Snow and chemo and murder

I've been thinking a lot lately about the events of November 22 last year, the Monday before Thanksgiving.

We woke up in the morning excited about the first snow of the year, but we were surprised at the local excitement when we walked out the door. The intersection of 15th & Union was blocked off with police tape, and we assumed there had been a traffic accident due to the weather. (That corner has been the site of many accidents even in ideal conditions.)

As we crossed 15th & Pike, we realized our block of 15th was taped off from that side, too. A police car was parked next to the tape, and we asked the officer what was going on. He said it was just an assault.

He said it pretty calmly. At the time, we turned to each other and said, "Just an assault?" but we kept going because we needed to get to an oncology appointment. It's an eight-block walk, and with Sandy's hip issues, it often took about 20 minutes.

We received good news about tumor marker levels and recent scans, and made a new plan with the oncologist for when a chemo break would be appropriate. Then we crossed the hall to the oncology infusion and went through our usual chemo routine: did a crossword puzzle together, planned menus for the week and made a shopping list, caught up with our favorite infusion nurses, ate lunch, and then read or napped or played games on the iPad. Sandy drifted off pretty early that day. Each time they gave her Benadryl to prevent an allergic reaction to the Taxol, and it always made her sleepy. I chatted with the nurses about the snow while Sandy slept, and we monitored the snow as it started and stopped repeatedly. And then it changed. It started coming down heavily and the temperature dropped outside; it started sticking just as Sandy's infusion was ending. The staff was concerned about how they were going to get home that evening, and we were just as glad we were departing to walk home then and not any later.

Sandy, walking home from chemo.
Many were jealous of her walking sticks that day.

On our block, we met some neighbors on the sidewalk and they filled us in on the excitement we'd missed that morning. A mentally ill homeless man had been walking down the street next to a guy who lived just a couple of blocks from us. The killer imagined that the stranger he was walking next to had given his sister a venereal disease (apparently this was a common fantasy he had, and it always made him angry). He was carrying a camping axe because he'd decided to try camping in local woods (I never found out where he thought there were woods in our urban neighborhood) and in his anger, he brought the axe down on the innocent stranger's head. In front of the house just across Union. We didn't know all of this at the time; all anyone knew was that a local man had been killed with an axe.

I didn't know either the killer or the victim, and we only casually knew the neighbor whose yard became a crime scene. The killer was caught within minutes. Some kids who attend the school across the street had been walking back to class and witnessed it; they were understandably traumatized. Other neighbors heard the sound of the axe coming down and the victim screaming; we were oblivious, probably because the school kids scream all the time.

Sandy always took a lot of photos when it snowed. Anyone
who came across our photo collection would assume
we lived in a snowy clime. But it did come down fast that day.
She took this photo as I was departing for the grocery store.
(Look closely, and you can see me in my white coat and
dark scarf exiting the porch.)

It was sobering to think about how we treat (or fail to treat) mental illness, and to recognize that, really, just about anyone could have been that guy's victim. (It was later discovered that he'd killed a guy a day or two before in another part of town.)

But many of the details I remember of that day are not tinged with trauma. We brought home an end table that had been left by the dumpsters at an apartment building on our block; it became the bedside table in the guest room. Sandy swept the snow off our sidewalks to try to minimize what we'd need to shovel later, but the snow was falling fast enough that her efforts were quickly obscured. I went to the grocery store and was glad we'd be staying home, because the sidewalks were starting to ice up.

Though Seattle, and especially our neighborhood, were in shock over the killing, the winter wonderland of the next several days distracted people with more mundane concerns and, frankly, gave many of us an excuse to celebrate life.

It's hard to believe it's been a year. A year ago we mourned the senseless violence, and we were grateful that we were safe. We'd had good news at Sandy's oncology appointment, and we were optimistic about our future, while aware of the strong reminder that life was full of unexpected events. The roads grew more treacherous outside, but we were cozy and safe, together in our home.