Shifts in perspective

As Sandy was dying and after she died, many of her friends, family, and people who'd never even met her described her community-building focus, her intelligence, her generosity, and her laughter. I basked in the world's appreciation of her, and I was grateful that so much of it spilled forth while she was still able to hear it and soak it up.

In contrast, though, my own life looked pretty unimpressive. I'd been so intent on taking care of Sandy that I'd pulled away from many of the people and activities that had defined me in earlier years. The landscape of my life — not just the future, but the past as well — looked bleak to me. I honestly wondered whether there'd be a hole left in the world when I died, and I was a little relieved to think that there might not be. That I could just go, end, and leave no pain in my wake.

Over time, I've reconnected with people, rediscovered my passions, started exploring new interests. Last night, I went to a gathering of folks I'd never met, and I enjoyed hearing about their achievements and sharing some of my stories. As I talked with them, I started to realize that I do have something to offer, that I have made differences here and there, have done interesting things.

That in itself is not a huge revelation. Few lives are actually uninteresting. The revelation was that it's the vantage point that makes all the difference. While I'm definitely more engaged in the world now than I was shortly after Sandy's death, that engagement doesn't actually change what I accomplished in the 43 years I lived before Sandy died. What's changed is how I describe my life.

Early last June, suffering from pain and nausea that doctors could neither identify nor control, Sandy was frustrated with her inability to get things done. Each day, she had an appointment somewhere, so she got out in the world for a massage or physical therapy or yoga. But she managed little else; she required close to twelve hours of sleep a night and her energy was spent after one outing. She wasn't making progress on any of her to-do lists, and her pain was keeping her from doing many of the things she'd always done around the house. (I remember her insistence on doing some things, even though they hurt, despite my urging her to let me do them. She said,"I don't want you to feel like you live alone." That echoes in my head frequently now. I didn't feel like I lived alone then, and I don't now, most of the time.)

Lives look different close up, from afar, from different angles,
from different moods. Sandy's image of herself was often at
odds with the way others saw her, but I'm glad she knew
there were multiple perspectives, and that she was loved.

If asked last June to describe the totality of her life, she would have focused on disability, fatigue, depression, obesity, crankiness, unrealized dreams, and all the ways she'd let herself and others down. It would have been an uncharitable summary of her life, but those things would have been true, at least at times. In contrast, the way others have described her life paints a completely different picture, that of a vivacious woman who gave and shared so much. And that portrait was very true. I knew Sandy to claim both visions of herself, depending on her mood, sometimes within the space of an hour.

Every life is bleak; every life is glorious. The effect is all in which aspects we choose to emphasize. I remember my mother telling me a few years ago about an old high school friend who had had a hard life. I can't remember the details now, but it was a string of things like divorce and troubled kids and unemployment. Mom hadn't seen the woman herself, but had heard this sad description. I laughed and asked Mom whether she thought she had had a good life. Of course! And then I described her life for her: two divorces, following mental and physical abuse, a kid (me) who dropped out of college, open-heart surgery at the age of 62, never having annual income above $20K. Those aren't the phrases that spring to mind when I usually describe my mother, but they're all true. And if you only list those things, it sounds like she's had an awful life. But these aren't the things that define her.

So from one perspective, I'm a lonely widow living with two cats, working alone and rarely leaving the house. I've lost contact with many friends, never travel, have an ongoing mysterious autoimmune disorder, etc. But from another perspective, I had a remarkable relationship with an amazing woman for 15 and a half years, have had my own successful business as a freelance writer and editor for twelve years, bike, garden, and volunteer with community organizations, etc. Which person would you rather hang out with? I think the second one is a lot more attractive, and I'm grateful to have the shift in vantage point that lets me recognize her.

Contentment to despair

I had a visitation dream this morning, the first one I've been sure of in a few weeks. It wasn't dramatic; neither of us said anything profound. But she was here, with me, and we were us. We interacted in ways that felt so normal, ways I don't interact with anyone else, ways I'm homesick for.

Here she is in my office eight years ago, but I
don't have any photos of her at the window.
She used to come in and sit on the trunk I have
in front of the window, checking in with me
while I was at my desk. It felt good to stand
next to the window today and remember her
there with me this morning in the dream.

Unlike other visitation dreams, she was back but we knew it wasn't permanent. On the heels of another dream, in which I'd been voting and had screwed up my ballot, I told her that if she was still here when we got closer to an election, we'd need to go ahead and amend the death certificate so she could vote. She wasn't sure about that; she was concerned that they'd just have to make another one. I said she could have a stack of death certificates if she kept returning and dying again.

Sandy said she planned to read her email tomorrow while she's on the treadmill, so I told her that I've been checking it occasionally, replying to things that seem important. She was grateful for that, as the backlog in her inbox always overwhelmed her, and she was looking forward to seeing the messages I mentioned, since I told her I'd kept them. We also talked about her laptop. I told her that I haven't removed anything she had on it, but I have been installing betas on it, and she was pleased that I'd been using it that way. It was a very factual, practical, normal conversation, and it felt like home.

Most of the time we were in my office, next to the window, but then suddenly we were out on a sidewalk with a lot of commotion, traffic noise, people yelling. I said something about it being cacophonous; I couldn't hear her. And then, abruptly, I was in a different dream, with a bunch of people looking for parking at a campground, and it took me a few minutes to realize that Sandy had gone.

I woke feeling content that I'd spent some time with her. I lay in bed, untangling all the other, complicated dreams from my memories of the simple, straightforward visitation dream. I'd been asking for one, missing her terribly. The dream this morning fed me, comforted me, gave me the sense of normalcy I crave.

But in some ways, visitation dreams are cruel, too. They trick my subconscious into thinking she's here, physically, and that everything is okay. This evening, after a challenging day of work that demanded my undivided attention, I looked up and realized just how alone I was, how quiet and empty the house seemed. I'd felt her here this morning, after the dream, but now she's not. Her absence is much more pronounced than usual, and I once again feel lonely and despairing.

It seems so cruel that what comforts me can accentuate my feelings of loss so sharply. I wouldn't give up any of the visitation dreams I've had, or any other contact - real or imagined. But I wish the road between contentment and despair wasn't quite so short.

Object permanence

One of the fundamental concepts in developmental psychology is that of object permanence, the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched. There are different ideas about whether children develop this understanding or whether it's innate. Either way, it's considered important because it creates a sense of the object as separate from the observer.

Sandy used to joke that I'd never gotten to that developmental stage, or that I'd skipped it, because I was always surprised to learn that children had grown older in the time since I'd last seen them. Or that landscapes or cityscapes had changed, people had changed jobs or retired, or anything else that implied that life continued to go on even without me present. I told her that it wasn't that I missed out on learning object permanence, but that I took permanence too literally: people or things that were out of sight should somehow be frozen in time until I saw them again.

Maybe she's playing with a cat in Athens. If I find that exact
spot again, would I find her? Rational thought says no, but
there's a part of my brain that remains unconvinced.

Now I realize that I have the same issue with places. I've still not spent a night away from home since Sandy died, but I do yearn to travel everywhere we've been together. I think about retracing our paths, visiting the same places at the same time of year. And then the fantasy shatters, because I realize that I've been assuming I'd find Sandy there. The Sandy who was there with me before, waiting for me now. It's not the place I want to go to, but the time. It's Sandy.

There's a part of my brain that continues searching for her, in the same way that lost keys or a forgotten phone number tug at the subconscious. That part of my brain doesn't rest; it still feels the urgency in finding her. Sandy's missing! It raises the alarm over and over again, and other parts of my brain helpfully suggest where we might look, where she's been in. But I don't run to those places; I fear learning that there's nothing permanent about the places we've been.

Before going to bed at night, I wander into any rooms I haven't been in during the day. I don't expect to find her, but the alarm-sounding part of my brain says I'd be a fool not to check once again to see if she's there. Or if she's left me something. Or if I can feel her presence more strongly.

I've looked in many places for her, but so far the only place I'm certain to find her is in the rich tapestry of memory. So I retreat there often and there I find solace. There, I find her, a happier me, and our dreams for our future. And I avoid the disappointment and despair I fear I'd find in travel without her.

Small children and dogs

Sometimes I know with certainty that Sandy is communicating with me. More often, I'm not sure, but I consciously choose to believe, in the moment, that she's sending a message of love. I feel no need to defend or explain why I think something is from her, because I honestly don't know. What I do know is that choosing to believe it's her makes me feel less lost and alone, and that's something I need right now.

As I walked home after brunch with a friend last Sunday, a small child broke away from her mother to run toward me, waving, and saying "Hello!" Another time, a young boy climbed up on a bench in a restaurant window to press against the glass and wave at me as I passed, with his mother waiting patiently behind him, trying to put his coat on. Now and then, for a couple of days at a time, dogs find me irresistible, no matter what I'm wearing or where I'm going; they treat me the way dogs always treated Sandy - like they've found the lifelong friend they'd sought.

Neither dogs nor children usually run away from me screaming, but until recently, I've never really been a magnet for either. Sandy, on the other hand, attracted both.

Sandy's friends Ernie and Bert - especially Ernie - were
always sad when we had to leave. They were nice enough
to me but they really loved Sandy.

Sandy was part dog, we always said: enthusiastic, eager to play, wanting to be told what to do, trying to please. Dogs ran straight to her, and then didn't want to leave her, whereas they accepted my petting only if Sandy was busy with another dog.

Meanwhile, these little people? They're of the age we referred to as "Sandy's children." She had a particular weakness for kids who were old enough to move around on two feet but who still wobbled. Old enough to have a personality, but not old enough to try to hide it. Basically, the 18-month–to–3-year-old set.

We'd be sitting somewhere and see some cute kids of that age, and Sandy would say, "We could take that one." I'd look around to see if anyone had heard us, and then I'd remind her that parents get nervous when they hear things like that; they don't know that she's joking. I'm amazed no one ever summoned police or pulled out pepper spray.

It seems appropriate now that I keep getting attention from small children and dogs. Sandy's natural affinity with both would make it easier, I'd expect, to communicate through them. Or maybe her energy is accompanying me, so that she's not talking through them but they're reacting to her? Either way, being greeted enthusiastically out in the world makes it just a hair easier not to have her here to beam at me when I arrive home.

Cycles of revelation

I reread my first post in this blog last night. It seemed very familiar, and not just because they were my words. I've been repeating myself, apparently. In that first post, I said I'd started to feel a shift, that I'd begun to be able to envision a future without Sandy. That was in September. I said very much the same thing this week, and when I wrote it, it felt new to me.

I'm not sure whether the waves indicate tide going in or out,
but hey! Sandy liked the ocean. She's standing on one foot
in Santa Barbara; we rode rental bikes to the beach that day.

I've been told many times that this process isn't linear. I've recognized that I'm moving forward in fits and starts. But I hadn't seen the overall pattern until now. It's an irregular wave pattern, in which the bottom and top of the wave are both a little higher each time, but only a little. The length of each wave is just long enough for me to overlook the one that preceded it, and to forget that another one is likely to follow.

I use the same words each time, but they mean different things, I think. In September, envisioning a future without Sandy meant I was willing to believe that the seasons would continue. Now it means I'm willing to create a financial plan and plan the garden for the year, but there are still many thoughts of the future that stop me cold. I've no idea what the next shift will bring, but I'm certain that I'll think it's a brand new revelation.

When I was 20, I decided I wanted to be cremated, so I told my mother. Apparently, I made that decision and told her multiple times, because she was annoyed that I kept sharing this insight with her. I have no idea why it didn't stick for me; if it was such a momentous decision, shouldn't I have remembered that I'd made it? I was both bemused and amused by my own memory block.

I told Sandy about this revelation stutter years later, and it became a sort of shorthand for us. When one of us was sharing something we'd already shared, the other would say, "Did I tell you I want to be cremated?" And we'd both laugh. I know it's not exactly the same thing, because the meanings are shifting with each wave, but when I reread the first blog post last night, I couldn't help saying out loud, "And did I tell you I want to be cremated?"And laughing. 

Things done

I keep a comprehensive to-do list so that I know I've captured every goal somewhere and can free the brain space for something else. Nine years ago, I realized that I felt overwhelmed by my list because, as I took off the things I'd accomplished, I could see only what hadn't been done, and not what had.

To remedy that, I started a Things Done list. Originally I literally just copied and pasted items from  my to-do list when I finished them. But over time, I started getting chattier, adding information about conversations I had with people I ran into on the street, what flowers we noticed were blooming, how I felt, when I had migraines or other illnesses, what time we turned out the light at night, how we each slept, memorable dreams. It became part log and part diary, the thing I turn to when I want to know when something happened or what events provided context for another. 

Sandy liked that I kept the Things Done list. She'd often ask me to look something up for her, because I tended to keep notes on important and unimportant events in her life, too.

Just about the only time I haven't kept the Things Done list current was the five weeks that Sandy was dying. I also didn't write in my journal. Writing makes things real for me, and while I was able to cope as long as I stayed in the present moment, I wasn't quite able to handle the reality of documenting it all. After Sandy died, I filled in the broad strokes of those days, but especially given my altered state at the time, there are details that I've lost or memories that confuse me. I'll probably never untangle it all to record it accurately, and that may be for the best, because when I reread a day's entries in my Things Done list, I relive it. While there are moments of Sandy's dying that I want to relive -- moments of tenderness and connection, moments of clarity and love -- there are other moments that I don't need to experience again. So I'll trust my memory to sift through them for me and present the ones that nurture rather than the ones that cause pain.

This was actually her last chemo day in 2007. We didn't take
any photos of chemo in 2010/11, apparently. Again, we don't
tend to take photos of the routine, and chemo became very
routine: for ten months, three weeks out of four, we'd walk or
bike the six blocks there. Usually, Sandy had a bed so she
could nap comfortably when the Benadryl they gave her to
prevent allergic reactions took effect. After so long, the risk of
allergic reaction was slim, but protocol required the drug.

I knew Sandy had her last chemo infusion at the end of March last year, but I couldn't remember the date. Curious, I turned to my Things Done list. It was March 28. Nicole was with us that day. In fact, she got there before me. Sandy left early to bike a roundabout way to get to chemo, because she wanted the exercise. I was still making my sandwich, so I left a few minutes later and biked straight there. By the time I got up to the infusion center, Sandy was already in a bed and Nicole was seated next to her, visiting. None of us - Sandy, me, Nicole, or any of the nurses - had any idea it would be Sandy's last chemo. We just knew she had the next week off before she started the next monthly cycle.

Reading my notes about the day, many parts of it come back to me clearly, but I didn't remember that they were all on the same day. Sandy had a migraine aura as she walked to her bike after chemo, but it had faded before we started for home. She was incredibly thirsty; we resolved to bring our own water from home for her the next time she had chemo. I don't know why I didn't just get water for her, but I think she didn't care for their filtered water. She usually drank a combination of apple and cranberry juice that I fetched her as we settled in. The nurses had long since shown me where everything was, so I could get her whatever she wanted from the kitchen or fresh blankets from the warmer.

After we got home, I took my bike in for new brake pads and a new chain, bought groceries, meditated with Sandy, planted peas while Sandy napped, fussed with onion plants that neighborhood cats had disrupted. I cleaned my iPad screen that evening. I remember doing it, but I had no idea it was a year ago. In fact, I've marveled at how quickly it got smudged and filthy, thinking always that I cleaned it only a few weeks ago.  (My point of reference for how long it's been since something happened remains June 15, the last day that was real.)

The next day, Sandy had a therapeutic massage and got her hair cut on the way home. She called me on her cellphone about four blocks from the house and told me she was bored, she missed me, and she'd like me to talk her home. I remember her reporting landmarks as she passed them, laughing at things she saw on the street; I stood in the doorway talking to her on the phone as I watched her walking down the block to me. That night we walked to Central Cinema, a theater six blocks from us that serves food with the show; we saw RoboCop and ate bread pudding for dessert.

I can easily get lost in the stories of these days that were unremarkable at the time but that come back so vividly to me with the written cues. I find great solace in these records of daily routines, the little stuff of life that we don't tend to capture in photographs or greeting cards. The stuff that makes up most of life; the everyday things we've thought, experienced, and done.

Worlds of possibility

I just finished reading Brian Greene's book, Hidden Reality. In it, he discusses nine current theories regarding multiple universes. Greene is a physicist who writes for a nonphysicist audience, making some pretty complex topics more comprehensible to the untrained reader. However, I'm only beginning to become familiar with some of the concepts through the reading I've done, and there's still some math that goes over my head (or at least, doesn't go into it; my eyes skim the words without taking them in), so I'd be lying if I claimed to actually understand the theories. But I grasp the ideas enough to get excited about them and to start playing around with them.

These theories are borne out of the math done in various areas of physics research: string theory, quantum mechanics, etc. It's not like they went out looking to see if multiple universes existed; this is where the math led. I started reading about multiverses to try to understand more about Sandy's current experience and to imagine a way to her. The multiverse theories I find most compelling for my purposes are the Brane Multiverse and the Quantum Multiverse.

Here are Greene's quick summaries of each:

Brane Multiverse: In string/M-theory’s braneworld scenario, our universe exists on one three-dimensional brane, which floats in a higher-dimensional expanse potentially populated by other branes – other parallel universes.

Quantum Multiverse: Quantum mechanics suggests that every possibility embodied in its probability waves is realized in one of a vast ensemble of parallel universes. (He also refers to this as the Many Worlds Multiverse)

After reading other books about string theory and the work being done with the Large Hadron Collider, I was fascinated by the idea of branes, universes in other dimensions that could be just millimeters away from us. I still am. With my unsophisticated knowledge of how all this works, I can't help wondering if Sandy's just on another brane, given her simultaneous proximity and distance. When people talk about "crossing over," could it literally be that we cross over to a nearby universe on a different dimension? Greene's discussion of the Brane Multiverse did nothing to dissuade me of the possibility.

But what delights me is the Quantum Multiverse theory. It comes from quantum mechanics and the existence of probability waves. I won't take you down the long road Greene followed in explaining just how probability waves lead to multiple universes, but it is persuasive. Instead, I'll jump right to the part that is most compelling to me (and to plenty of science fiction writers in print and on TV and in movies). When people talk about parallel universes or alternate universes, this is the theory they're relying on. In short, the theory says that there are universes out there that encompass every possibility.

Say, for example, two people meet, fall in love, have children. The theory posits that there are universes where they never met, or where they met but didn't get together, or where they got together but didn't have children, or where they had more children or fewer children. Essentially, at every decision point, there is a universe for each possible outcome. "Decision point" is my phrase; Greene didn't say that, and I don't think there would have to be a conscious decision - just something that did or did not happen, that might have been different.

Say, for example, a person develops cancer. Well, it could be that there are universes where those cells never mutated, or where the body repaired the mutation.

In some universes, I bet she sings professionally. Hard to
imagine that there'd be any universe where she didn't have
an amazing voice, and to love sharing it.

I've been playing with this for the past couple of days. It pleases me immensely to think that there are universes out there where Sandy is not only alive but healthy, happy, fully herself, never even having suffered from depression, let alone cancer. There would be universes where we're both dead, where we never met, where one or both of us were never born. There are almost certainly universes where we broke up in 1996, after a horrible fight during our return from Glacier National Park. In some of those universes, we got back together, and in some we didn't.

The word never is a heavy, malevolent burden that I've been carrying around. But with the Quantum Multiverse, never loses some of its power, because the theory is all about what is possible.

As I was walking to the library today, it occurred to me that there may well be a universe where I died and Sandy lived and she's walking to the library thinking about me living in an alternate universe. And then I thought about all the shows where a rift opens between universes and sometimes people or other beings slip through. I imagined glimpsing her through such a rift, and then having to convince her that she should come to my world while she was telling me to join her in hers. If I went to her, people in this world would still be in pain, so it'd be much better for her to join us. But if she left her world to come here, people in that world would experience pain. So maybe we need to find a rift between our world and a universe where Sandy is exactly herself, but missing me, and surrounded by mean, horrible people who wouldn't know to feel pain at her absence, so she could come here without guilt.

I think it's a good thing the library is a mile away; I'm able to work out a lot of complex issues as I walk!

Eight months

Eight months ago today, I started the transition to widowhood. I began with the things I knew I had to do: calling Social Security, seeing my therapist, beginning to eat actual meals after weeks of consuming few calories. I knew I had to just keep shuffling through the minutes, and I welcomed the support of friends and family. What I most remember, though, was that clanging in my brain that occurred whenever I tried to make sense of the world. 

People often describe the early stages of grief as feeling like you're in a dream. That was true for me. But even more than that, I felt the victim of a cruel hoax. It was impossible that Sandy — one of the most alive, vital people ever to inhabit this planet — would die. It was impossible that she would leave me; she had told me many times that she wasn't going anywhere. We had a plan. Disbelief competed with frequent, stabbing pain, leaving little room for anything else. 

At first, I honestly couldn't see a future, couldn't imagine that I'd be able to continue my life with that jagged hole sucking the air out of it. Gradually, I realized I could start to imagine a future, but I didn't want it. I resisted it. I wanted Sandy back, and my want was strong enough that I should be able to will her return and build a future with her.

Now, after eight months on this journey, despite my efforts to cling to my grief and my pain, to refuse the earth its cycles — despite all of that, things have gotten easier.

Time's passage has proven to me that I can live alone in the house — or at least, can be the only living person here — without feeling vulnerable or freaking out, as I'd feared I would. I can be happy. I can feel competent. I can even feel connected to the world. I can take care of myself, and even start to get excited about the future.

I'm disappointed that we never got a picture of us with all
four cats back in 2008 or so. We talked about it. But I'm
pleased that Nada decided to join us when Tina was taking
portraits of us in June 2010. Sandy was pleased, too.

I knew, rationally, that I wasn't dependent on Sandy for my survival or even my happiness. But I'm relieved that the past eight months have shown me that my independence and happiness do not mean leaving her behind, do not mean our love wasn't (isn't) real, and do not mean my life wouldn't be so much better if she somehow miraculously returned.

I am not the person I was eight months ago. Grief has changed me. The loss of her physical presence and of the security I felt, the loss of the frequent spontaneous laughter we shared, the loss of her touch, and the loss of my belief that the universe would spare her, would spare us — all of this loss inhabits my cells and informs who and how I am in the world. But I'm not just a creature of loss. Sandy and all that we shared — everything that I adored and admired, and everything that infuriated me about her, about us, about myself with her — remains strong, resilient, and celebrated within me.

Reconciling with the future

Yesterday marked an emotional milestone for me. After months of putting it off, I finally spent some time crafting a financial plan.

I usually love financial planning: playing with the numbers, fiddling with different combinations to determine the best approach for the current situation. I typically enjoy setting short- and long-term goals, imagining the growth of savings or major purchases. But I just couldn't face developing a financial plan that didn't include Sandy.

Dealing with money scared Sandy; she had strong fears of poverty, and when she feared something, she tried to ignore it, letting it fester quietly. I promised her when she moved in that I'd never let us become homeless, and over the years, she developed more confidence in my promise. Still, it wasn't easy to pull her to the dining room table for a couple of hours for an annual financial check-up.

When I say "make a financial plan," I don't mean anything elaborate. We simply made a comprehensive list of assets, anticipated income, debts, expenses, and goals. And then we figured out how to make sure it all worked. Sometimes we had to have difficult discussions: Do we give up our vacation or donate less to the causes? If we can only do one of the big tasks we wanted to accomplish this year, which one is most important? How secure is that anticipated income, and what do we do if it drops? Sandy didn't enjoy the process, but she was always relieved to learn that we weren't going to lose the house. And once we'd made the challenging decisions, we both felt better prepared to face whatever came.

The last time we made a financial plan was in July 2010, after we learned how much she'd be getting from Social Security Disability every month, and when the payments would start ($1700, not till December). When she was working, we'd put equal amounts into the joint account every month, but in the summer of 2010, we changed that dramatically. We prioritized having her contribute enough to feel good about paying her share, but keep enough to feel free to spend money independently. We cut back on restaurant meals, delayed some home improvement projects, scheduled our grocery shopping to coincide with coupons and sales, and generally planned to be more conscious about money.

When she received a small tax refund last year, she announced
that we were taking a weekend away, her treat. We went to
Ocean Shores, the first place we'd ever traveled together, and
as we enjoyed the long weekend, we dreamed about our future.

As we cut back on other things, we were clear that health care expenses still came first. If we believed a treatment would help her but our insurance wouldn't cover it, we'd pay for it ourselves. In fact, we earmarked her IRA account for that purpose; she said she wanted to keep it in place so that she could draw from it over the years she survived, and so that we'd have it for a sudden trip to Switzerland or some place for some cutting-edge treatment. If it became clear that she was running out of time, we'd use it to travel and she'd splurge on anything she wanted. That was when we assumed we'd have notice, that she'd be feeling okay but told they'd run out of treatment options and she had six months or a year to live. Instead, by the time we knew she'd run out of options, she was too debilitated to travel or splurge. Now, that IRA has moved to my name, and because it's an inherited IRA, I have to withdraw a minimum amount each year. I haven't done that yet. That's going to be hard.

Yesterday, I surprised myself by grabbing a legal pad and starting to work on my financial plan. The first part was the hardest. We always started with three columns of assets: Brie's, Sandy's, and joint. Now there's only one column. But once I'd gotten through that anguish, I was able to lose myself in the numbers. And after an hour or so, I had a plan. I won't be retiring in the next five years, but I'm in pretty good shape financially. The house is paid off. The car is gone. The stock market is doing well, so the balances on long-held accounts are going up instead of down. I budgeted in the obligations I still have for Sandy, as well as political donations and charitable contributions, and will still be able to sock some away for the future. Inspired by the idea of saving again, I set up a spreadsheet to track expenses to see whether I'm at all accurate with the numbers I budgeted for various categories. In short, I played. I came away with benchmarks I can use to measure progress, and with the reassurance that cashflow is unlikely to be a problem for me this year, unlike last fall.

Over the past few weeks, I've felt myself starting to comprehend — deeply, physically comprehend — that Sandy's not coming back, and that it's not a betrayal of her or of me or of us for me to find ways to embrace the future. I've never doubted that she wants me to live fully, but I wasn't sure I'd ever want it. Creating a financial plan was a test for me, an exercise in imagining not just a future, but one I'd be engaged in, even with Sandy not here physically. I'm feeling pretty good about passing that test.

NBCC house party!

In October, I attended the National Breast Cancer Coalition's Project Lead workshop, a weekend's introduction to the science and politics of breast cancer research. I learned a lot, and I wanted to get more involved. Mostly, I wanted to share the information I'd gained and help change the conversation about breast cancer. I promised then that I'd host a house party to do just that, as soon as grief and my workload ebbed a bit.

Party at our house! Sandy will co-host,
but she won't have to clean or cook or
do any of the pre-gathering things that
stressed her out. I'm just asking her to
show up and share her energy with us.

And here we are! Please join us on Sunday, April 15, from 2:00 PM to 5:00 PM, at our house. I'll send direct invitations to a bunch of people, but I'm sure I'm forgetting some. So, if you're reading this, consider yourself invited.

We can end breast cancer for ourselves and future generations. I honestly believe the goal is within reach. The National Breast Cancer Coalition is serious about achieving that goal by January 1, 2020. It's not just about sprinkling fairy dust and hoping that setting a date will make it happen, either. There's a concrete strategy in place that the coalition is already making progress on. Exciting things are happening. Researchers are changing the way they work together and the way they think about the problems. Frankly, I'm optimistic that the process could become a model for countless other medical research issues.

Unlike most cause-related house parties I've attended, the primary goal of this one isn't fundraising. If you feel inspired to give, great, but mainly I want to share what I've learned about the realities of breast cancer today as well as the plan for eradicating it so that we can all speak confidently and accurately whenever the topic arises. It's a party, so we'll have yummy snacks and you'll have time to chat with folks you know and those you're meeting for the first time. And, of course, you'll have the opportunity to do a few simple things to help the cause: sign petitions, send postcards to legislators, that sort of thing.

I hope many of you will join me for a friendly afternoon of food, socializing, informative conversation, and inspiration. Let's do this.

Patients and patience

Three years ago today, I had the open-heart surgery I'd been dreading most of my life. It went smoothly, and I emerged with a stentless ovine aortic valve replacing my original aortic valve and aortic root. As the surgeon said, before they even got me to the cardiac ICU, my heart was fine. It was the split sternum that left me completely vulnerable, in pain, and angry.

Sandy was incredibly supportive in the months that preceded surgery, from the moment my cardiologist told me I needed the procedure, as I attempted to find an alternative, and then through the pre-surgery tests and procedures. It was a difficult time. I had rolling panic attacks for a couple of weeks, and then embarked on a regimen of daily yoga, meditation, walks, guided imagery, new supplements from my naturopath, and countless other efforts to try to reverse the stiffening of my valve. Meanwhile, I was bitter about not biking, having been told not to exert myself since I was at risk of sudden cardiac death. Those words echoed ominously in my head.

Pico was diagnosed with leukemia in the middle of all this, and his illness compounded our feelings of doom. Grumpus, meanwhile, had an unexplained persistent cough and Xrays of his lungs were ambiguous. I was taking care of Pico and Grumpus, and Sandy was taking care of all three of us.

By February 20, when my follow-up echo showed that despite all of my efforts, my valve had considerably worsened since the damning echo in November, I was resigned to having surgery and eager to get it over with. Sandy's job had ended in January, so she was able to help me do all that I needed to do to prepare.

I was in the ICU one night and on the cardiac floor two nights. I knew I'd be completely helpless and I didn't want to be left alone, dependent on nurses responding to my call button, so I'd scheduled caregivers in advance. Sandy stayed with me each night and some part of each day, too. Friends took shifts at other times. They all performed admirably, and I remain incredibly grateful to all of them.

Sandy, of course, took the brunt of it. While I was in surgery, she'd fallen asleep as she was making stew. The smoke alarm didn't wake her up, but she woke when the hospital called to tell her I was out of surgery. She hadn't burned the house down, but she had filled it with smoke. She spent her nights with me, not getting much sleep in the uncomfortable hospital chair, and she spent the days trying to clear smoke out of the house before I returned.

The first month was the hardest, and then slowly and steadily,
things got easier. By July 8, when this picture was taken in
Moses Lake,we were back to our normal life.

She also found me difficult to deal with, I know now. I've read email messages she sent to herself, digital journal entries she dashed off just to let off steam. She resented me and my demands. She thought it was ridiculous that I needed someone in the hospital room with me all the time, and she was tired, coming down with a cold, wanting someone to take care of her. The crankiest email I read was one she wrote when I'd been in the hospital less than 24 hours. I don't know what she expected the experience to be like, but she was already ready for it to be done.

I understand her resentment and her fatigue, and I'm also amused by them. Though I'd have loved for us to have more time when we were both healthy, if one of us had to be ill, we always did better with her being the patient and me being the caregiver. My tendency toward hypervigilance works much better as a caregiver and patient advocate than it does when I'm miserable and helpless. Sandy's willingness to let others handle things worked much better as a patient than when it was her responsibility to manage care.

She may have resented taking care of me, but she kept it to herself. I honestly had no idea, and I usually pick up moods - especially hers. She was there when I needed her, and she rode with my anger, even supported it, when it was clear that it was about the sense of violation that came from having my chest attacked. She bathed me when the process was laborious and I was shivering and scared. She cooked every meal, and put cream in anything she could work it into in order to give me the calories I needed to heal the bone. (I was eating well over 3000 calories a day with very little exercise and not gaining any weight.)

We had very different styles of caregiving, but each got the job done. I never doubted that she would be there when I needed her. Likewise, I think she knew that I'd always be there for her.

Setting limits

I'm sleeping better, my hematocrit is back up to a healthy number, I've gained my weight back, and I'm eating well. Still, I'm exhausted. The external, physical reasons have all been addressed, but my fatigue is core, apparently unshakeable, at least for now.

Twenty-four hours a day, no matter what I'm doing, my subconscious is attempting to deal with Sandy's absence. My psyche is working to process a huge amount of unthinkable data: all the ways in which Sandy's death affects my life. Sometimes I surrender all my bandwidth to that effort, allowing myself to shriek and moan with grief. Other times I relegate the process to the deep background as I focus on work or volunteer tasks or meet challenges that require physical fortitude. But if I leave it in the background for too long, I suffer. Bereavement demands tremendous resources, and it claims them from any available neuron.

I asked what picture she wanted me to use for
this post, and this is one that came up. I think of
it as her "Brie, take care of yourself" look, and
on some occasions, it also served to say "now
you're just being stupid."

No matter how many times Sandy and I talked about death - recently or over the 15 years we were together, I wasn't prepared for the always-on nature of grief. The integration process is a beast that must be fed, and if I skimp on food, sleep, exercise, or time alone, it gnaws on bone, muscle, or anything else it finds in reserve. Its drain on my resources magnifies every other form of stress, leaving me irritable and overwhelmed when even the smallest things go wrong.

I'm learning to leave gaps of unscheduled time in my days, budget extra time for changing projects and priorities, and balance the need to be social with the need to be alone. Most days, I still overschedule myself, and I typically end the day with more items on my to-do list than I started with. That has to change.

I've just said no to a work project. I was tempted by the extra cash, at first. However, the more I thought about the additional stress it would bring to my life in the next few weeks, when I'm already behind on so many projects, the more I realized no amount of money is worth it for me right now. It's not cashflow, but timeflow, that concerns me these days.

I wonder sometimes if I should have taken an entire year off work after Sandy died. We'd always said we needed to have enough money saved that the survivor could take a year off to mourn. But when clients started calling about recurring projects, I thought I was up to it. And, as a freelancer, I didn't want to lose any of my steady gigs. I thought I'd scheduled everything reasonably, leaving myself plenty of time to grieve. But that hasn't proven to be the case, and not entirely due to my negligence. So I'm just going to keep saying no for a little while until I find it easier to breathe.

Sifting through artifacts

Previously unimportant objects take on new significance when someone dies. Death means there's a limited supply of artifacts: there will be no more receipts or to-do lists, photos or paychecks, jewelry, postcards, T-shirts, strands of hair, mugs, or anything else that the person created or touched. The feeling of scarcity makes the task of sorting — or even of going about routine tasks like recycling an empty shampoo bottle — incredibly difficult.

As I went through Sandy's things in the first weeks after her death, I felt compelled to keep every bit of paper on which she'd scribbled, anything she'd stashed in a drawer, almost everything she'd touched. The decision to throw something away or recycle it required a much higher level of commitment than it would have if she and I had just been cleaning out a room together.

But not letting go of anything lessens the importance of the truly meaningful bits. So the challenge I found was in paying attention to what meant something to Sandy: what she'd have kept, what she'd have shared, what she'd have thrown away.

I'm still working on it. The easiest part was identifying things that must be kept (her favorite clothes that also fit me, the dress she wore the night we got together, photographs of her, letters and cards we gave each other, etc) or that needed to go to people who love her (favorite clothes that I won't wear, cards and letters from them, family mementos, etc.). I also found it relatively easy to get rid of things I knew she loathed, or of clothing that she never wore.

It's the in-between things, the things that have meaning now only because she touched them, that are the hardest. I've set most of them aside for now, to deal with at a time that the feeling of scarcity has receded. I'm assuming that time will come.

The evening before we were in that Whole Foods parking
lot, we had dinner with Cassandra and Steve. The delightful
thing about artifacts is that they open up a cascade of vivid
memories - far more than you might think a simple movie
ticket or grocery store receipt could inspire.

Meanwhile, there are the surprising artifacts that delight me every time I discover them. Receipts, shopping lists, and to-do lists are much more poignant now because they catalog moments in our life together. I put my hand in the pocket of my rainjacket a couple of days ago and came out with a handful of receipts. Movie ticket stubs: Inception at Pacific Place in November 2010, RoboCop at Central Cinema last spring. A Whole Foods receipt from San Jose, California last May, when we were stocking up on supplies for our two-day journey home at the end of our vacation; just seeing that receipt, I'm there again, as we debated whether to buy dried apple rings, rearranged the car's contents in the parking lot, plotted our route home.

I'll come across a to-do list, and remember her doing those tasks or us doing them together — or one or both of us feeling guilty about not getting them done. What's on the list tells me what year or sometimes even week or day it was written. Shopping lists and weekly menu plans take me to the week in question, especially when they're scribbled with notes about what we were each planning to do each night — meetings, getting together with friends, working late, volunteering somewhere. These tiny little time capsules thrill me. For now, they go back in a pile or a jacket pocket where I'll get to discover and enjoy them again later.

I'll take you there

It was just about two years ago that we saw Mavis Staples perform at Jazz Alley. When we boarded the bus to go downtown, Sandy was complaining about watery eyes, feeling a little feverish, but she wanted to continue. We met some of Sandy's friends from work before the show, and thoroughly enjoyed hearing Mavis, an incredible performer. We walked back to Pike to catch our bus late at night, with the city feeling peaceful and the sky clear. Memory is quite remarkable: I was walking the same route the other day, and suddenly my body memory transformed my surroundings. It was no longer midday, nor raining. I was with Sandy late at night; we were on a high after an inspiring performance.

The day after we saw Mavis, Sandy and I biked to Issaquah and explored a trail that parallels I-90. We were hoping for a good alternative to the highway shoulder, but the trail turned out to be rough gravel. Sandy had a great time riding it with her mountain bike tires. I had less fun. We finally figured out why I'd felt so out of control when we were on a smoother surface and I was still feeling a kerchunk every time the tire spun round. It was completely flat.

I so rarely have flat tires that I've long since stopped carrying tubes routinely. We had our bus passes, so we figured we'd just take a bus home. But it was Sunday, and the buses from Issaquah to Seattle were neither frequent nor direct. Literally hours later, we were finally in the U District, shivering, waiting for the 43 that took us home. In retrospect, we realized we should have just locked up our bikes, called a cab, and come back for the bikes with our car. But that's the kind of thing you realize only after you've trashed your immune system.

That day wrecked us. We both succombed to whatever illness Sandy had been starting to feel Saturday night, and we each had a hard time shaking it. It dragged on for weeks. We had to abandon plans for other rides for most of the month, but we continued to think we'd make it over the mountains to Moses Lake Memorial Day weekend.

I want her to feel good and energetic, and to be surrounded
by beauty wherever she goes.

That spring was stressful for many reasons, but among them were Sandy's frustration with work and her frequent exhaustion. When we got the metastatic cancer diagnosis in May, I realized those two had been connected. She'd been working longer and longer hours, as she fell further and further behind. Meanwhile, in the notes I kept of our days, I mentioned repeatedly that she was having trouble catching her breath, napping on weekends, feeling weak when she worked out at the gym. She thought she was just out of shape, so her fatigue became one more thing to beat herself up about, adding to her stress. Having a diagnosis and quitting her job were a relief in some ways, even though the treatment that followed was incredibly difficult at first.

Cancer exhausted Sandy (and me) before we knew it had returned, and it exhausted us while we fought it. Its aftermath continues to exhaust me, but I believe Sandy is no longer so tired.

I've been listening to Mavis a lot lately, remembering the night we heard her, feeling the power in her voice.  "I'll take you there" comes up frequently in the inspirational songs Sandy collected in a playlist for my iPad. Every time I hear the song,  I hope once again that Sandy's beyond crying, worry, all forms of oppression, all the burdens that kept her from being her fully realized self. 

I know a place
Ain't nobody cryin'
Ain't nobody worried
Ain't no smiling faces
Lying to the races.
Help me, come on, come on,
Somebody help me now
I'll take you there.

A home for generations

Our house is old. No-right-angles old. Walk-downhill-from-the-living-room-to-the-dining-room old. It was also cheaply constructed, as part of a set of four houses that were either identical or close to it. In 1937, the house was covered with ivy, had a billboard-sized sign advertising eggs for sale, and was reported to be in poor condition, expected to last only another five years, according to county records.

We've delighted in the history of our house. It's now an incredibly urban area, part of the densest neighborhood in the state. In 1900, when much of this area was just starting to be developed, critics wondered why anyone would want to live so far from town. (It's a 20-30 minute walk from here to the waterfront; must have taken longer without good roads.)

I'd seen conflicting reports of the age of our house, but believed that it was built in 1900. After talking to my neighbor (owner of the only other remaining house of the original four), it seems pretty clear that the house was actually built much earlier. Old maps show our houses before the street names were revised in 1895; he found square-headed nails in the siding of his house; and some documents say 1887 (for his house) and 1888 (for ours).

How many other people have collapsed gratefully on the living
room floor, as she did in 2003, after a day wrestling blackberries,
bindweed, and ivy at the back of our property?

I like knowing that our house was here long before us, and hoping that it will remain long after we're gone. (It's in much better shape than it was in 1937!) I feel Sandy in every room of this house, strongly enough to crowd out other energies. But when I first moved in, I sensed history. I knew the walls and floors had absorbed others' happiness and fears, pain and triumphs. Living alone, I wasn't sure I was up to hearing from any of those people, so I walked through the house my first evening here, letting any who were here know that they were welcome to stay, but asking that they not make their presence known just yet. Now I wonder sometimes if Sandy sees anyone else wandering through our house.

I know a little bit about the people who lived here just before I moved in. And from time to time, someone will walk by outside and say that this house used to belong to an aunt or a friend. But I know very little about the other lives that have unfolded within these walls. Sandy lived here for 13 and a half years, more than 10% of the time the house has existed, and more than a quarter of her life. How many other people have called this address home? And how much of themselves have they left here? Sandy was passionate about history, and I like knowing that she (and I) are part of the story that this house has to tell.

Out of thin air

A few days ago I wrote about the objects that go missing for a bit and then reappear. Well, now she's apparently giving me things that didn't exist previously. (Or she's been super sneaky about taking them in the first place.)

My naturopath has me taking an herbal supplement when I first wake up in the morning to try to tame my perpetually active sinuses. They've been working pretty well, though I'm not completely sold on them. Yesterday, I realized I must be running out soon, so I emptied the bottle and counted the pills. It wasn't hard. One and a half remained. I put them back in the bottle and made a note to myself to call about getting more. And then I went back and forth on it all day. Should I go without for a few days to see if I notice a difference? Were they really helping all that much? I didn't come to any firm conclusions.

In the afternoon, I walked into the bedroom to fetch my iPad, and I glanced at the bed. On the comforter, about six inches from Sandy's pillow, was a pill. One of the pills I'd been counting that morning. Except that there were still one and a half pills in the bottle. So now I had two and a half pills.

I tried to come up with any logical explanation for the pill's appearance. Had I dropped one and the cats played with it? Possibly, but they tend to play with such things on the floor; they wouldn't carry it up onto the bed. (It's not soft and cuddly like a sock, glove, or hat, all of which do find their way onto the bed frequently.) Maybe I'd not seen it come out of the bottle when I counted them earlier; I was in bed, after all. But I dumped them onto the sheet. If one fell there, it would have been covered by the comforter when I made the bed, not resting atop it.

She's a funster. This picture keeps coming up in my slideshow
screensavers. I assume it's less about Paris (which is where
this was taken in 2001), and more about the expression on her face.

I concluded that Sandy had been the bearer of the pill. But that didn't answer all the questions: had she taken it from the pill bottle earlier and returned it to me when she realized I was running low? Had she somehow come up with an extra pill and wanted to nudge me to take them? Was she just saying hi?

She never was subtle and she's still not, but now her communication can be much more opaque than it used to be. And I feel like I'm taking an immersion language course without much in the way of learning aids.

She lives on

I just went through Sandy's primary personal email account. I renewed it in September for at least another year, so that I could reply to anyone who was trying to get in touch. I've also sent email to it a time or two when I was desperate for some means of normal communication.

Every couple of months, I go through and clean out the many messages from mailing lists I've unsubscribed her from (funny how difficult it is to unsubscribe from some lists, isn't it?), the spam, and other random things. It's not an incredibly interesting task, but there are usually a few rewards tucked in among the rest.

She was a fannish girl who loved praise, and I love
accepting it on her behalf.

Today, I found several notifications of kudos on stories she's written. There was also one gushing comment left on one of her stories by someone who clearly doesn't know she's gone. And another lovely comment left on one of her vids: Roll to Me, a Due South vid that I've always loved.

I feel Sandy's presence strongly when I go through her email. Makes sense. I'd find my way pretty quickly to anyone going through my private mail. While she's here, though, I read her the messages she'd want to know about. So I believe that she gets to enjoy the comments people send on her creative works. They've certainly made my day.

Serenity

I've experienced a mental tug-of-war the past seven-plus months. I have an intellectual understanding of death that tells me Sandy is gone for good, but my emotional understanding of our relationship tells me that she wouldn't leave me. Rather than reconciling the two, I've ricocheted back and forth. I've accepted the loss for as long as I can stand it, and then I've sprung back into believing that she'll return. That refuge has refueled me so that I can continue doing the things I need to do. But that refuge is starting to fade.

After the series of messages I received from the universe recently, I thought I'd gotten the point. The message to me seemed to be that I didn't have to actively do anything to get her back; I just needed to pay attention if she returned. That understanding eased some of the tension I felt, the sense that I needed to find the path back for her.

She's strong enough that if she can come back,
she won't need my help. And she's just enough
of a ham that she'd probably want to surprise
us all, anyway. So I'll stop holding on so hard
and try to be grateful for the time we had when
she was alive and for the presence she
continues to share so often now.

But then there was another message, in the season premiere of a show we used to watch together. The main character sees a friend die but can't believe he's really gone. Other characters tell him he needs to deal with his issues around mortality and accept the truth, but he clings to his belief that the friend survives until DNA evidence proves that his friend is dead. I watched the show intently, seeing it mirror my own denial, and then, of course (because why else would they have made such a big deal over the denial?), the person really is still alive. A plot twist (a predictable one), but also a message. It's not just that I don't need to do anything to get her back. I don't even need to believe she's coming back. If through some miracle of physics, she should reappear, it won't require my belief or focus.

That's a good thing, because I'm coming to realize that in order to move forward, I need to let go of the fantasy that she could return, even while I embrace the knowledge that she's often here. 

It's become clear to me that I needed the fantasies, the disbelief, the denial simply to survive. Now, I don't expect to thrive, exactly, but I think that I can go on without them. Or at least, I can enjoy them without needing to believe they'll come true. And I'll know that, no matter what I believe, if she can come back, she won't need my help to do it.

I woke this morning thinking of the serenity prayer:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference. 

I've always been fine with the courage part, and I'm relatively astute at actually knowing the difference. But that knowledge hasn't kept me from trying to change the things I can't. And now? Now, I think I'm ready for a little serenity.

Romance at the credit union

In thinking about our pending, retroactive legal marriage, I've been appreciating the credit union. That's where we signed mortgage papers together in June of 1998. When people asked us if we were going to have a commitment ceremony, I always said that had been it. Risking my credit rating was a big deal for me; taking on responsibility for the mortgage debt was a big deal for Sandy. It was a momentous occasion.

The week before what I now realize was our wedding, we
went to Nebraska for my family reunion, and saw cousins I
hadn't seen since childhood and their families.

Nine years later, in July 2007, we signed the domestic partnership papers in front of a notary. Whenever we needed a notary public, we stopped by our credit union. It's six blocks from our house, they're good people, and there's always a notary on hand. So it was the natural place to go with this important paperwork.

We joked at the time about the unromantic nature of the transaction. The form went to the secretary of state's office, to the department of corporations. Not a bastion of hearts and flowers. After they received the form, they mailed us a certificate and wallet cards so that we could prove our status if we were challenged at hospitals or anywhere else

Now, it turns out, that was our wedding. A landmark errand sandwiched in between buying groceries and depositing a check. A moment that we noticed, commented on, and were excited about, but not one that we considered a public celebration of our love. Yet on June 30, 2014, the state of Washington will recognize that as the day we were wed. I think of that building very differently now every time I walk by.   

Hide and seek

I'm not a tidy person, but I know where things are. Usually, I can walk right to whatever I seek, whether I put it there or Sandy did. It's part of my identity individually, and it was one of my roles in our relationship: I find things.

Several weeks after Sandy died, I wanted to play one of our favorite Paul Simon albums. Most of our CDs are in a 400-CD jukebox. I spun the dial to the CD I wanted; we listened to it frequently so I knew where it lives. But it wasn't there. The display jumped over its number, indicating there was no CD in the slot. I opened the door to look, and the CD was gone. I assumed Sandy must have had it out to copy it to her computer, so I checked the stacks of loose CDs near her desk in the TV room, as well as the loose CDs on top of the stereo. For months, every time I came across a disc, I thought maybe that was it. I assumed it would show up, and eventually, I decided I'd just replace it the next time I'm in a music store. But its absence nagged at me.

Then, a couple of months ago, I wanted to listen to music but didn't know what I wanted. I spun the dial on the jukebox, watching the display for something that appealed. And there it was, right where it was supposed to be. I felt a little crazy as I played it, but rejoiced in the reunion.

I adore this photo of Sandy and her older sister, and thought
this was a great excuse to use it. After all, I keep scratching
my head,figuratively, over these missing things.

I don't remember why I started looking for the small blue Japanese cups that usually sit on the cluttered desktop in the living room. But I couldn't find either of them. I wondered whether Sandy had given them to someone in her last week at home. Or if I'd carried them to some other room in a fit of cleaning. Again, I searched the house. My mind kept at it for weeks and weeks, trying to think where I might have taken them and why. I'd interrupt whatever I was doing when I suddenly thought of a new location I hadn't looked. But I never found them.

And then a few weeks ago, as I put a paid bill in the desk cubby to be filed later, just as I've done dozens of times in the past months, I saw one of the cups. It's right where it was supposed to be, where it should have been all along, where I looked for it. It's still full of foreign coins from our travels. I haven't found its mate, though every now and then I turn the house upside-down again looking for it.

Now I'm missing Bananagrams, the Scrabble-like game Sandy's mom gave us a few years ago. With its bright yellow banana-shaped case, it's hard to miss. It's not on the game shelf, where it should be. I know we took it with us to Ocean Shores last April and we may have had it with us on vacation in May, but the other games we took with us are all back in place. Again, I've looked everywhere, dug through luggage and camping boxes and anything else it might have been stuffed in. There's a very slim chance we left it in a motel room, but I doubt it. I suspect one of these days it will just appear on the game shelf again.

I felt a little better after I read one of my books on communicating with the other side. It included stories of people who were suddenly missing things and then having them return. In one anecdote, a woman laid a pen down on the bed and left the room for a minute; it was gone when she returned, and she searched everywhere before finally just asking out loud for it to reappear. When she walked back into the room, it was on the bed again. That felt familiar.

Though it makes me crazy to miss things, I kind of like the idea that Sandy wanted to listen to comfort music, hold on to her Japanese cups, play Bananagrams. It would be hypocritical of me to ask her to be present but deny her access to our things.