the swinging pendulum

The rollercoaster ride continues. Yesterday, I was pretty miserable, largely due to sinus issues and nausea from phlegm in my stomach. (Sorry about the image.) Nausea and the inability to breathe colluded to keep energy levels low. In addition, I mourned the car, which was towed away yesterday, looking pathetic and sad from neglect and disuse.

I didn't actually mourn the car so much as the loss it represents. I don't need a car. Much of what I do is within my very walkable neighborhood. And even when I was tempted to drive somewhere, I often didn't, because I hated the thought of having to park the car upon my return.

Lime Kiln Park, San Juan Island, the first
time we went there together, in the 90's.
I've been craving San Juan Island lately,
but I really want to drive (or bike) there
with Sandy, not alone.

But getting rid of the car, no matter how sensible, is a strong reminder that Sandy is gone. She doesn't need to drive to therapy in Des Moines, Washington every other week, nor do we need to drive to Renton to see her naturopath every few months. More disturbing is the knowledge that we won't be driving out of town together anymore, whether to one of the islands or to the coast or over the mountains. I can't yet bring myself to spend a night away from home, let alone go to one of the places we enjoyed together. And when I visit family in Moses Lake, I'll let the bus take me.

So yesterday was a hard day again, in a different way.

Today, I feel better. Sun coming in the bedroom windows helped this morning, and my sinuses are better. I paid bills, and that always makes me feel competent. I registered for a watercolors class I've been wanting to take. I got some work done, and then went out into the world. Had huevos rancheros at Poquito's on Pike and read, enjoying the energy and commotion around me.
 
I've joined Zipcar now, and confirmed that there are four cars within four blocks of me, so I'm likely to have one available when I want it. I indulged in a little research on scooters last night, too, and imagined the freedom I'd have to dash off to West Seattle or up to Shoreline to see friends without worrying about parking upon my return, and without the effort of biking every time or negotiating inconvenient bus transfers. Though in theory I could have driven the car any time I wanted to, the dread of parking when I got home kept me from it. It's quite possible that Zipcar — and eventually maybe a scooter — will actually afford me greater freedom than owning a car did. I see at as just another reminder that life is unpredictable, and sometimes we have to step outside the status quo to see possibilities. And that's about as hopeful as I'm willing to be today, as we leave 2011 behind.

Life after you

It's been a rocky week so far, with the wounds feeling fresh and raw again. I don't know why, though I have a few theories involving hormones and the rapidly approaching new year. It could even have to do with the return of the rains and the darkness, after Seattle had a record-breaking dry (and sunny) start to December. Whatever the cause, I've been feeling desolate again, unwilling to look forward and in pain when I look back.

One of the challenges this week has been the shift in the public conversation from Christmas to New Year's. With the arbitrary changing of the calendar comes the requisite reflection on the year past and the goals and hopes for a better year to come. I've done little but reflect on this past year for several months now, so that part doesn't get me so much. But this focus on the future is hard. How can 2012 be a better year if Sandy's not with me for any of it? The worst days of 2011 for me weren't the days that she was dying — or the days that she was in pain, even — but every day from July 19 on.  Hanging a new calendar is unlikely to have any effect on that, except to emphasize that I'm expected to make plans that don't include her.

Sandy with the team she worked with back in 2001. Joyce, on the far right, was
one of the friends who visited Sandy at the hospice a few days before she died.

I had a good session with my therapist today, and I'm hopeful that I might start to find some peace, might even get some sleep. I biked home in the rain, had a good snack, enjoyed a hot shower, and was about to go down to make dinner. But I stopped at my desk to check email, briefly, and ended up reading old messages from Sandy. It comforts me tremendously to read the everyday lines from a few years ago. When she worked across the lake, we'd exchange several emails a day, along the lines of "hey did you see this?" and "this made me think of you" and "let's go to this event." I've enjoyed clicking old links to see what reminded her of me, and I've loved reading her words of encouragement and support.

Because I've been dreading the new year and feeling sorry for myself, I was intrigued when I came across an email from April 2010. She sent me a song by Chris Daughtry titled "Life After You." I listened to it just now, and though the song was written about someone wanting to get back together after a break-up, the chorus seems particularly apt to me.

All that I'm after is a life full of laughter
As long as I'm laughin' with you
I'm thinkin' 'bout all that still matters is love ever after
After the life we've been through, yeah
Know there's no life after you

My task in the coming year is to figure out how I might defy the feeling that time should have stopped when she died. I'll have to slowly find a life for myself after Sandy, some way of including her even though she's not here physically, and some way to move from pain to gratitude. That's a tall order. I will probably be working on those tasks for decades to come.

Another transition

I owned a car briefly when I lived in Connecticut. I was thrilled to move to Seattle, a city with decent public transportation, so I wouldn't need to own a car here. And I didn't own a car from late 1989 until late 2000. By then, I'd literally forgotten how to drive.

It's not quite accurate to say that I didn't have a car my first eleven years in Seattle. Sandy and I got together in late 1995, and she happily ferried me to the hardware store, the garden store, the vet (with cats in tow) long before she moved in. I didn't own a car, per se, but I had my own car and driver offering personal and generous service.

When Sandy's car, a Toyota Tercel with over 200,000 miles on it, ran into the kinds of problems that are not cost-effective to repair in an old car, she knew that she'd replace it. And she was very clear that I would own the car with her. I was less clear about that. Not owning a car was a strong part of my identity. I didn't believe in cars; I couldn't even drive anymore. But she'd have none of it. We were partners and if there was to be a car, we needed to own it together.

I eventually gave in, but I named a few conditions. It had to be small. It needed to get good mileage. And it needed to be able to haul several bags of compost. She was fine with all of that, especially the mileage. So we went shopping. For days, long days. In 2000, it was difficult to get used car dealers to understand our concern with gas mileage. I was baffled by what the salespeople considered acceptable mpg.  

Neither Sandy nor I had ever owned anything close to a modern car. We were enchanted by key fobs, which we called "zappers." Sandy paid for the car with a check for $12,000. During our time together, we paid for everything up front, never taking out a loan or leaving a balance on a credit card for more than a month. That is something I'm proud of.

Having a car was handy for hauling bikes around.

I relearned how to drive, and there were plenty of times that I found it mighty handy to have a car: getting a cat to the emergency vet; going places when I was forbidden to bicycle or recovering from surgery; getting Sandy to appointments when she was fatigued from chemo or unable to breathe.

But the car was never our default mode of transportation. I tend to walk everywhere, and if that's not possible, I look to my bicycle, and then to a bus or carpool. If all other options prove impractical, I'm willing to drive. Sandy's order was a little different; because of foot problems and later her arthritic hip, she opted for the bicycle first and walking second, but driving was always the last option for her, too.

A couple of years ago, when we thought we were healthy and had weathered all the crises, we talked seriously about getting rid of the car. It's become more challenging to park in our neighborhood every year, with construction almost constant and new destination restaurants open within several blocks of us. Sandy looked into Zipcar then, and we decided to pay attention and see how much we actually used the car. In fact, at the beginning of 2010, we set a goal to put more miles on the bikes than we did on the car that year.

In May 2010, I was glad we hadn't given up the car. Throughout her metastatic cancer ordeal, the car proved very useful, convenient, and familiar.

And then she died. I've used the car fewer than twenty times in the past five months, and many of those trips were related to her memorial in September. I'd been getting closer to giving it up. And then it flooded, apparently from a clog in the sunroof drain. And the battery died. I finally got the title transferred to my sole ownership, and have been waiting for four weeks for the new title to come. It did today. I called and arranged to donate the car half an hour after the mail arrived. The car will be towed away within the next couple of days (battery's still dead), and I will no longer have to worry about where to park it, how to maintain it, or whether I've driven it enough to keep it going.

Since I'm feeling sentimental, here's a picture of our little VW Golf.
I'm sure Sandy took this photo for the false forsythia in bloom,
but it'll serve as a car memorial, too.

I'm relieved to have it taken away, and I'm sad to see yet another piece of the life we shared disappear. We never meant to own this car forever. When we bought it, we said it needed to last until the house was paid off. It did. We said we wouldn't buy anything more expensive until we had off-street parking (apparently we thought we might move someday). And two years ago, we were hoping to prove to ourselves that we didn't need it. It was a good little car, but it wasn't part of our identity as a couple, or of either of our separate identities. I'm a stronger cyclist than I used to be, and Zipcar has several cars within a few blocks of me. If Sandy had lived and been healthy, we'd probably have made the same decision. At least, that's what I keep telling myself when I realize I'm feeling sentimental about a car.

Self-soothing

Over the years, I've learned a few things about how to deal with my migraines. I know when I'm most vulnerable to them and how to take care of myself to minimize them. When they do occur, I have a list of things to do to help ease the pain and get me to neutral ground. Unfortunately, when I have a migraine, I'm usually not thinking clearly and I don't feel very optimistic that anything will help me feel better. So it was invaluable to have Sandy coaching me, reminding me of things that have worked in the past, and offering to do things like massage my legs or run my bath water or fix me "heavy" carb-full food. She knew the drill, and she knew how to remain encouraging even as I dropped further into resistance and despair. Eventually, I'd act on one or more of her suggestions, and surprise! I'd feel better.

Remarkably, I've had few migraines since she died. (I feel the need to thank my homeopath here.) But resistance and despair are familiar companions when the pain of loss strikes hard. I don't have Sandy to coach me, but I've learned a few things about how to make the grief more bearable.

Yesterday, not feeling much connection to Sandy and having slept horribly (and feeling overwhelmed by a work task that lay ahead), I was sinking pretty fast. I forced myself to remember what I've learned since July, how to get through the day even if I had no hope of actually feeling better.

Here are some of the things in my bag of tricks for grief-heavy days:

The photos that Tina took in 2010 have been such a treasure.
This is the one I printed to be the centerpiece of the framed
photos of us through the years that I'm hanging over the dresser.

1. Accomplish something, preferably something I can finish completely and cross off my list. (I made end-of-year donations yesterday. It was an even better accomplishment because it had to happen soon, as the end of the year approaches rapidly.)

2. Surround myself with images of Sandy and with her voice, if possible. (I reread some emails, left my laptops on with their random-photo screensavers, and looked again at all the photos I've framed but not yet hung in the bedroom.)

3. Eat. (I find despair is overwhelming when I haven't consumed enough calories. Apparently, grief is hard work calorically as well as emotionally.)

4. Listen to music. (I often forget how much more soothing or inspiring music is than, say, NPR. I listened to the "make inspirational" playlist Sandy created. It wasn't finished, just a bucket for songs she came across that seemed to fit the category, hence the name "make inspirational." But I love it as-is.)

5. Move my body. (I hadn't gotten enough exercise the day before, and with little sleep overnight, didn't feel like doing anything. But I climbed onto the bike on its trainer and pedaled 10 miles in 45 minutes, stopping only once to drink some Recharge for a few seconds. Felt great.)

6. Go ahead and feel sorry for myself. (I screamed, pounded my fists, stomped around, sobbed. I'm amazed that the cats are unfazed when I do this, but it's become pretty routine for them now.)

7. Go to bed early; read aloud; assume Sandy's there. (I read some more Yuletide stories and settled into sleep much more content than I'd been much of the day.)

I slept much better last night. In fact, I slept 4.5 hours without waking, which is the longest stretch of sleep I've had since sometime in June. And today, I miss her, but I'm not despairing.

It seems a little nonintuitive to me that the days I feel most clearheaded are also the days that I am most optimistic that I'll find some way to get her back. I know I'm "supposed" to be coming to grips with the permanence of my loss, but why would I give up on this goal any more than I give up on any other? So I'm content to linger in my insanity.

Yuletide traditions

[Spoiler alert for Whovians who haven't seen this year's Xmas special yet. I mention some details below.]

I tend to breathe a sigh of relief on December 26, glad to be past the all-consuming cultural obsession with Christmas for another year. Sandy didn't care for the shopping frenzies or religious iconography either, but she wasn't quite as dismissive of the holiday as I was.

Sandy often wore this gold shirt during the holiday season.
I don't know how she tolerated it. There isn't a natural fiber in
it, and it itched like crazy when I tried it on. But she felt
festive in it every year.

Sandy liked shiny things. She liked dressing up. She liked Christmas carols (the perfect bait for getting people to sing together in groups). She liked seeing friends and family. She looked forward to the Doctor Who Christmas special. And she counted down the days to the bonanza of fresh fannish stories served up for Yuletide.

I spent yesterday afternoon and evening with Sandy's sister and her family. It was a mellow and pleasant occasion, with the kids grown (and one now on the East coast), and no other extended family in attendance. Allison and Viv baked cookies; we played Mexican Train with dominoes; Kevin made a feast of a meal. We joked and talked and ate.

Sandy and I spent Christmas afternoon there last year, too, though it was a little less mellow, with a wider range of ages in attendance. Last year, we were home by mid-afternoon, and Sandy spent much of the rest of the day reading Yuletide stories; we also made gyozas for dinner and felt very proud of ourselves.

I got home after 9:00 last night, much later than I'd expected, and considered just getting ready for bed. But I wanted a connection with Sandy, a connection with her and our Christmas traditions. So I treated myself to the Doctor Who special. In it, as a side effect of some other adventures, a widow manages to change history and regain her husband, just as she's breaking the news of his death to their children.

I so desperately want Doctor Who to come, whisk me into some unintended danger, and then, in saving the day, manage to bring Sandy back with us. So many times in books or TV or movies, I see the dead come back to life, either because we learn they aren't really dead or because the timeline gets corrected or there's some other force at work. I'm really not picky about the scenario; I want her back, and I'll be happy to be part of some fantastic plot. Just so she's here at the end of the scene.

Before turning out the light, I browsed the new Yuletide stories and found a couple that were written in universes that Sandy and I both knew. I read them aloud, offering her this taste of her fannish tradition (and enjoying the stories myself). But the connection was weak, and my despair was strong. I slept poorly, and woke feeling bereft. I'm not sighing with relief that Christmas is over this year. It's just another day in a seemingly endless string of days that Sandy isn't here.

Traditions, slightly modified

Ten years ago, Sandy and I spent Christmas Eve with John and Nicole. We went to the first Lord of the Rings movie and then went out to dinner together. The next year, the second Lord of the Rings movie was out, so we repeated the experience. By the third year, it was tradition. When there were no more Lord of the Rings movies, the tradition changed a little bit: sometimes we watched a DVD instead of going to a theater, sometimes we ate in instead of trying to find a place that was open on Christmas Eve. But it was in the calendar, automatically, that we'd spend Christmas Eve together.

Sandy with John, ten years ago

John and Nicole knew Sandy very well. She lived with them for nearly eight years before she moved in with me in 1997. They are her family, and by extension, they've become my family as well.

So this year, we continued the tradition. I just returned home from the Sherlock Holmes movie and an Italian dinner. We all missed Sandy, of course, but it was a lovely afternoon. I'd seen the first Sherlock Holmes movie in a theater with Sandy, and as I watched this one, I enjoyed it for myself but also anticipated Sandy's reactions to various aspects she'd like or criticize.

Dinner conversation was easy, interesting, familiar. This is the kind of social outing that feeds me right now. Intelligent commentary, the occasional pun, and fond memories of Sandy sprinkled in.

I'm feeling grateful for good friends and for the comfort of tradition.

At least with cancer, we could fight

A cyclist was killed in Kirkland recently, the fifth cyclist killed in the greater Seattle area in the past five months. Not a good trend. In this case, the driver had a lengthy record of driving-related infractions and appeared to be inebriated. In all the cases, as far as we know, the cyclists who died were doing everything right, according to the law and common sense, making themselves visible and wearing protective gear, traveling in the bike lane or the appropriate space.

The death has brought some calls for better infrastructure, ways of separating cyclists from those who insist on wielding heavy metal weapons without care. It's a good effort and I'll join my voice to the cause. But this death had me thinking once again just how grateful I am that Sandy didn't die in the collision* on May 5, 2010.

Sandy loved her bicycle. She was very cranky when she was
told to stay off it while the tumor in her femur healed.

Like these other cyclists, she was doing everything right. It was morning rush hour, and she was wearing bright reflective gear, had a headlight on her bike and on her helmet, as well as rear lights. She was in the bike lane, traveling downhill on Pine to catch her bus downtown. As she neared an intersection, a driver pulled his car across the bike lane, craning his neck to see when he could safely pull into the main flow of traffic. Sandy braked, but she didn't have time to stop fully, and she couldn't swerve into cars that were traveling 25 miles an hour or more beside her. Though the day was nippy, the guy had his window down a bit for his dog, and Sandy bodyslammed it, somehow staying on her bike as the full front of her body was thrown against the car. She had a red line across her chest and upper arms from the window's edge.

Sandy wasn't seriously injured. She had the wind knocked out of her and suffered a few bruises. The next day, she'd discover much more challenging stiffness. But at the time of the collision, her bike was more messed up than she was. As it turned out, the driver was himself a cyclist. He felt terrible, and while they awaited police, he got her bike into working order for her. She called me from the site a few minutes after it occurred. I offered to come down and be with her or to fetch her bike, to drive her to work, whatever she wanted. But by the time we'd been on the phone for a bit, her bike was in better shape and she was feeling more confident about just continuing to her bus.

There were many witnesses who saw that the driver was completely at fault. Immediately behind Sandy in the bike lane was the executive director of the Bicycle Alliance of Washington, a worthy advocate if she'd needed one. But the guy knew he was in the wrong, and Sandy and I both wondered how many times we've inched the car across a bike lane, waiting to enter traffic, not even thinking about the lane being there. Especially on unfamiliar streets, with new bike lanes popping up all the time. We resolved to be more alert approaching intersections in bike lanes (though she still wouldn't have had time to do anything differently, we thought there were other situations where we might), and, above all, to be incredibly careful drivers.

It was scary for her and for me. But it wasn't until a few days later that I became incredibly grateful she'd not died. At the time of the collision, Sandy's mortality wasn't prominent in my mind. Frankly, though it was scary, it didn't fully occur to me that she could have died.

The next day, when she was stiff and sore and whiny, her co-workers convinced her to go to Urgent Care to get checked out. (My encouragement to seek medical help just seemed overprotective to her; theirs seemed like common sense. Ahem.) The Urgent Care doc gave her the okay, said she should probably stay off the bike for several days to let herself heal, but that she should be fine.

Before she left Group Health that day, she decided to go ahead and have a chest X-ray that was on order for her. She'd been supposed to have it the week before, the day her doctor ordered it to probe into some breathing problems we'd noticed. Sandy had been having trouble catching her breath on our bike rides, and we were concerned there might be something going on with her heart. Her doctor agreed it was worth checking out: she ordered some blood work, an EKG, a chest X-ray, an echo, and a treadmill test.

That X-ray showed nodules in her lungs, prompting a call from her oncologist. It started us on the road to the metastatic cancer diagnosis and treatment. And suddenly I was face-to-face with Sandy's mortality. But I also knew that cancer was something we could fight. Suddenly it seemed very poignant that she hadn't died on the 5th, hadn't been hit suddenly by something we couldn't defend her from. Many times over the next fourteen months we talked about that; it was something that I, especially, brought up: With cancer, at least we have a chance.

I feel compelled to correct the record about her X-ray and note that the collision itself was not fortunate in any way. Despite what Sandy wrote in her LiveJournal (unreliable narrator that she always was), and despite what many people instinctively thought, that chest X-ray had nothing to do with the collision. Additionally, the collision left her weakened physically and emotionally, less able to handle the stress of learning the cancer had returned and embarking upon incredibly taxing treatment regimens. The only thing good about the collision was that it didn't hurt her worse. But it did not save her. Once she'd realized she'd forgotten the X-ray, she'd planned to have it done the second week of May when she went in for her echo. So we learned about the cancer one week earlier than we might have (and a week later than we would have if she'd not forgotten the X-ray originally), and she was in worse shape for all that followed.

*I'm trying to remember not to refer to collisions between bikes and cars as accidents. The word accident implies that no one is at fault. In a collision between a car and a bicycle, there is usually someone at fault, and most of the time it's the person driving the larger vehicle. The theory is that if we change the language we use, we change the way we think, and we stop looking at these deaths as unavoidable facts of life. I found this argument compelling when I read it recently, and I encourage everyone to be more conscious about when you use the word accident, too. Thank you. Off of soapbox now!

Looking back

I came across my journal from a year ago, and I read entries from our anniversary weekend. It's evident to me that, even with apparently good news with each test result, I was living with a mixture of hope and fear.

On our anniversary last year, I wrote:

I want desperately to find out this was all a bad dream, that in fact Sandy had a mild case of pneumonia and we were able to treat it and now she's fine. 

But that's not going to happen. Here's what is going to happen: we're going to live every day to the fullest, pursue every healing opportunity, and assume, for now, that there will be a tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. I want as many tomorrows with Sandy as I can get.

The next day, I wrote:

Fifteen years, and I swear I love Sandy more every year, possibly every week, maybe even every day. 

When we're together, she's so real that I can't imagine her gone. That's much better than when we're apart and I look ahead to the bleakest of our possible futures, fearing the need to face life without her. We're working to keep our future brighter — and when she's slept well and the mountains are clear and striking in the sunshine, a brighter future seems not only possible but likely.

Whidbey Island, 2005, for our 10th anniversary. Though it
looks like she's got no hair, she's not in the middle of chemo;
this was six months before her biopsy; her ears were just cold!

Now, even though she's dead, she is so real to me that I can't imagine her gone. I picture her so clearly, even without photographic evidence. I can hear her voice and her laugh, her sighs of irritation, and the way she sang when amused or just content. That I haven't seen her in five months is inconceivable when she's been in so many dreams, so many visions, so many thoughts, and so many memories. I'm slowly learning to accept and embrace this level of presence, even while I crave the life we had before.

Body memory

Sandy, on the plank walkway from the beach approaching
the cabin we always rented on Whidbey Island,
just about a year ago

I'd scribbled thoughts for yesterday's entry on Sunday evening, when I was feeling pretty good. I'd decided just to go to bed, but was pondering the journey of grief, the nature of healing, and the surprise of realizing I really was doing better.

And then I slept poorly Sunday night and found myself irritable, restless, kind of jangly all day yesterday. It seemed weird to me to post the thoughts I'd had Sunday night, when I clearly was no longer feeling better. But I also thought it was just more evidence of the up-and-downness of this process, and I wanted to capture the feeling I'd had this weekend.

I didn't understand the jangliness. Was it Monday's return after a three-day weekend? But I didn't have anything pressing in my work schedule yesterday. Was it just not sleeping well? But I've not slept well most nights the past five months, and I've not usually felt so restless and despairing.

Finally, I recognized the obvious. It was the date: the 19th. Exactly five months after Sandy died. While my conscious brain tried to say, "But I'm better now. I should feel better," my body said, "This is a horrible, scary day, marking a new, uncertain era, and I am not happy about it." (Yes, my body yells at me.)

I felt a certain relief when I realized that. I've always been particularly sensitive to dates. For years, July 3 found me inexplicably needing to escape whatever I was doing, whomever I was with - until in 1990, I recognized it as the anniversary of the day in 1980 that my father attempted to kidnap me. The need to escape made much more sense then, and I was able to plan my day each July 3 to make sure I had the flexibility I needed. In recent years, it's been just another day. (This year, it was the day we returned home from the hospital, a new memory attached to that date.)

For the first ten or fifteen weeks after Sandy died, every Monday night was vexing. Often, I'd be unable even to turn out the light until 1:20, the time of her death. It's been long enough now that I'm counting the months instead of the weeks, and so eventually, presumably, the only date that will affect me so greatly will be the anniversary of her death, July 19 itself.

I'm certain now that yesterday's agitation was about the date, because today I feel great. I slept well, and I woke feeling positive and optimistic, happily remembering all that Sandy and I shared, and looking forward to getting a lot done.

I'm better (but not well!)

One of the books I read said that by six months, most widows have returned roughly to their previous level of happiness. We were about eight weeks in when I read that, and at the time it seemed inconceivable that I would fall into that group. I suspected I was more likely to be one of those who was assigned a clinical label for prolonged grief.

Well, today marks five months, and I've realized that most days I have, generally, returned to my natural level of happiness. I'm a bit more irritable and impatient, still prone to sudden bouts of teariness and pain, but most of the time, I feel like myself. By nature, I'm optimistic, quick to smile, and often laughing. I don't laugh as much, because our shared sense of humor was often what prompted me to laugh. And I'm not yet back up to my usual level of sympathy and compassion for others; I remain too aware of my own pain and loss for that. But generally, I guess I'm doing okay.

There's a qualifier to that: I'm doing okay when I'm alone. I natter all day at Sandy, whether I feel her presence or not, and I let waves of pain and despair wash through me whenever they occur. My life is pretty much like it was last year (except for oncology appointments) and the year before (when Sandy worked long hours), with the exception that I'm doing much more alone, as my default do-with person isn't here to do things with.

It's when I'm with people that the wound feels raw. I'm a social person, and I'm usually fed by conversations and social interaction. So I've tried to figure out what's going on. One thing I've noticed is that I don't feel I can continue to talk to Sandy when I'm with other people. Also, I'm usually being social away from home, which has become a sort of safety zone for me, a nest of security. And it just feels odd to see some people without Sandy, drawing my attention to her absence.

And then there are people I'm fine with. I've been curious about what the difference is. Some of the people I feel most comfortable with are people I rarely saw without Sandy. I've concluded that I feel better hanging out with people who are comfortable with my not being okay, who are okay with my grief but also don't expect me to be upset all the time. It's subtle. And I don't know how much of it is actually people's behavior, how much is the nature of my relationship to them, and how much is me projecting weirdness.

Sandy never welcomed my saying she seemed to be feeling
better, afraid of giving up her status as ill prematurely.
I am the same way - and apparently it translates to the role
of grieving widow as well.

I was thinking about this last night, thinking I should write here about the fact that I'm basically okay most of the time, and felt myself recoil at the idea of announcing that. It was a very familiar feeling. Both Sandy and I reacted strongly if we'd been ill and the other one noted that we were feeling better. We'd have to come back with, "I'm still pretty miserable, though. I'm not well yet." We finally learned to preface our comments with the acknowledgment that the illness was still there: "I know you're still sick, but I'm glad you seem to feel at least a little better."

It's a reaction born of the fear that someone will interpret momentary improvement as permanent progress. And with that comes the expectation that you're fine, don't need any more sympathy or special concern, can handle whatever responsibilities you'd ordinarily be expected to deal with.

So, for the record, I'm doing better. Most days. I'm not curled up under the covers whimpering, and I haven't gone off the deep end psychologically. I'm functioning, thinking clearly, and beginning to see some progress in my sleep patterns. But I miss Sandy desperately, think of her nearly every minute of both my waking and sleeping hours, and am still looking for some way to bring her back bodily into my life. I'm better, not well. I still need sympathy, special attention, and patience for my self-involvement. But I'm apparently moving through grief more normally than I expected to.

Reading for two

Sandy read compulsively: books, magazines, stories, cereal boxes, ads, flyers, billboards. If there were words, she consumed them. And if there weren't words, she panicked. Her idea of a tragedy was to have already read everything handy. If she walked to the grocery store two blocks away, she'd spend ten minutes looking for something to read on the way — longer than the walk itself took.

The woman was always reading, yet I have almost no pictures
of her reading. We (or at least I) just don't take photos of the norm.

She read to learn, of course, but mostly she read to entertain herself and to avoid introspection. Sandy was addicted from an early age. She came by it naturally; I don't think I've ever seen her mother more than a few feet from a book.

And that addiction worked for me. For one thing, any time I wanted her to know about something, I just stuck an article, flyer, or whatever I wanted her to look at wherever I knew she'd be. She literally couldn't resist. But more than that, I was able to read twice as much as I could have on my own.

I thought I was a compulsive reader until I spent much time with Sandy. (I also thought I was a fast reader until I discovered that she literally read twice as fast as me — with great comprehension.) No matter how much time I spend reading, there's always more that I want to read. Put two extroverts in a room, each reading an interesting book, and bingo! Two books for the time of one. There are books I've never read but nonetheless used their theses in arguments and recommended them widely because I learned so much about them from Sandy as she read them. And when I was archiving her LiveJournal entries, I discovered that last winter she gave a thoughtful and fairly comprehensive review of a book she never read. I read it; it was my critique, captured perfectly. We split blog-reading duty, each keeping track of a different set, knowing that we'd share interesting bits with each other. Now I'm trying to stay on top of both local blogs and national political blogs — and failing utterly.

My library list grows longer and longer (we always figured that only one of us needed to put a book or DVD on hold and we'd both benefit), and I am even further behind on New Yorkers than we used to be. (Note to the New Yorker: If you're going to publish weekly, it's just mean to write and edit so well that I find it all captivating, even articles on topics I have no interest in.)

I'm still an extrovert, of course, and I still share my books with Sandy. But I feel a need to read even more than I traditionally have, because I'm reading for both of us now. And I really miss knowing what she's reading, hearing her reactions to an argument, or having her share a particularly beautiful bit of prose with me.

Happy anniversary to us

Sixteen years ago today, I took a risk that seemed huge at the time. I was crazy about Sandy, but didn't think I was in her league. Best chance I ever took. Many couples I knew started out assuming they'd be together for a long time, viewing each other through rose-colored glasses. We started differently, inviting each other to do things with comments like, "If we're still together this weekend, we should try that new restaurant."

We were each fiercely independent, and warned each other of our inability to form lasting relationships. She told me her recent relationship had lasted "only three years." I laughed and told her I'd never been with anyone for more than a few months, so I really wasn't the one who needed to worry.

With each month, our love and commitment grew deeper, even through the bumpy adjustment period that occurred after she moved in a few years into the relationship. Even through cancer and unemployment, my starting a business, family crises, her grad school adventures and misadventures, home improvement projects, open-heart surgery, cats dying, four-week-old cats coming into our lives unexpectedly. Always, both our love and our commitment to each other grew. The last time I remember even having the passing thought that we could break up was in 2000.

Ten years ago, we went to Mt. Rainier for our anniversary
weekend. Traipsing around away from anyone else, we
took a few pictures of ourselves — the unfortunate kind that
emphasizes multiple chins (and flat hair from wearing hoods).
That was a great weekend.

Even with her having terminal cancer, we were sure we'd celebrate our 16th anniversary together. I've been fragile all week in anticipation of this day. But I woke in a good mood this morning, having had long periods of uninterrupted sleep last night for the first time in many months. It helped, too, to have the day off after a couple of weeks of tight work deadlines (including working all day last Sunday). I'd left my schedule for the day completely flexible, so that I could follow my whims to honor our relationship and my love for Sandy however it felt right.

I spent much of the day finding photos of us together over the years, and then buying picture frames at Value Village. I've framed several, and I'll print more out tomorrow, buy more frames at other thrift shops. I'm well on my way to filling the wall above our dresser with pictures of us through the years — each picture a vibrant gateway, enabling me to inhabit again a moment we shared fully. It's been a good day.

Though we don't get to add to the tally of our time together anymore, today remains the 16th anniversary of our coming together to form a partnership that we both cherished. And that's worthy of celebration.

One hurdle at a time

Yesterday was a hard day. I'd slept even less well than usual the night before, and when I finally crawled out of bed and got to my computer, there were annoying fires to put out on several work projects. Honestly, my emotional investment in my work is so low right now that I have no patience for complications.

I kept choking up all morning, sobbing unexpectedly, and that continued as I ran my errands in the afternoon. I stopped to compose myself several times before entering buildings or interacting with people.

I went to the credit union to deposit some checks. One of them was a refund from a healthcare company, a check made out to Sandy that arrived a couple of days ago. I wasn't sure what to do with it. I closed out her estate account several weeks ago, and we legally closed her estate itself a couple of weeks ago, so I no longer have valid status as her personal representative; I didn't want to reopen her estate for a $25 check. But I mentioned that her name is still on our joint checking account, and the teller said he could just deposit the check without her or my signature.  I'd been fine, relieved that we could deposit the check that easily, laughing with the guy. But then he said, with an expression that appeared both urgent and critical, as if I'd been irresponsible, "We need to start taking her name off that account." I started crying again, and said "Not now. I have to take things slowly." He softened, said "I understand," and I left.

We spent a lot of time at Group Health, especially with chemo.
In 2006, some of Sandy's closest friends bought her a
video iPod to help entertain her as she started chemo.

The hardest task was still ahead. I needed to have my blood drawn. My naturopath gave me new supplements in April and asked me to have my blood tested in late June. But Sandy was in the hospital then and my routine health care was a low priority for me. After she died, I didn't have the energy. And then, as the months have gone on, I've realized how much I've been dreading walking into that building. We last passed the lab on July 5, heading back to the car after we'd met with the oncologist and she told us Sandy had only a few weeks to live. I hadn't been in any Group Health building since July 8, when Sandy was in Urgent Care before we transferred to Bailey Boushay.

I'd been dreading getting my blood drawn, and that dread had made it an even bigger deal, an even more challenging hurdle. I knew that I needed to do it and get it over with, meet my demons head on. So I steeled myself, crossing the street from the credit union to the building that holds the lab, ducked into a restroom to finish sobbing and dry myself off, and then went down and did it.

Sandy and I used to talk about "scary things," as in "How many scary things do you have to do today?" We tried to recognize the effort it took to get through them, support each other in them, honor our accomplishments, and limit the number we had to do on any given day. Scary things could be anything from challenging work tasks to dealing with water in the basement, calling a friend who's mad at you, asking for a refund on something, anything that our instinct was to run away from.

Now I have another category: "hard things" are the things I have to do because Sandy died, or the things I need to do that feel different because Sandy died. Some days everything is a hard thing. But in general, I've tried to space them out, do them slowly. Yesterday I jumped one more hurdle, re-entering the health care structure where we'd learned she was about to die.

Another clock ran out

Last year, Sandy told me about two men in California who wanted to marry before Alzheimer's claimed the opportunity for one of them to legally consent to marriage—or to even remember their 40-year relationship. We knew that the clock might be running out for us, so their anguish affected us personally. But beyond the need for marriage rights, we ached for them having to cope with dementia. Much of the joy in a longterm relationship comes from the connection of shared experience and memories. Obviously, this man would care for his partner even if he couldn't recognize him, but the relationship is completely changed at that point.

My grandfather had Alzheimer's. My grandmother told us about a time relatively early in the disease, when he was still living at home and sometimes knew what was going on. He woke in the middle of the night, and asked her these questions: "Are we married? Do we have children? Are we happy?"

Are we happy? That's the question that tore at my heart and shattered Sandy's composure. For more than a decade, I promised Sandy repeatedly that I would not allow her to continue to live if she didn't know from moment to moment whether she was or had been happy.

Last week, the man with Alzheimer's died, never having had the chance to marry his partner. And without the legal benefits that would have come from marriage, his survivor faces financial hardship because he can't access the pension that would have gone to a legal spouse.

We should have been married before
we went to Europe in 1998. Look how
young she was then!

I've read about a lot of  people with terminal cancer, and a common theme is the desire to marry before dying. Over and over again, I've read of heterosexual couples marrying when it's clear that the illness is serious. The strong impulse is there for same-sex couples too (we learned that when I had open heart surgery and when we received confirmation that Sandy had metastatic cancer), but too many of us don't have the opportunity to act on that impulse. A judge in Minnesota wrote eloquently about his frustration in not being able to fulfill that request equally.

Sandy and I should have been married about fourteen years ago, a few years into our relationship, when we decided the time was right for us. We should have been able to discuss it, come to a decision, set a date, negotiate an invitation list, and have all of the effort be about the wedding and commitment itself — not the political struggle. The date of our wedding should have been determined by the course of our relationship and not by the voters of Washington and of the country finally recognizing that our commitment was worthy.

There are couples all over the country who are hoping to marry before they run out of time for one reason or another. And all that stands between them and legal marriage are people — people who need to let go of the idea that their religious beliefs trump other people's lives. 

The act of dying

Another phone call for Sandy, this time from the Puget Sound Blood Center. "I'm sorry, she died in July," I say into the phone. (Sometimes my throat catches and I sob as I say it; sometimes I say it irritably. This time, I just stated a fact.) The young woman is shaken by this news, though I doubt she personally knew Sandy. She's just making routine calls asking for blood donations, or possibly financial donations. I don't know. We didn't get that far in the call.

We were allegedly taking a vacation from cancer when
we traveled in May, but we talked a lot on that trip
about the future, about cancer treatment, about how willing
she was to keep fighting. I was reassured because she
very much wanted to live, wanted to do whatever
it took to come out on the other side of cancer someday.
She didn't die; she was killed.

 

And I'm struck by the words, "she died," which are echoing in my head. It's an active verb, as if she got up one morning and put "die" on her to-do list. Some people do, of course. And Sandy had certainly considered suicide many times in her life. But this was not one of those times. She didn't die intentionally. She didn't do it. It was done to her. She was killed.

Once it was clear that she would die, she was more intentional about the process. She was vocal about her goals, who she wanted to see, documents she wanted to have in order. She was especially adamant that she wanted to be in control, wanted the "death with dignity" pills Washington voters granted her the right to have. The cancer spread too quickly; the safeguards in the process took too long. She never got those pills. And so she didn't choose when to die.

Rather, her body surrendered to the cancer that ravaged it, and eventually, her spirit surrendered, too, and departed — amazingly intact, from the evidence I've seen.

I know this is just one more arbitrary thing to get stuck on, but language is my playground, and it was Sandy's too. This was exactly the kind of thing we'd puzzle over together, and then reference repeatedly as we found other verbs that worked the same way or that disproved our theories. That playground is pretty empty now. I'm left pushing a swing that has no body in it.

Is this a dream?

I've had lucid dreams in the past, dreams where I am aware that it's a dream and can alter the course of events. But it never occurred to me that I might combine lucid dreaming with a visitation dream.

This morning, I'd had a couple of visitation dreams. Then, I was sitting at a table at a cafe with Sandy, discussing the dreams I'd had earlier. I honestly thought I was awake. I remarked that the room we were in looked a lot like the room in one of my dreams—and that in the book I'd been reading, the author talked about recognizing such resemblances, learning from them. I told Sandy that I'd enjoyed seeing her in my dream, since she'd been dead. And then we were both kind of puzzled. I had a strong memory of grieving, of the darkness and the emptiness I've felt so much over the past few months. But here she was in front of me. I remember thinking, wow, I'm going to have to talk to my therapist about this. Why have I been imagining her dead?

Sandy said she didn't remember dying. And then she said she didn't know how she'd returned — so she really had been dead at some point. I began to question whether she really had returned. We were figuring this out together. I asked why, if she'd returned, was she not in bed with me at night. She said she'd slept on the living room floor — that our bed was too tall. I told her I'd have joined her, but she said I always get cranky when I sleep on the floor (true).

In my earlier dream, we'd been in that room as she was applying for jobs. Now, they called her from our table to the back room for an interview. I got the check from the server. Again, this was incredibly real, and he was a little annoying, pointing out the total because there were some other stray numbers on the bill (timestamps and things). And then Sandy came out from the back room, seemingly forgetting I was there, got in the car, and started to drive away. I was surprised and annoyed that she'd leave without me, but there was something else weird about it. I realized she'd gotten into the passenger's side. How was she driving?

Oddly enough, I don't have any pix of her driving from
the passenger side of a cartoonish car. But here she is in
the back seat of the vanpool van many years ago.

I knocked on the window and she let me in. I asked her just to keep the car parked for a moment, and I told her we were in a dream. She was startled. I pointed out that there were steering wheels in random places in the car, including the passenger's side (and one at my feet on the driver's side). I needed to go back and actually pay for our meal, but because this was a dream, I was afraid of losing her, so I asked her to do a U-turn and come back for me. She was pleased by that. Sandy always liked doing U-turns. I got out and walked toward the restaurant, and watched as she approached. Other traffic was doing bizarre things to get out of the way —one car literally moved sideways, like a crab, into an alley. As Sandy drove, our car became more cartoonish. I paid the server and then pointed out to her that our car was looking a little like Herbie the Love Bug. We looked at each other and I asked, which one of us is dreaming that? Neither of us knew.

But from then, we started having fun with the dream. One of us came up with twin daughters, around seven or eight years old. I think that must have been Sandy, because she was very invested in feeding everyone and wanted them to go to the store to buy corned beef. I asked what I was supposed to eat. I said, "Even in a dream, I'm a vegetarian. And if I weren't, I still wouldn't eat corned beef!" Everyone laughed. It was like we were writing and starring in our own sitcom.

I won't bore you with all the details. I wouldn't find it so fascinating had it not been pretty apparent that Sandy and I were creating this dream together. I resisted waking up, kept wanting to drop deeper into the dream, to spend more time with her, to play.

So many of the visitation dreams have been heavy and deep, conversations about who we are to each other, whether she can return, whether she even wants to. I didn't realize how much I'd missed playing with her. I've been in a great mood all day.

Be strong

A few months ago, someone told me "Sandy would want you to be strong." Other people have told me what Sandy would want, too, and it always angers me. Unless she specifically pulled someone aside and gave them information I don't have, I'm the one most likely to know what Sandy would want. And what she actually wanted when she was alive.

But this particular statement — a gesture of support, made with good intentions — rankled me in other ways, too. Sandy always thought of me as emotionally strong, even when I felt weak and anxious. In fact, I understand that she told someone in her final weeks that it was unfair that I was so much stronger than she was.

Sandy accepted who I am and how I coped with difficult situations. She wanted me to be more flexible when it came to trying new things, accepting change, or (horrors!) acting spontaneously. But she never asked me to change my emotions, and she never implored me to be stronger emotionally.

I was ranting about this to a friend, shortly after receiving the well-intentioned missive. I asked, "What does strong even mean in this case?" Surely, strong doesn't mean hiding my feelings or pretending I'm not in pain. Everyone experiences grief differently — how could you define one reaction as strong and another as weak? I was reminded of the Marge Piercy poem, For Strong Women. This sentence, in particular, speaks to me:  

A strong woman is a woman who loves
strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly
terrified and has strong needs.

My friend jokingly said, "Many people define strength as the ability to lift heavy objects" or something like that — and it hit me that there is one way Sandy used to nag me to be strong.

Sandy used her strength to be the physically active aunt,
whereas I was the one who got out the coloring books.

I never had upper-body strength because of my defective heart valve; I couldn't even do plank pose in yoga without feeling my chest tighten uncomfortably. After I got my new valve, Sandy encouraged me to start doing pushups. Simple ones at first, pushing against the fifth step on our stairs, and then gradually harder. Early this spring, I ran out of steps and started doing pushups on my knees; shortly before Sandy went to the hospital, I graduated to  traditional plank pushups on the floor.





Sandy was physically strong most of the time we were together; it was an important part of her identity and I was quite fond of her muscular arms. Helping me become stronger physically was also very important to her.

So I  decided to accept the gesture as an indirect message from Sandy to get back to doing the pushups I'd neglected since she died. I've been doing them regularly since. I've got the arm muscles to prove it.

Hiking

A close friend and I braved the chilly fog today for a wonderful hike on the Chirico Trail. Sandy and I struggled up the very steep trail a couple of times last fall, and we enjoyed the climb, the views, and the opportunity to watch the paragliders who sail down from Poo Poo Point. Sandy and I never made it all the way up the trail, due to chemo fatigue and waning daylight. Today, my friend and I went farther than Sandy and I ever got, but we still didn't quite get to the top. We felt the steep climb in our legs, and we feared the early sunset at this time of year. We saw several people on the trail, many with enthusiastic canine companions, and there were a few paragliders making the trek up with their 40-pound packs. But a steady light rain began and apparently it was quite foggy at the top, so those same paragliders trudged back down the trail to their cars.

Paraglider at the trailhead, Sept 1, 2010

I was disappointed that we didn't get to see them sliding around in the air. The second time Sandy and I hiked the trail, we stuck around for 45 minutes or so to watch the paragliders make their descents. It was pretty magical, and the paragliding community seems like a cool group of people.

I thought I'd exaggerated the steepness of the trail in my memory, that it had seemed difficult only because Sandy was having trouble breathing. But today proved that it really is a very challenging trail. I'm impressed that Sandy tackled it twice last fall. She was determined to be physically active and to challenge herself.

Sandy on the Chirico Trail, Sept 1, 2010

When she was on supplemental oxygen and round-the-clock pain meds in May 2010, her naturopath asked her to aim for 30 minutes a day of some sort of activity, even if it was puttering in the kitchen. As she got her strength back, and as we learned how important physical activity was to coping well with cancer, Sandy moved the bar up.  Every morning, she'd figure out where the activity was in her day; if a longish walk or workout with a physical therapist or gardening wasn't already in the mix, she'd come up with a plan for at least 30 minutes of exercise at the gym or at home. Even when she had so much pain this spring, she continued to exercise consistently. It was really only when she went to the hospital in June that she stopped moving.

I'm proud of her efforts to stay active, and I think they helped her maintain a good quality of life until close to the end. I love that I have so many lovely memories of hikes, walks, and other outings with her.

Rethinking habits

Last night I ordered pizza from our usual place, but I wanted something a little different from our normal pick. As I read through the menu, I realized I could order the gorgonzola pizza. Sandy didn't care for gorgonzola or any other blue cheese; I love them. And she's not going to want a piece. It was pretty tasty, and I enjoyed it again for lunch today. I don't know that it'll become my regular pizza, but it felt oddly adventurous to order it this time.

I stumble across those little unexpected freedoms every few days. Honestly, I feel a tiny thrill each time I realize I don't have to do something a certain way; I need only please myself now. There's also a pang of regret. The habits we shared were the product of hundreds or thousands of compromises forged over the years, the negotiations and agreements that come from sharing a life together. I don't want to abandon them too quickly.

The honeysuckle in full bloom, June 2009

I cleaned up the deck last week, sweeping up the birch leaves and removing things I'd tossed out there to deal with later (pots of spent basil, vases of dead flowers). I also cut back the honeysuckle, which overwhelms everything else on the deck and seems to aspire to gaining entrance to the house itself. I approached the task warily; this was Sandy's territory. How angry would she be if I lopped off too much? What was she planning for it? And then I realized that, for better or for worse, the decisions were all mine. I could trim it to my taste, and if I accidentally killed it, I could buy another or replace it with something a little less exuberant. I cut with abandon, nattering to Sandy about my logic as I did.

In the first few days after her death, I began wearing her clothing, reading her kindle, and using some of her other things to feel a connection to her. This is different: Now I'm reclaiming (invading?) her space. I hung a towel on the hooks that had been hers in the bathroom. I've moved my art supplies onto the shelves that held her zines until a few months ago. Soon, I'll clean the meat drawer in the fridge and start putting veggies there. I may even move the torchiere in the bedroom to my side of the bed, where it's more convenient to me; I haven't done it yet, but I realize I can.

One thing I can't bring myself to do is to sit at her computer
desk in the TV room. That was her space for more than a
decade; the cats walk across the desk and Nada
sleeps in her chair, but I haven't done much to disturb it yet.

This process involves a weird mix of emotions. Each time I claim space that was hers, it's an acknowledgement that she's not coming back.  Each time I change a habit to suit myself or evaluate one and decide it still works for me, I commit to living my own life, having my own future, creating my own space. At the same time, I'm striving to keep Sandy's presence and influence alive in our home, our garden, and the broader world. It's an awkward dance, but one I'm slowly learning to appreciate.

Living the nightmare

I wanted to be with her all the time, because when I was with her,
I couldn't imagine her gone. She was always so full of life.

When we learned that Sandy's cancer had returned, I was devastated and in shock. Despite my desire to believe that everything would be okay, that we'd beat the odds, I sometimes found myself imagining life after she'd died. As I walked to the library, I'd imagine for a moment that a year or two later, she wouldn't be there when I returned. The experience was something like slipping the One Ring on in the Lord of the Rings: everything would swirl around me and go dark. My sense was that if she died, the world would stop. I felt an intense pain in my chest, felt terribly, horribly alone, and saw a void. And then I'd recover my optimism, remind myself of whatever plan was in place at the moment, and resolve to keep her alive and to help her regain her health. But those dark moments haunted me.

After she died, I learned that much of what I'd imagined was true. I felt an intense pain in my chest, felt terribly, horribly alone, and could not envision a future. But what's happened since is better, I suppose, than I imagined, in that the world hasn't stopped and I've continued to function. And what's happened since is also worse, far worse, than I imagined, in that the world hasn't stopped and I'm still here, without her.

Working

Sandy at Microsoft, back in 2001

After months of not working while we were on vacation, and then Sandy was dying, and then I was grieving intensely, I've been gradually increasing my work since September. Now I'm doing all that I would normally do. And it occurred to me a few minutes ago that though I feel very different, in many ways, my day today is very similar to a day I'd have had two years ago, when Sandy was gone all day working at Microsoft. I'm working on similar projects, with the same clients, as I was then. I took out the trash, recycling, and yard waste. I had leftover stew for lunch. I've answered email and had phone conferences and signed a few Internet petitions. The actual tasks of the day are very similar. It's what surrounds the day that changes it.

For example, I'm very tired. The challenge in taking on my regular work load is that I never know whether I'm going to get enough sleep. After it takes me a while to fall asleep, I wake frequently every night. And that's after I get to bed late. I do not feel rested.

I used to love going to bed; snuggling in with Sandy was my favorite time of day. Now I dread ending the day. Bed itself is often lovely, once I get there, and is a nice nest for reading, listening to music, doing sudoku or crossword puzzles, talking to Sandy. It's when the light is out and I expect her to say, "Do you want to curl around me or want me to curl around you?" that I despair. It's waking up hourly and having her still not be in bed that unsettles me.

Some of my delay is just that I get distracted. We'd come upstairs to get ready for bed, and then I'd duck into my office (a few feet from the bedroom) to check on something, and fifteen minutes later, Sandy would call out, annoyed, "I thought you were coming to bed!" I don't have anyone keeping track of me anymore. No one notices or cares that my "quick check" turns into a couple of hours of replying to email and reading blogs and getting just a couple more things done on my work project. There's no one waiting for me in bed.


The other big difference during the work day itself is that I don't receive any email or phone calls from Sandy, and I don't send any to her. We used to talk two or three times a day, and exchange at least as many emails. I still check my email expectantly, but there's never anything from her. There's no one to ask how my meeting went or to cheer when I get my work done early, or to know that something we'd been anticipating arrived in the mail.

I do still talk to Sandy all day long, and I feel her presence a lot of the time, and for that I'm very grateful. But I'd give anything to hear her singing as she approaches the front door, and then after a kiss in greeting, ask me, "So, have you had dinner thoughts?" Or, when she's a bit later than I expected, to walk outside and see her down the street, leaning against something, finishing whatever she's reading before she gets home; to walk up to her and say her name, and have her look up, disoriented, and then just beam at me. I'd give anything to see that smile again.

Thoughts on what's real

According to the calendar, it's been half a year since the day I had jury duty while Sandy had her teeth cleaned and got fitted for her radiation mask. I called her from the courthouse to see how her radiation oncology appointment had gone, whether she'd learned more about the cause of the nausea over the weekend. She'd been given a different prescription to take the place of Ranitidine, and the nurse had increased her steroid dosage. I did a little research on my iPad and understood the logic; I emailed Sandy to say that made sense to me, told her I'd pick up her new prescription on my way home.

I wasn't called to voir dire until late in the afternoon. The case was expected to continue into Sandy's radiation treatments. I told the judge that we weren't expecting anything major, but I was Sandy's caregiver and was concerned that her health might be compromised if I served on the jury during that time. The judge excused me without further questions. I felt a little guilty; my concern had been legitimate, but likely as not, radiation would be uneventful and Sandy wouldn't need me much.

I walked home from the courthouse; it was a hot day (for Seattle, for weather wimps), and I called her as I approached our neighborhood. She'd managed to pick up her prescription on her way home from the dentist. Girls who have jury duty and go to the dentist deserve ice cream, I said. Yes, yes, yes, she said, salted caramel, please. So I stopped at Molly Moon's on my way home and waited forever in line to bring home a pint of vanilla and a pint of salted caramel.

It was just a day. An unusual day in that I had jury duty, she had a dental appointment, and she went to a medical appointment without me, but just a day. If things hadn't turned upside down for us nine days later, I don't know how well I'd remember the bits and pieces of that day without prompting. But things did turn upside down, and that day remains "recent," as if it were just a few days ago, because it was real. And everything that happened from 6:30 p.m. June 15 onward is less than real, somehow.

I can remember details of days in the hospital or hospice, of bike rides in August or days preparing for Sandy's memorial, of dinners with friends or hours spent talking to Sandy, alone in the house, in October. But I have to reach a little bit to do that, and it's as if I'm viewing all those days through smudged glasses. Reality is our life together, full of small annoyances and frequent moments of laughter, small favors done for each other, and the celebration of minor and major accomplishments. Everything else is what came after.

I treasure the photos of the day-to-day events of our reality.
This was taken in July 2007 at a park on one of our regular bike routes.

I haven't taken any photos since Sandy left. This is not time to cling to, not time I'll want to revisit through images. This is a time of putting one foot in front of the other, watching the clock continue to tick, checking things off my to do list, savoring the occasional feeling of accomplishment, laughing as frequently as possible — and yet not feeling joy. This is not reality, and I can't quite imagine that the future will be either.