garden of Eden in their backyard. Their landscaping skills merged to produce an idylic environment that is spiritually uplifting in all its majestic beauty. Their garden is filled with beautiful flowers and succulent plants with scattered orange, lemon, grapefruit, apple, avacodo and tangerine trees.
Chris always made me feel welcome in their home and I cherish the countless memories I have of being with MB and Chris over the past 40 years.
Luckily, I retired in January of this year after 49 years of nursing about the time that Chris was diagnosed with advanced stage lung cancer. That afforded me a wonderful and very special opportunity to spend time with Chris. He was so brave and determined. He approached his diagnosis pragmatically and never really let it overwhelm him. He used his remaining precious time so well filling his days with music, improving his home, and ongoing learning.
He was not only a great brother in law, he was on of my best friends. I loved him so much.

Chris loved his fellow man. When walking or traveling with him he would stop to talk to people. His face would light up and we knew were there for a while. Chris loved people and people loved him. I loved him, almost everyone who had the opportunity to know him came under his spell. He was a creative craftsman with an insatiable desire to learn and understand. Understanding of how things worked he then transferred his knowledge from one type of project to another. He went even further in trying to explain and teach others. For Chris it was never enough to learn about something it was also just as important to pass on that knowledge

Even when he was going through cancer he was always trying to accomplish things and was thinking about others. Chris wanted to make sure that things were finished around the house and that MaryBeth was taken care of.

Chris’ passing has left a hole in all our lives. Chris was a creator, an artist, engineer, builder, musician, linguist, master mechanic, a skilled and imaginative carpenter, a dynamite cook, a dog whisperer and interested in everyone he met. He was a mensch, a Yiddish term for a person of integrity and honor.
We were friends for fifty-two years, having met in college 1968 in southern California. And, as those exciting times ostensibly demanded, Chris and I went looking for, “ourselves”, eventually finding the small rural community of Haiku on Maui, Hawaii, where we shared a picturesque house overlooking the pineapple fields and Puhala Bay.
Our neighbors were Chinese pai gow gamblers and Filipino cock fighters. Naturally, Chris reached out to them. Jobs were hard to come by so our neighbors introduced us to the rudiments of their trade so we could maybe make some money gambling. We’d play pai gow (a Chinese gambling game) in a local bar in Paia and bet on cock fights down on the Wailuku docks. After a few months Chris got the idea to build his own guitar so we headed back to California.
We shared a small cabin nestled in a Redwood grove in Monte Rio on the Russian River. Building his guitar became his quest. Once we settled in, Chris started to assemble the essential supplies for guitar making. This was back in the days before the internet, or cell phones. We had to search telephone books for resources offering the proper types of wood, best tools and other apparatus necessary for his vision to proceed. Driving endlessly to a variety of specialty lumber yards and tool suppliers consumed days as he sought the specifically suitable wood for his venture.
Luckily, the Whole Earth Catalog, a wildly popular source book for the Seventies was published. It became Chris’ bible. He spent hours studying every page, and then, spent even more hours conveying the information he had garnered from that digest to ae were used to make his own specialty tools, patterns and molds) I too knew the WEC by heart, just from listening to his critiques and commentary.
From the Fall of ’71 until late Spring of ’72 he built his, “factory”, and then he built his guitar. It was a beautiful instrument with a tone that would only mellow with time. When visiting Mary Beth last week, I spent some time looking over his guitar. It has truly mellowed with age; the wood has developed a lustrous depth, and the sound has lived up to Dunny’s anticipation for this instrument’s promise. I’ve always thought of those days as the Winter of the Guitar.
Chris lived an interesting life filled with accomplishment on so many levels. He had, and held close, so many long established friends who had been traveling the same road with him for decades. And he met, wooed and won Mary Beth’s heart, his proudest accomplishment. They shared a wonderful four-plus decades together, building a life filled with devotion to each other…and to their dogs.
George (Georgio, Chris) Dunbar was a unique and gentle man. He was an extraordinary jack-of-all-trades and whatever he attempted was accomplished with an eye to beauty, longevity and value. All of our hearts are broken by his passing and the world has lost a bit of decency that was the man who made all he touched better and more beautiful. And in fifty-two years of close friendship, Chris and I never quarreled…not once.

Chris, I am visiting your beautiful home and cannot express the profound loss I am feeling. Everywhere I look I see incredible things that you created to make your house a home. You were so very loved which makes your passing so much more difficult. My son Jack once said at his sister Halle's memorial when we are all struggling to make sense of her loss, "Maybe she left us to show us the way." I am once again trying to find the light within to cope with your loss.. Chris, I wish to emulate your beautiful spirit by being kinder, more forgiving, more joyful, full of life and helpful to others. I will always cherish the gift of you.

There are people born to this world that have so much heart and a giving soul. They are the few that make a true difference by example and spark wonder and intrigue by their unwillingness to surrender.
Chris was one of these people.

Grieving his departure has been so difficult for me. I’m still stuck in disbelief. I have known MaryBeth for over 40 years and Chris almost as many. I loved him for his wit, his talents and his quiet power. I loved that only Chris loved ice cream more than me, having at least 4 varieties of Ben & Jerry’s in the freezer at one time.
Chris was the first person I know that made pizza on the BBQ - and that was many years ago when they lived in San Rafael!
For the last 10 years I would visit MB and Chris at Easter, with my 95lb dog Rio in tow. Chris always made us feel welcome during the 4-5 days. Before our visit concluded, Rio was laying by Chris’ side with Bella.
I remember Chris telling me the advantage of King Arthur flour for baking over Gold Medal. I now have King Arthur in my pantry. He would make the best blueberry muffins and pack a few for the drive home.

These are just a few of those ‘little things’ that made Chris so special.
His love of reading, dogs, ice cream and languages. In fact, I would hear Chris speaking to someone in the bathroom when I was there. MB was in the kitchen. It turned out that he would practice Babbel (Spanish/Italian) there.
His persistence was astounding!
I know that his spirit has touched me & I am blessed to have had him in my life. When I bake some bread, eat some ice cream or hug my dog - I will smile. Thank you, Chris - you are so loved!

Chris and Billy were amazing friends since high school. Chris told me the first time he went to Billy‘s house was with Bob, Billy‘s older brother but he liked Billy more and they became friends. Chris was a wonderful friend before and after Bill died and always loved and supported us till the end. When he got out of the hospital shortly before he passed he spent time with my son teaching him how to use the lathe he wanted Ken to have. gratefully Kenny videotaped him and it’s a wonderful tribute to the skills and knowledge Chris had about so many things. I will miss you my friend love you lots

As I gaze upon the glider where Chris used to sit for hours on his back patio, I am filled with loving memories of him. It was here that he would spend countless hours attempting to perfect his language skills transitioning from Spanish to French or Italian. Or, he would listen to beautiful Spanish songs often singing along rejoicing at their melodious beauty or the meaning behind the words. Or, he would regale me with stories about his childhood, telling me in detail about how his dad built their home, or the times he spent surfing . From his glider, he told me about his first job as a teenager, working as a garage mechanic towing, changing tires and working on cars. He told me about the time he spent in the Viet Nam War having lucked out with a desk job here in the states responsible for the payroll of all US Army personnel. I heard about his move to Hawaii, his perilous experiences as a logger in Oregon (or was it Washington) hauling logs up and down an icy mountainside with hairpin turns. He told me about living with Gene in Monte Rio where he painstakingly built his amazing classical guitar. He told me about his radiator business, about his work with concrete, his many remodeling jobs. He amazed me with descriptions of the incredible restoration projects in San Francisco Bay area that he was involved with including the historic Old Reed Mill Restoration in Mill Valley. This mill was originally constructed in the 1830s and was one of the first sawmills in Northern California. He also was the foreman on world famous Golden Gate Park 1914 Hershell-Spillman Carousel restoration project as well as for earthquake proofing job at Candlestick Ball Park. The guy was so eclectic, versatile and gifted. There seemed to be nothing he could not master.