I didn't die last night

I was tired yesterday, a combination of cozy fatigue after a long bike ride Saturday, sinus adjustments to another change in the weather, and no real urgency in anything on my to-do list. I felt disengaged from the world. I was a spectator at the farmer's market, though I'd gone there seeking the energy of people. 

It wasn't a bad day, just an odd one. But I wasn't fully present in my life, and I couldn't quite picture today or the rest of the week to come. That sort of feeling always makes me superstitious about whether I have a future. So when I discovered that my resting pulse was only 52, I thought about how difficult it had been to breathe deeply all day, and I concluded that my heart might be in trouble. 

My usual resting pulse is 60 and has been for years, long before I had open-heart surgery. 52 isn't far from that, and it's common for people who are very fit or athletic to have resting pulse rates lower than 60. I don't think of myself in that category, but I hadn't had any troubling symptoms. (The inability to breathe deeply felt more like needing to do yoga than anything else; today my resting pulse rate is 58.) Ordinarily I'd have noted the rate and gone on.

However, it was midnight when I took my pulse, after a day of disengagement, and in the dark of night, it's easy to jump to conclusions that look silly during the day. As I lay down to sleep, I thought it very likely that I would die before morning. 

Cats clearly don't equate sleeping with dying. (Nor do they
respect others' needs for sleep!) Sandy also never worried
about dying in her sleep, even when I was paranoid about
her seizures back in 2004. I played the role of the cat then,
waking her frequently due to my fears and hypervigilance.

I rarely think about dying when I go to bed at night. Only when I have a serious respiratory illness or fear I have a concussion does it usually occur to me. Last night, it didn't seem a melodramatic thought at all. It seemed appropriate, poetic. And, unexpectedly, I didn't want it. I want Sandy here; I don't want to join her. I haven't redone my legal documents yet and my mind quickly started cataloging all the ways in which I'd be leaving a mess for those who had to deal with my estate. I was concerned about the cats, as I didn't think anyone would know about my death until Tuesday evening. 

I was surprised by the strength of my will to live. The over-attention to physical symptoms is a classic sign of depression. But this desire to see the next day? That's a sign in the other direction. As I fell asleep, I asked Sandy to keep an eye on me and not to let me join her just yet.

Obviously, I woke up this morning. I don't feel refreshed, but that's largely due to a couple of obnoxious felines who kept me awake from 6:30 on in some misguided effort to get fed. I'd turned out the light at 12:40, so I was desperate for more sleep. I didn't get much. I finally gave in and rose at just about 9:00, and after eating their breakfast and running around the house a little more, they settled in on the bed by 10 and slept until 1:45. Sigh. I clearly should have just fed them at 6:30 and crawled back into bed. But I didn't. And I'm tired. And I have no good way of knowing if it's just sleep deprivation paired with sinus issues or if there is something wrong. I don't expect to die tonight, though. I have a dentist appointment tomorrow, and I can envision that all too clearly. And I have an echo scheduled for May 30, so if there is any reason for concern, we'll see it then.

As I drifted off last night, I thought about a line from an essay by Diane Ackerman in the book The Inevitable, which is a collection of works by contemporary authors about death. Ackerman said, "We all died last night, as we do every night. Waking is always a resurrection after what might have been death." At the time I read that, I thought it absurd: I don't think of death as related to sleep, but then I have always slept very lightly. This morning, though, the first words out of my mouth were, "So, I guess I didn't die last night."

Recognizing some peace

At the grocery store, the checker asked me, "How are you?" and tears came to my eyes. I haven't been having a hard day. I've felt Sandy's presence strongly for much of the past week. If anyone else had asked how I was, I'd have said something about my eyes hurting after a bike ride yesterday (I was in the store for eye drops) or I'd have chatted about my gardening goals for the day competing with my desire to putter around the house.

But a couple weeks after Sandy died, I'd been in this checker's lane at a slow time of day. I was clearly not doing well at that point, and in answer to her concern, I'd told her about Sandy's death. We talked then for several minutes and she came out from behind the counter and hugged me — a strong, nourishing embrace. Her empathy was strong and real and true. It touched me then and still means a great deal to me.

The next time I saw her, a week or two later, she asked how I was doing and said she'd been thinking about me. It was clear to me that she had. This was a woman who had truly felt my pain. She continued to be supportive in the weeks that followed. But then I didn't see her. I fell into a pattern of doing my weekly shopping on Friday afternoons, and I assume now that she doesn't work on Fridays. I hadn't even realized that I hadn't seen her until I was in her line today.

It's been over eight months since our first conversation about Sandy's death. I'm not in the same place emotionally that I was then. I've experienced pain, joy, despair, frustration, gratitude — the whole gamut — in relationship to Sandy's death, dying, and life. But when this caring woman (I don't even know her name) asked me today how I was doing, I felt both permission (welcome) and pressure (not so welcome) to grieve openly.

To her, I am the widow. Walking away, it was interesting to realize that, while I am still Sandy's widow, that is not how I primarily identify anymore. Grief and widowhood are a potent part of who I am, but more and more it is their reflection that I feel most strongly. That is, I can only be a widow because I was lucky enough to have Sandy for my partner. This grief is a result of love and a shared life.

This is another of the photos on that found roll of film. I think
it was probably 2000, because we'd put in the brick walkway
in the planting strip - I think that went in Christmas Day 1999.
It's very much Sandy, but she'd have been appalled by her hair!

As time passes, I'm gaining perspective on many things. First, and most satisfying, is that the period of her dying and the immediate aftermath of her death is fading in emphasis. It was just a tiny percentage of her life, and a small part of our time together. Of course it was an important time, and her death remains the most significant event of my life. But my thoughts of Sandy are now much more about other times, other Sandys, and not the time of suffering and fear and loss.

I've also made some progress on forgiving myself for my imperfections. With less regret, grief stabs less sharply. Sandy was (and remains) the most important person in my world, but she wasn't (and isn't) the most important person in the world. None of us get everything we want, and she wasn't entitled to have her every whim satisfied any more than anyone else is. So I can let go of feeling like I let her down if I didn't want to play catch in the park or had to get work done when she wanted me to garden with her, just as I certainly don't hold it against her that she worked long hours or double-booked her time or any number of other little things that she'd be kicking herself about if I'd died. And the big regrets? We talked about those before she died, and we've talked about them since. Sometimes I even think I've found my peace around them. Sometimes.

So next time I see that checker, I'll make a point to talk about something else in my life, to put the grief in a broader context. I appreciate her genuine concern, but I no longer need the extra attention from people I don't know well. (I still need it from friends.) I also find myself wondering whether there are people I freeze in time at one emotional state or another. Meanwhile, I appreciate the opportunity to see that I and my grief have grown and changed over time.

There she is!

As I mentioned yesterday, I found an old roll of film we'd never developed. We'd come across it several times, and each time we'd wondered what was on it and said we ought to have it processed. But we never had. Today, I dropped it off at a 60 Minute Photo shop in the neighborhood.

I anticipated good things, because I felt pushed to find this film and to have it developed. A few days ago, in the neighborhood blog, I read about plans to build on 14th between Pike and Pine, a few blocks from our house. In the comments, people were lamenting the loss of 60 Minute Photo, currently in the area that is soon to be under construction. They talked about what a great place it was, what wonderful people worked there, and how hard it is to find good film service in the age of digital photography. I've passed the place hundreds, maybe even thousands, of times, and hadn't ever thought about it.

When I came across the film yesterday, then, I knew exactly where to go to have it developed. And I found the film only because Sandy has apparently hidden the state quarters, which we stored in a film canister, and which I was looking for. So it seemed very important to find out what was on this roll.

I was nervous when I dropped it off. I wasn't sure how well the film would have held up through the years, and I knew that the chances were good that they were mainly garden photos. I tried to tell myself it didn't matter, that photos from that era would bring back memories even if Sandy wasn't in them.

I hit the jackpot. Out of 27 photos, seven include Sandy. And they're all of a time that I don't have any other photographic record of, just as the trees were taken down next door and the construction on the condos began. Our house and yard were so different. We were so young and enthusiastic. It's a gift to have these, especially now, when I've felt the limitations of our photo collection and was desperate for new images of Sandy.

I checked the camera when I got back from dropping off the film earlier, and I discovered that its roll is full, too. So I'll take it in next week and hope for more treasures from the past.

This was the first photo on the roll. I find it incredibly cheery. I'd forgotten how much it felt like we lived in the woods before the condos went up next door. Sandy had just started container gardening, and I believe I took this photo to show
off her new pot of flowers. This was probably early summer of 1998, about six months after she moved in.

Quarters

When the treasury started issuing quarters for each state, hundreds of thousands of people began collecting them. Sandy and I were no exception. We weren't obsessed; we didn't buy the little cardboard map with slots for the coins. We just noticed when state quarters came into our possession, and added those we didn't already have to our pile. We kept a list of which ones we had so we could check quickly. The quarters originally went into an old film canister set on a shelf in the dining room. When they overflowed the canister, we just started piling them up next to it. It wasn't a big deal, just something we thought was kind of cool. Mainly, we liked seeing what each state chose to represent itself. And we were delighted to get one for American Samoa.

I've rearranged some things on the dining room shelves a few times in the last few months. Mainly, I moved the garden seeds down to the cabinet, making more room for cookbooks. But most of the little things that had been set on the shelves at some point in the past decade remained there: tiles with our house numbers that we bought in Spain in 1999; the cast of Pico's paw print; a green plastic slinky with Microsoft's logo on it; a small ceramic turtle that a friend gave Sandy, and next to it, the turtle's head, which broke off when a cat was batting it around the floor. You get the idea.

Today, I unexpectedly started going through the things on those shelves, moving things that didn't actually belong there to other places in the house. As I was doing so, I found the stack of quarters and the paper that listed which ones we had. But I couldn't find the canister that held the bulk of the coins. I'm missing 18 of the ones that were on our list.

We got our first digital camera in 2001, so the unexposed film
was probably from 2000 or 2001. But I have no idea what
would have been on it. Certainly, we were more conservative
with taking photos when they required actual film. This photo
is of Sandy in the lot next door before they ripped out the
trees and built the condos. She was saving flowers and other
plants before the bulldozers came. She's next to the fence on
the far side of the lot, in a white shirt and blue pants.

I thought at first that I must have moved the canister when I moved the seeds earlier this year. So I looked in the cabinet that has the seeds, and I found a film canister — that had actual film inside it. No sign of the quarters. There was a film canister nestled in the green slinky, and I was sure that must hold them. No. Instead, it held a roll of film that had already been shot and needs to be processed. (Now I'm hoping for more pictures of Sandy, if the film turns out after more than a decade of neglect.)

I tried to think where I might have put the canister of quarters. What would make sense to me? I checked every place that could have seemed at all logical, even though I knew I wouldn't have moved it without taking the additional stack and the paper that listed them all. Why would I separate them?

I wondered if someone had stolen them, but that's a ludicrous idea, given that the only people who have been in the house are my friends. And, anyway, if you were going to steal quarters, wouldn't you take the stack, rather than the canister?

So I'm assuming at this point that Sandy has them, and that she'll return them when she's ready. I found Bananagrams a couple of weeks ago, not on the game shelf but on the shelf below it, where I'd also looked. There's a very small chance that I had put it there last summer and that it had been there, hidden by something, when I looked earlier. But I had made a point of searching that shelf thoroughly, so I really think it appeared later.  At any rate, it's back now, like all the other things that have gone missing and left me feeling crazy.

The pursuit of these quarters—which are more meaningful to me now that Sandy's gone because collecting them was a goofy thing we did together—led me to find the film that needs to be processed. (And to discover that there's still film in the old camera, too, so I'll finish out the roll and get it processed as well.) I have great hopes for that film, because why else would she take the quarters if not to get me to pay attention to film canisters?

Bubbles pop

I had an amazing visitation dream this morning. In fact, it feels weird to say that I had the dream, because it seems to be more Sandy's act than mine. The dream was unexpected and lovely, and she was so clearly here with me. Once again, it occurred after I'd considered getting up for the day, knowing I didn't really need any more sleep, but letting myself drift off again because I didn't need to get up right away.

Visitation dreams always seem sudden. One moment I'm looking at the clock and debating whether to go back to sleep, and the next moment, Sandy is with me.

February 14, 2004, at a marriage equality rally at
Westlake Center in Seattle.

When I woke again, I felt very loved and very not-alone. I knew that she died, knew that I was the only living human in the house. But I also knew that she remained present in the world, present in my world, and that is a gift I treasure.

I worked well, ate lunch, read local blogs, and caught up on the day's events. I felt centered and competent and capable. And then information I'd expected for a work project didn't come as scheduled at 2:00, and I decided to get a few things cleared off my seemingly endless to-do list while I waited. Mainly, I made a bunch of appointments for the end of May, when my work calendar is light. I was relieved to finally get the heat pump maintenance scheduled, for example.

Then came the medical appointments. I need an echo, mainly just to confirm that my replacement valve is behaving itself. I used to be nonchalant about echos, having had them every couple of years since 1980. But ever since the one in 2008 led to open-heart surgery, I'm a little nervous about them. I was expecting that slight feeling of anxiety. But I'd forgotten about the questions.

Almost every time I make an appointment, the folks at Group Health verify all my information again. Yes, I live at the same address and have the same phone number I've had for seventeen years. Yes, I'm still self-employed and have no other insurance. And then, "Is your emergency contact still Sandra Hereld?"

I suppose I could have just said yes and left their records inaccurate, but I'm an emergency-planning enthusiast and I believe in accurate emergency-contact information. I don't care all that much whether something happens to me, but if they're going to contact anyone, I want to be in control of who they try first. So I said, "No, she died in July." The woman said the sympathetic things that people say, and I gave her new emergency contact information. But that lovely bubble of comfort and confidence that I awoke with this morning was gone. Instead, I was suddenly irritable and self-pitying, snapping at people later in the afternoon and throwing the cats off my desk a little more forcefully than was really necessary.

I didn't make the connection at first. Eventually, I recognized that telling someone that Sandy died always feels like a punch in the gut. It's hard enough when I prepare myself to tell someone; when it comes up unexpectedly, it's like the universe is rubbing it in, forcing me to admit that she's gone. And any illusions or delusions that had cushioned my psyche that day disappear.

She was here this morning. I wish so intensely that I could just pull her back through to this plane, or else stay with her in whatever in-between world we inhabited together just a few hours ago. 

Uncharted territory

We didn't make plans for 2012. In May 2010, an oncologist told us that the median life expectancy for metastatic breast cancer was 18 months. Though we expected Sandy to zoom past that date, and though we talked frequently and casually about twenty or thirty years into the future, we didn't specifically talk about dates past 2011.

We looked forward to traveling in September, and then moved that trip up to May when her chemo break came earlier than expected. She was excited about Vividcon in August, and she was afraid she might not be up to it; I urged her to buy plane tickets when they were affordable in early June. And we were counting down the months to having the house paid off, which we planned to do a few months early, in December 2011.

That was it. All other talk of the future was vague and routine, goals we'd meet someday, adventures we'd like to have, projects we might do, skills we might learn. It was unusual for us not to have plans in mind for this year and the years that followed, ideas of how we'd build strength or otherwise gradually work towards specific goals.

With the uncertainty of treatment, and especially with her
unpredictable pain and nausea, we were living day to day,
sometimes hour to hour, at home and when we traveled.
I'm only now starting to return to my usual habit of looking
forward further into the future as I make plans.

We may have been superstitious or frightened, but mostly, we didn't talk about specific plans because everything was so uncertain. We didn't know how long the first chemo drug would last, and then when we knew it had run its course, we couldn't quite picture the new routine yet. Brain radiation got added into the mix, and that was scary and amorphous in its own right. We were putting off making any firm plans for anything until the radiation was done and she was settled into a new chemo routine and we could envision our daily lives again.

We never got there, of course. Last fall, I had a sense each day of what Sandy would be doing, based on the schedule she'd had in the months before she died. When I imagined her here with me, it was a continuation of the life we'd been living while she was disabled.

We're so far past the time we'd planned for that I no longer know where the road might have taken us if she hadn't died. That's changed how I've mourned.

At first, I focused on how quickly our expectations had changed, how suddenly and stealthily the cancer had advanced. I wanted our life from June 15 back. In hindsight, those days seemed blissful, even though we were struggling with Sandy's unexplained pain and nausea.

As time has passed, I've increasingly been angry that she had cancer at all. I long now for 2005, when she was healthy and strong and we had no idea what the future had in store for us. But better than returning to 2005 would be moving forward, with Sandy returning and having a chance to do all the things she wanted to do.

When I picture her here now, I frequently picture her healthy, energetic, active, and enthusiastic. I don't imagine her relying on her walking sticks or having hip pain. I don't see her sleeping until 11 a.m., fatigued from chemo and cancer. She isn't nauseated or constipated, and she has all her hair. I imagine her here with me, living our lives now, enjoying all that we should have been able to experience together.

Thinking about regrets

On vacations, Sandy would start saying, "We never did [fill in the blank]" long before the opportunity for doing whatever it was had passed. In mid-summer, she'd start sighing about all that we hadn't gotten to (kayaking, camping, going out of town, biking somewhere), though we still had months of nice weather ahead of us. I tend to look to the future, so this premature regret always struck me as odd. I assumed it had to do with her depression: focusing on what we hadn't experienced instead of appreciating what we'd done. But she never seemed that despondent over it; it sounded more like a criticism, that she was saying we'd let inertia or laziness keep us from some great opportunity. Because it felt like criticism, it often irked me. In fact, more than once, she was wistful about not doing something that I'd tried to arrange, but she'd decided she would rather do something else. At some point, I stopped arguing with her expressions of regret and instead started trying to find ways we could get to the things that were important to her.

Despite her tendency to have regrets early, she was much
better at living in the moment than I ever was. On bike rides,
I'd be ticking off the miles ridden while she'd enjoy the
view or the feeling of the wind on her face or the joy of
her body and bicycle working in synch. I learned a lot from
Sandy about just being in a moment in our lives.

"We never did" is not my sentence-starter. It's Sandy's. I was more likely to say, "Next year, let's." But then, I expected the universe to grant us limitless opportunities. I didn't expect either of us to die before we'd had a chance to do everything we wanted to do.

Now I say "We never did" frequently, usually to myself or to Sandy. It feels like I'm channeling Sandy every time I say it: We never did build the raised mosaic patio next to the laurel in the back yard. We never did remodel the kitchen. We never did get a dog, get married, weatherize the house, bike to Ashland with friends, program the universal remote, travel to Turkey, get our photos organized, write summaries of the years we shared, make our own mozzarella, take that canning class, buy new swimsuits. We never did volunteer at Food Lifeline, get good window coverings for her room, buy her an electric bike, work through the most challenging issues in our relationship.

And we never will do any of those things. The window has closed on important and small tasks alike. Many of those items remain on my list, and I may get to them, but we'll never get to do them together.

This perspective has given me more sympathy for the regrets and wistfulness she felt. But I've also come to recognize how silly it is to write things off when you can still do them. Which are the things  I most want to accomplish or experience before I die? And which are the things that can safely join the "never got to" list when I die? I want to keep the distinction in mind, but mainly I want to focus on all that I do get to do and enjoy. There will be plenty of time for regrets after I'm gone.

What the bleep

I watched "What the Bleep Do We Know?" on DVD yesterday. It was a major release in 2004, I guess, but I only vaguely remember hearing about it at the time. A friend recommended it to me when we were talking about my reading on alternate universes, so I thought I'd see if it had anything to offer.

It's weird, intentionally freaky. It's essentially a popular introduction to quantum physics, intertwined with a plot that's supposed to illustrate the concepts. I didn't care for the approach. I did, however, find the scientific and philosophical discussions (the non-plotted parts) intriguing. I honestly don't know how it did well, though, as I'd not have been able to follow the threads if I hadn't done so much reading on quantum physics recently.

Much of the emphasis is on the influence our consciousness — our thoughts — have on reality. The mind-body connection is real, and many in the scientific community have come to embrace practices such as guided imagery and meditation, after seeing amazing, repeatable results in controlled experiments. But the film emphasized more than how our thoughts influence our own bodies; it explored the ways our thoughts influence the world around us.

That's trippy. And it's dangerous territory for me. I've always had a ridiculously strong internal locus of control. I feel responsible for all that happens in the world; I certainly felt responsible for Sandy's wellbeing. Many smart people, friends and therapists alike, have tried to help me understand that in fact, I don't control everything, am not expected to be all-powerful, and am not to blame when bad things happen. (They also think my concentration has nothing to do with what's keeping the plane in the air. Yeah, right. That thing just floats up there on its own. . .)

There are cool studies that show that a short period of true
gratitude boosts the immune system for hours afterwards, so
we spent time focusing on all that we were grateful for; I have
our various gratitude lists, scribbled on legal pads. But I
haven't seen studies specifically on depression, anger,
frustration, or despair and the immune system. It'd be
interesting to know how much damage such emotions (or,
as is often the case with depression, lack of emotion) cause,
if any. And whether expressing anger vs. suppressing it makes
any difference, for example. There's so much I don't know.

I came away from the movie even more interested in quantum physics and its intersection with philosophy. But I also came away troubled. I know enough about breast cancer now to know that the features of Sandy's initial tumors indicated extremely aggressive cancer, and that no one has yet been cured once such cancer metastasizes. (And that, indeed, it would have been a miracle if a cancer with those particular properties hadn't metastasized.) Yet I've wondered many times if her depression played a role in the cancer's genesis and its proliferation. If I'd been a better partner, more supportive, more [fill in the blank], would she have lived? Every time I start to believe that her death was nobody's fault, something comes along to make me question it all over again.

Frankly, until we know how to both prevent and cure breast cancer, and specifically the aggressive type that Sandy had, almost any answers are possible. Maybe there are things we could have done. Maybe if we'd started meditating together earlier, for example, or if she'd not returned to Microsoft, things might have been different. I won't even go into the long list of ways I hurt and disappointed her over the years, but I revisit those frequently, wondering if they — individually or collectively — led to the development of disease.

We can't see all the alternate universes where each choice was different, where we actually found an effective way to halt Sandy's depression, where I was the perfect partner, where she had all the support she needed to love herself as much as she loved others. Quantum physics says that those alternate universes may exist, but it's hard to do a solid comparative study when the data is so far out of our reach.

So I'm learning once again to try to walk the line — understanding that I am not responsible for all that happens in the world and that my hypervigilance is not necessary or healthy, while somehow being empowered to use meditation, yoga, guided imagery, and other techniques to heal my mind and body and some small part of the world with a sense of peace and harmony. It's a tough line to walk. For now, anyway, the universe seems intent on correcting my course when I slip off the beam onto one side or another, but it's not generous enough to offer up any clear answers.

Choose your ending

If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.

- Orson Welles

It's July 2009. We've parked our car in Mukilteo and gone to Whidbey Island on our bikes, loaded down with clothing, books, and food for our getaway. I'm four months past surgery, and we're both feeling strong on the bikes. We've come through a few hard years, but things are looking up now as we enjoy each other's company and explore parts of the island we haven't played in before. If the credits start rolling at that point, the audience is left with a story of triumph over adversity and can imagine us living happily ever after.

But if that's just the end of Act I or Act XVII — if the story continues, the message changes. Two years later, Sandy dies, and we know by then that the cancer had probably returned even during that time of relief and optimism. If the camera fades as Sandy's body is carried out of the hospice, what message does the audience take home then? Life is fleeting? Hope is a farce? Love doesn't conquer all?

Sandy's story didn't end in July 2009 or July 2011. So where does a human story end? I was pondering that this morning, imagining the movie of her life. Just as the scenes might start before her birth, with some background on her family or the world at the time, the movie would probably extend beyond her death. Though she may not be here in physical form any longer, there are things she set in motion that continue.

Were I to direct that film, I'd want something about her donating her body to science and the knowledge that came out of that gift. Her soon-to-come bench and the people who rest there, who read the plaque, who wonder about her life. I'd show her flowers coming back year after year, and the trees she planted as they grow taller and stronger over time. Her stories entertaining people far into the future, and the communities she helped to nurture continuing to evolve, sometimes in ways that she planted the seeds for. I'd film the people who knew and loved her, thinking about her and finding inspiration in their own lives, making choices they might not have made without her influence.

We affect the world around us. I don't know whether a butterfly flapping its wings actually causes a hurricane. But I do know that our words and actions cause changes we don't see. Sometimes we're fortunate enough to learn about them later, but often we have no idea. Sandy was such a strong presence that I believe her effect was greater than average, and that ripples she started will continue for decades, maybe centuries, into the future.

So I think I might modify Welles's wisdom just a bit to recognize that the happiest ending occurs when the story doesn't stop.

Nine months

Nine months ago tonight, at just about this time, Sandy started breathing in the way that people describe as a death rattle.

For days I'd been watching her die. Nearly two full weeks before, we'd agreed not to try to treat the cancer any further, not to try to save her life. It is not in my nature to stop trying, but I did. I turned my focus to Sandy's comfort and her ability to spend meaningful time with the people she loved. I stayed in the present as much as possible, not daring to think about the time that came after. When thoughts of that time did intrude — usually when I was not in the room with Sandy, having wandered out for a few minutes — I broke down. But by living in the present as much as possible, I could keep that horrible reality at bay just a little longer. And I didn't have to face the thought that I was just letting her die. That we were all complicit in the cancer's destruction, somehow.

And then, late on the evening of July 18, I told her I wished the doctors had been right on June 16, and that it really had just been a complicated migraine after her first radiation treatment. She squeezed my hand, practically pumping it. I think she moved her head up and down a little too. She agreed. Knowing she was paying attention to my words, then, I continued talking and I'm not sure exactly what I said. But somehow I felt her communicate that she hadn't intended to stop eating and drinking, that she was holding on because she thought there was still a chance she could recover, and because she wanted to live.

I've revisited those moments repeatedly in the past nine months, trying to make sense of them. She couldn't speak. Her eyes had clouded over. I don't even remember my own exact words to her, let alone know how it was I felt her communicate with me. And no one else got the message from her. I've wondered if I made it up, imagined it in my disorientation after days of little sleep and little food and the nightmare of watching her lose all of her strength and energy. But I believe — no, I know — that there was some communication from her, and I wonder now whether she'd already started sending thoughts into my head, as she has now several times since her death. Whatever it was, I was primed for it. I'd been holding back my natural urge to fight for her life, and what I heard was permission to jump back in and try.

I must have seemed insane, certainly desperate, as I tried to moisten her tongue with water droplets from a straw and then from my finger. I wanted to try giving her some of the Boost she'd liked five days before, and her best friend wisely suggested we talk to the nurse first to make sure that wouldn't hurt her.

Meanwhile, I told Sandy that if she wanted to fight, I'd fight with her. But I also told her that she was so far gone, I didn't know whether she could come back now. That I didn't know if she'd ever be able to see again, or to walk; that I'd love her and take care of her no matter what, but it might be too late. It was the most intense, complicated confusion of hope and despair and regret and excitement that I ever remember feeling. After days of helplessness, I was eager to craft a plan and to join with Sandy in another effort to heal.

That's about when she started her death breathing. At first, we thought she might have choked on the water on her tongue. It was only after the nurse identified the breath for us, and then affirmed that she was also having seizures and brought back medication to alleviate those, that I began to realize that what I'd experienced — what had given me a last gasp of hope — was Sandy's version of the final adrenaline rush that others had talked about. I hadn't recognized it. She hadn't leaped from the bed to go to the bathroom or asked for a meal. What had transpired had been so personal, had felt so strongly like a conversation between us (and again, I keep trying to make sense of that and I can't quite). Her strong will was there again, and she was emphatic that she wanted to live. And since I so desperately wanted to turn the whole thing around, to believe that there was a way back to our lives, I snapped to attention and became fully engaged.

A couple of hours later, after she'd stopped breathing abruptly and the nurse confirmed that her heart had stopped (just typing those words still sends me into spasms of grief and keening — how could I let her heart stop? How could I just let her die?), at that point, I felt foolish, like a sucker, like that final interaction hadn't been Sandy but some alien creature who had invaded her emptying shell and mocked me.

I don't feel like a fool anymore, most of the time. I'd have done anything for Sandy, and what she needed from me those last weeks was to let her die. That was so much harder than fighting for her life would have been, but it was the right thing to do. And it wasn't like she gave up. She fought as long as fighting made sense, and she turned her attention to the process of dying when that was the appropriate thing for her to do for herself and for all of us. But it was so hard for me. And that last bit of drama, which felt like a cheap trick in the immediate aftermath, has become a memory I've cherished.

Forty-eight hours before, she'd been ready to go. She was exhausted and she felt okay about leaving her life. She kept telling me we'd had fifteen and a half good years, wanting me to be grateful for that. That was real. But the final desire to live, wanting to stay, that was real, too. I've heard and read enough to know now that it's the body's final hurrah, that it's separate from any real circumstances. But when she squeezed my hand, that was Sandy. She was still there.

A few days later, when I talked about Sandy's death with one of the social workers, she said she thought that last interaction may have been Sandy's gift to me. At the time, it was hard to see it that way. But I have come to consider it a gift, or at least a message. At the very least, it seems an acknowledgment of how hard it was for me not to keep trying to save her, and how terribly painful it was for me to let her go.

It's hard to believe that it's been nine months, and my heart hasn't yet stopped. My breath hasn't become a rattle. I still seek out sustenance. Despite my suspicions that the world would become a dark void if she died, the opposite has been alarmingly true. I'm different, but I'm still here, and gradually I'm becoming more engaged in the activity that swirls around me. And any fears I had of Sandy fading for me or others have proved unwarranted; she remains very much a part of those who were lucky enough to know her.

Sandy's sayings

Sandy was a woman of words. And now I've begun to worry that I'm going to lose the things she said regularly, because I don't know that I'd ever bothered to write them down. So here are some of the ones I think of most fondly, and I'm hoping others will share the words they remember her saying frequently in the comments.

When she left the house, she'd yell up to my office, "I love you; I'm leaving!" That was my cue that if I wanted a kiss, I should head to the front door pronto. I look at the words I've just typed, and they don't do justice to the way she said it. The words "you" and "I'm" sort of ran together, and she spoke with a lilt, offering a cheery invitation, with a hint of triumph, too, as if to celebrate the accomplishment of finally getting out the door. It often took her a while to get going, usually because she wanted to read things, but more recently because she was fatigued. So it was an achievement to head out the door, especially on time.

Another parting tradition was for her to refer to me as "my love, my dove, mine own." I don't know where she got that, or how many others she addressed that way, but I cherished it.

She also frequently said, "Dunna dawdle," when I or someone else was puttering around, looking for shoes, or otherwise keeping us from leaving. I'm not even sure how to spell the first word; it was an elision of "do not," and again it was said cheerfully, almost optimistically, rather than in a scolding tone.

When she'd fumble in speech or grab the wrong noun out of the air, she'd say, "English is hard."

Ten years ago, three of our nephlings (or niblings) came over
to help us combat the blackberries, bindweed, and other fun
things that grew with abandon at the back of our property.
This picture shows Sandy with Kyle, Collin, and me; Allison
must have been the photographer.

She referred to our nephews and nieces collectively as nephlings. A couple of years ago, she started changing that to refer to them as niblings, similar to siblings and not favoring nephews in the collective noun.

When we first got together, she had a habit of ending phone calls with the words, "I'm hanging up on you now." It took some doing, but I finally got through to her that the idiomatic meaning of "hanging up on" someone was negative and ended a call on a bad note. (Likewise, I used to say, "Shut up" casually, and she found it hurtful, so I stopped.)

When she'd passed gas in a store or some other enclosed space, she'd sidle up to me (or others) and say, "We must leave now. I've polluted our environment." A friend recently wrote me with her memory of Sandy saying that, and I heard it many times. It was refreshingly honest.

Several years ago, she was annoyed at me and said, "My God, woman!" I said, " I'm your God-woman? Wow!" She laughed, and from that point on, she often referred to me as her God-woman.

She also called me her person, as an alternative to partner or spouse. I picked it up and referred to her the same way. Neither of us had any desire to be owned or ruled, but we both wanted to be claimed. Somehow referring to each other as "my person" seemed sweet and appropriate.

When we feared we wouldn't make it across an intersection before the light changed, she'd admonish, "No dying!" I whisper that sometimes now, not as I cross intersections, but as I think of her: "No dying."

Hosting solo

Today was only the second time I've had a group of people in the house since Sandy died. The first time wasn't really my gathering; the local fans came over to sort through Sandy's fannish collection. So this was the first event I actually hosted.

I'm an insecure hostess at best. I tend to prefer getting together with people one-on-one rather than seeing people in groups, anyway. And when it's my event, I also feel responsible for everyone's wellbeing, and yet awkward and incompetent in doing anything about it.

We never entertained that much, but we used to have people
over occasionally. Sandy enjoyed cooking for people, and
we had a few game nights that were great fun. I'm more self-
conscious about cooking for others, and it's been hard to
picture a game party without Sandy. But I think the next step
in my healing is to get used to having people here on my own.

So this was a good test for me. It involved mixing people from different aspects of my life, cleaning the house (!), and talking about something I care passionately about. All without Sandy here to share the burden and provide encouragement. I cried a lot this morning, missing her. But I enjoyed hanging out with friends later in the day, and I'm grateful that they spent their afternoon with me, and that people are interested in NBCC and the 2020 Deadline.

It's hard without Sandy here. I feel good while people are actually here, and then lost when they leave. I've always felt that a little bit when guests left, but for years I could relax into Sandy. We'd discuss how things went and then, together, find our way back to our usual routine. Now, feeling a little disoriented, I keep looking for her.

Now that the house is cleaner, I'm going to try to have people over more often, and maybe it will become easier. I hope so. I'm tired of having so many things be so hard. (And it would have been much harder had Cynthia not been so amazing with her support. So, hey, I get to thank you publicly, Cynthia!)

Composting the past

I finally cleaned out the fridge. I braced myself and ruthlessly went through all the contents, separating what was still good and what I was still likely to eat from the things that were past their prime or that weren't to my taste.

I filled a large paper bag of compostables for the city yard waste bin: cookie dough Sandy requested as she was dying, leftovers from meals friends provided me in the weeks after Sandy died, the carrots and cukes and zucchini Sandy pickled a few years ago, the rhubarb liqueur she made as an experiment and never had the courage to try.

I tossed the vegetable juice I opened a few months ago, thinking that would be a great way to get more nutrients; only when I drank a glass did I remember I don't actually care for vegetable juice. I composted vegetables I'd bought optimistically just before contracting a stomach bug that made me less enthusiastic about cooking. The unused half of a can of coconut milk. Deli green beans that I'd started to eat and enjoy before I was made all too aware the next day that they weren't cooked through enough for my ridiculously sensitive gut.

I've always been amused by this photo, taken at a
family party in 2002. I assume we didn't realize
someone was taking a photo of us (using our camera,
clearly, because it was during the time that there was a
smudge on the lens that showed up on every picture -
 you can see it on Sandy's right knee). Licking out the
remainder of whatever had been in this bowl was typical
behavior. Neither of us has ever had much self-control
when it comes to leaving food uneaten.

The wasted food was hard to see, though at least it goes to compost. But it was Sandy's food that was the hardest to toss. I know that even if she returned today she wouldn't eat the stuff that had been in the refrigerator that long. (Okay, so she would try to, but I'd pull them out of her hands.) And, through a combination of practicality and sentimentality, I am still holding on to a small thing of peaches that came from the chemo infusion center; a small can of soda and a small can of juice, both from hospice; and a few other things that may never actually get consumed but are still sealed and still viable.

I also kept a bottle of beer. One of the tenants in a neighboring apartment building used to give us the spent barley from his home brewing operation. It was wonderfully rich for our compost bin. In return, I'd slip him a few tomatoes, some garlic, a zucchini or onions. He was always ecstatic to get the vegetables. We were clear that we had the better end of the deal for about a year and a half. Then one day we ran into him on the sidewalk and he told us he was moving. To Maine. That day. Sandy said she was disappointed that she'd never gotten to try his beer, so he thoughtfully left a bottle on the porch for her before he set off. She never got around to drinking it, and I have no idea how long it's likely to be good, so it remains at the back of the top shelf. If no humans show interest, maybe I'll give it to the slugs. Keep it local and all.

I didn't just clean out the contents of the fridge. I scrubbed the shelves and drawers, a task Sandy and I used to undertake approximately annually, usually on a nice warm day so we could lay things out on towels on the deck to dry when we ran out of space in the kitchen. It was a two-person job: I'd sit low on a small stool at the open door and hand her food to arrange on the counter, and then I'd pull out shelves. She'd wash one while I negotiated the somewhat tricky angle of the next, and while I cleaned the interior of the refrigerator itself. We didn't enjoy the task, but we liked working together, and we always felt so proud of ourselves when we were done.

I didn't quite do the whole thing. I didn't sort through or scrub the door shelves, and the freezer's still a jumble. But I did something much harder: I cleaned and reclaimed her meat drawer. Even when vegetables had overflowed the vegetable bin in recent months, I'd shoved them into tight spots on the fridge shelves. I left the meat drawer empty (having tossed or given away the meat long ago), but it was Sandy's space and I didn't want to take it from her.

When I was done, I did in fact feel proud of myself, especially for thinking ahead to do all of this on the day that I put out the trash and the yard waste for pickup. But I also felt terribly sad and alone. All the food in the fridge is mine now, except for those few small things from hospice and chemo. And one bottle of beer.

Tax relief

Every time I have to tell someone Sandy has died, or have to write "Deceased" on some form or other, I feel like I'm cutting her off from the world she knew. These occasions spring up with disturbing frequency, and often unexpectedly. For example, we participated in a Lake Washington transportation study; the first part was in fall of 2010 and the second part was to be this spring. I'd completely forgotten about it, of course, but I'm happy to fill out the travel diary and provide whatever information might be useful. In updating the household profile, though, I had to remove Sandy's name. Not even mark her as deceased, but remove her altogether. That shook me.

So, knowing how difficult these tasks are, I'd been dreading tax returns. I don't mind filling out the forms, and I always did Sandy's taxes for her, anyway, so that wasn't a burden. But I knew I'd have to note that it was her final return, that she was deceased, that she was gone. It's not like she had a particularly sentimental relationship with the IRS. Though she was happy to pay taxes and contribute to the common good, this was not one of the ties she'd be distraught over severing. Still, the finality of it bothered me.

I'm glad she was alive to spend her tax refund last year. The
pain had started but wasn't as bad yet, and we had much
fun playing on the beach. A sand dollar from that trip
lies on the dresser, next to her ashes.

I finally sat down to do our taxes this weekend. I spent about twenty minutes researching exactly what I needed to write on her form, how I needed to identify myself with my signature, how to cross the t's and dot the i's. Got it all figured out, and only then realized that I didn't need to file a form at all. Her 2011 income was only $12,000 in Social Security Disability benefits, which are exempt from income taxes if you have no other source of income. No form = no words of finality, no need to write that she's deceased, no need to sign for her.

I had no idea how much the thought of writing those words had been weighing on me until the need was gone. I was positively giddy, and happily dove into the minutiae of my own return. And once again, I was glad that I'd decided not to obey the income-splitting mandate, which would have been incredibly complicated and would have required me to file for Sandy. It's much simpler this way; the government almost certainly gets more money from us; and we aren't subjected to the disrespectful way the whole thing has been handled. If the IRS questions it, well, I'm happy to be a test case for an ill-conceived and discriminatory implementation — and Sandy would be, too.

As if it's the last

I've always been stymied by the admonition to live each day as if it's your last. What does that mean, really? If I were told that my life would suddenly end at midnight (if, say, someone from the future told me that I'd be shot or the house would burn down or I'd choke on a corn chip), my priorities for the day would be completely different than they are now. (For starters, I'd avoid people with guns, leave the house, or change my snacking behavior!) I wouldn't do much on my current work projects except to make sure that others knew how to pick up where I left off. I wouldn't clean the house in preparation for this weekend's house party, but I would madly organize various things so it would be easier for people who are left to clean up after me.

If I had a week to live, my priorities would be different, once again. And the same is true for a month or a year or a decade. If I *knew* with certainty that I had another sixty years to live, that would shape my days, too. I'd take better care of my teeth, and increase my retirement savings.

I've struggled with the idea of setting priorities for an uncertain future for a long time. How to make sure the critical things happen without compromising long term goals? Straddle the possibilities of a short life and a long life? And still, somehow, try to be present for and enjoy every minute of life?

My usual struggles with this paradox were compounded when Sandy had a terminal illness. We reacted with some urgency when she was first diagnosed, and made sure the big things were taken care of. But we didn't want to assume she was about to die, and certainly didn't want others treating her that way. In fact, most days, her life had a pattern that was far from urgent. She went to yoga, had massages, met with her therapist, worked with her physical therapists, acted as if she had a future.

We talked about what we'd do if we learned she had only a few months left. But what we didn't know is that all such plans are worthless if you're already debilitated when the doctor tells you that you don't have much time.

In books, on TV, in movies, people are told they have only a few months to live at times that they look and feel healthy. They have choices. They can travel, reconnect with the people they love, finish their autobiographies, opt to spend all their time in the garden, whatever they want. It didn't look like that in reality.

Sandy at Craters National Park in Idaho, on May 14, just a little
over two months before she died. If we'd known she had so little
time, would she have chosen to spend it differently? Or if we'd
known earlier that the cancer had spread to her central nervous
system, would we have tried more aggressive treatment and
still failed? She was always afraid that she'd spend her last days
chasing miracles with painful treatments instead of being in her life.

Sandy was in a great deal of pain when we met with her oncologist on July 5, looking for options. Sandy wanted to try whatever treatments were available to her. We really weren't expecting to hear that we were done. Afterwards, we didn't talk about what she wanted to do with her last few weeks. Not really. We talked about a few priorities: signing the new will, making sure her body donation was all set up, and seeing friends and family. But all the things we'd talked about doing as a last fling — all the places she wanted to see and the splurges she talked about, getting married legally somewhere — were off the table. After we got back from the doctor, she never even made it out of the living room again until she was carried out on a stretcher to go to the hospice facility. Once there, she never got out of bed.

I know this was our story, this was Sandy's story, and it's not universal. Just this week, I learned about a colleague who had lain down to take a nap, had a heart attack, and never woke up. Was she living the day as if it were her last? In some ways, we were fortunate to know the end was probably coming and to have a year to make sure Sandy crossed some things off her bucket list and had a chance to have the conversations she wanted to have.

I think about these things a great deal lately, particularly because I feel unnerved about my own death. Having witnessed Sandy's death, when I picture my own, I see her there with me. I feel horribly alone in the world every time I remember that she won't be there holding my hand.

My life has changed dramatically in the past ten years, so I know it's time to update the legal documents. They'd been done originally with the assumption that either we'd go together or Sandy would be here to take care of things.  I hope to get the big things done soon, so that if I die suddenly, it's all doable. But I also have to set goals that extend beyond the immediate future, so that if I'm here for a while, I can at least make good use of the time. It's rather daunting.

With all of this swirling around in my head, I went searching for a New Yorker poem I read last year, one that Sandy and I both appreciated. It's called Maxim, by Carl Dennis, and it was in the June 7, 2010 issue of the magazine. The whole thing is lovely, and I encourage you to click the link to read it. These are the lines I am trying to hold in my thoughts:

Take him simply to mean you should find an hour
Each day to pay a debt or forgive one,
Or write a letter of thanks or apology.
No shame in leaving behind some evidence
You were hoping to live beyond the moment.
No shame in a ticket to a concert seven months off.

Grumpus

April 9 is yet another anniversary that leads me to reflection. Three years ago today, our loving Maine Coon cat, Longfellow (aka Grumpus), died. I was still recovering from open-heart surgery, and because our kitties are chest cats, they were still living in the basement. Sandy was spending a fair amount of time taking care of them, and I ventured down for an hour or two each evening, settling in carefully with pillows blocking my chest from those who would perch there. The evening of the 8th, Grumpus slept peacefully a few feet from me on the TV room sofa, and he was surprisingly accepting when Belly lay down next to him.

On the 9th, Sandy went down to give the boys their dinner, concerned because Grumpus hadn't eaten that much at breakfast. She came up and said, "I think Grumpus is dead." Her hesitation was so strong that I thought he might just be sleeping soundly. I slowly trudged downstairs with Sandy and followed her into the storage room, calling, "Grumpus! Hey boy, stop worrying Sandy," until she interrupted me, saying she thought it was inappropriate. That's when I saw him. There was no doubt about it: he was dead. We sent Nada and Belly upstairs and found a burial box for Grumps. He hadn't been dead long, and the boys had no idea anything had happened. He'd died in his favorite cozy hiding place, curled up on a folded piece of soft canvas.

We realized I was doing well enough that we could have been allowing the cats upstairs during the day; I only needed to be shielded at night, when I couldn't protect my chest. So we let the boys stay upstairs, and Sandy carried Grumps in his box everywhere she went that evening, talking to him, apologizing for stepping on his huge, fluffy tail. I was still numb enough from surgery's aftermath, just trying to slog through each day as I regained some strength, that his death didn't hit me as hard as Pico's had two months earlier. Sandy was pretty shaken, though. And the next day, she dug his grave and I helped her say goodbye to our beautiful boy as she buried him. Twice, we buried cats during the time I couldn't help dig because of my heart, first, and then my healing sternum.

Grumps was a stray. When he first started showing up on our deck, I thought he'd just moved into one of the condos or an apartment on the block. He was friendly and seemed healthy enough; I shooed him off the deck the first time we met because I was trying to call our cats in for the night and knew they wouldn't come if a strange cat was loitering near the door.

We never fed him, but he kept wooing us. Before we claimed him, he'd start to walk in the open back door on the deck, and I'd say "No" firmly, and he'd back up and turn away, looking a little sad. (Once he lived with us, I'm not sure he ever heeded the word "No" again.) We noticed that he got scragglier as time passed. Presumably he was eating the food our neighbor, Millie, put out for the ferals, but he was losing weight. I've always wished I had taken a picture of him when we first met him, to see whether I was fooling myself when I thought he looked healthy. But eventually, it became clear to us that we needed to take him in, get him fixed up, and find him a home. We started planning for it. I attempted to trap him on the deck —  I put the large cat carrier out with food tucked deep inside it. But he was long enough that he could easily eat the food without putting his back legs in the carrier.

I'd been planning to prepare an area of the storage room for him, but hadn't gotten to it yet. One evening, he was hanging out in our front yard, keeping us company, and Sandy said, "Just pick him up." I reminded her that I didn't have a space ready yet. She looked at me with exasperation and said, "This is our chance. Do it." So I did. I reached down, put him on my shoulder (with no complaint from him), and carried him to the basement. I took him into the storage room and looked around, trying to figure out how to set it up. Sandy opened the door, and off he went. He couldn't get out of the basement, so he sat in the window ledge in the basement kitchen, staring at the back yard and yowling. Eventually, after many hours (and after I'd set up the storage room for him), we managed to get him back inside.

He was a scrawny, nervous boy when he first took him in.

We thought he was young, fooled by his skinniness, but the vet suspected he might be as old as 12*, given the state of his teeth. We left him at the vet to be neutered (angry that irresponsible people had left an adult male unneutered, when he'd clearly been a pet), and they called me to let me know he tested positive for FeLV. They wanted to know what I wanted to do, code for the question of whether to "destroy" the animal. I knew he was a total love, and FeLV wasn't going to be enough for me to let him go. So they went ahead and neutered him, and we brought him home. The storage room was his quarantine area for three months as I nursed him and kept him company for several hours a day, always careful to change clothes and wash with diluted bleach so I wouldn't spread the virus to the girls upstairs.

He got healthier. He gained weight. He got hair — lots of hair. That's when we realized he was a Maine Coon, possibly purebred (which could have explained why he wasn't neutered). And after three months, he tested negative for FeLV. We rejoiced, and I started trying to find a home for him. Meanwhile, now that he wasn't quarantined, he spent a lot more time in the TV room. He and Sandy spent a lot of time together. And she was falling in love. I stopped trying to find a home for him.

He grew big and beautiful, and Sandy adored him. She thought
that he saw me as bigger because I'd cared for him when he was
weak. But Sandy was a littermate; they roughhoused together.

We named him Longfellow because he was so darned long. When we set him up in his quarantine area, I had to go buy a new litterbox for him because the standard boxes weren't really big enough. He never particularly answered to the name Longfellow, but we thought it suited him.

When the kittens came into our lives in August 2005, they were tiny balls of long grayish fur. They looked a lot like Longfellow, and given that he'd been hanging out in the neighborhood unneutered for many months before we took him in — and that the kittens had been born in the property behind our house — we theorized that he could be their grandfather. He wasn't interested in them; when we brought him down to introduce him, he went to their food and ignored the curious little cats who were frolicking next to him. But we were thrilled that they might be related. So, because he might be their grandpa and because he was grumpy that they were in his space, we started calling him Grumpus, or Grumps. Unlike "Longfellow," he responded to "Grumpus" readily. The name stuck.

Grumps died of lung cancer, after years of struggling with inflammatory bowel disease. When we described the death scene to our vet, she assured us that he'd died quickly, probably unconscious before he would even have suffered. And, coincidentally, he'd been on steroids for the IBD, which had probably made his life much more comfortable as the lung cancer progressed. The cancer wasn't a total surprise to us. He'd developed a disturbing cough late the previous summer, helped by steroids, and we'd had chest Xrays taken in November that showed that there was something going on, but it didn't quite look like cancer.

He was with us for seven years, and we were grateful that he chose us. I'm still amazed at how persistently he pushed the idea that he should live with us, even when we weren't feeding him. He knew this was home.

Tina took this gorgeous photo of Grumps in January 2009, a few
months before he died. He was a beautiful boy, though he lost
much of his mane whenever the IBD got particularly bad.

*Our initial vet thought he was probably 12, because of his teeth, but later thought his teeth might just have been so bad because of his life on the streets and the FeLV infection. Our later vet talked about his "kitten face," which was adorable, and said she thought he might be younger. We eventually decided that he was probably somewhere between 6 and 10 when he came to us, and therefore between 13 and 17 when he died.

Legacy of flowers

Front yard, back yard, everywhere I look, there are flowers that Sandy selected, planted, and tended. An abundance of blue flowers, of course, but also the bright yellows of daffodils and the vibrant orange of calendula. We're rapidly approaching the time of year that she most loved the front yard, when she'd say, "This is the bluest it gets all year." And I always agreed: at that point, just about a month or two from now, most of the daffodils and tulips are gone and what remain are the vinca, bluebeard, lupine, delphiniums, campanula, wood hyacinth, rosemary, lavender, forget-me-nots, sweet peas, etc. Before the crocosmia steals the show with its late-summer oranges and reds.

Here, Sandy's fighting with a poppy in the cutting garden,
attempting to pick it for a bouquet. She didn't have snips
because we were in the middle of our portrait photo shoot.
Red poppies were an ongoing battle. Sandy loved them; I
wasn't wild about the huge volunteers that crowded out
vegetables, so every year we'd walk through the garden
together and decide which ones I was allowed to pull, and
which had to be left until they'd finished flowering.

But all of them — blue or not — were Sandy's contribution. I don't know if it's my Germanic heritage, Midwestern upbringing, or just my relentless feeling that there isn't enough time to get everything done, but I've never been a flower gardener. I like flowers and enjoy the beautiful yard. But left to my own devices, I grow practical things: vegetables, fruit trees, cat grass, and sturdy long-lasting trees. Anything pretty in our yard was Sandy's doing; the stuff we eat — well, that's mostly me.

I learned to recognize and appreciate specific flowers with Sandy. I even grew them. As the one who starts seeds in the household, it fell to me to nurture anything that needed to be started indoors. Flower seeds are much fussier than vegetable seeds, but I happily attempted anything Sandy had fallen in love with as she'd drooled over the catalogs she referred to as "flower porn."

Sandy took these photos on June 8 last
year, a week before everything went to
hell. She was always taking pictures of
her garden - and her cats.

Now, I'm both a vegetable gardener and a flower gardener, though luckily for me, most of the flowers are doing well enough on their own that I have a little time to come up to speed on their needs. I'm not the only one tending Sandy's flowers, though. She planted bulbs for her mom (in two different yards) and for various friends, and she sent plants and seeds to others who were crafting gardens far away. All of us, I know, think of Sandy when we see the flowers she brought into our lives. I think that's a lovely legacy.

I do have to wonder what will remind people of me when I'm gone. The first thing that occurred to me was my to-do list. Not the most appealing of legacies, I think!

Ode to joy

As I turned out the light last night, I said to Sandy, "If there's any way for you to come back, please do. And if you can't, can you at least come for me?" I wasn't any more bereft than I've been many times; I was just missing her and missing us and missing our life together. And if dying meant we could pick up the threads of that life, well, then, I wanted her to pull me towards her.

I slept well, and woke feeling refreshed, more centered. And then I opened the window shade. Warm, brilliant sunlight streamed through the window. The Japanese snowbell, which had been bare just yesterday, was suddenly clothed in tender green leaves. It had recognized spring, and in doing so, declared its intention to continue, its willingness to go on. Looking out the window, I said out loud, "Okay, I admit it. I'm glad I'm still alive."

And I was. At that moment. I wished Sandy were standing at the window with me, but unlike so many other moments in the past months, I was glad my heart didn't stop with hers. And, as Sandy would say, it "didn't suck" to appreciate being alive again. In some ways, it felt like a reconnection with a deeper me, a me who had this feeling freely and often just a year ago. The me who has always embraced life itself, even in the face of pain and injustice.

Cicero said, "Where there is life, there is hope." I've been dwelling on the inverse for so long now: where there is no life, there is no hope. Where Sandy is not alive, I have no hope. In the fourteen months before she died, so much of my hope had been centered on the goal of her healing and living a long, satisfying life. When that hope was gone. . .

Sandy and light go together well, I think. Her experiments
with taking flash photos of herself in the mirror were not
terribly successful, but they make me happy all the same.

But this tree that she and I planted together seems to me to be declaring otherwise. It's a reminder that while Sandy's life was precious, it was not the only life. Life itself is so much broader than any one individual, or couple, or family. The tree budding out shouts "Life!" enthusiastically, and I, in true call-and-response form, automatically shout "Hope!" right back.

Despite her fatigue and pain a year ago, several times in April, May, and even June, I witnessed Sandy spontaneously exclaim, "I have such a good life!" I said it myself, at different times. It struck me then how fortunate we were to be able to appreciate what we had rather than wallow in our misfortune.

I've wallowed — appropriately, I think — for many months now, and I'll wallow some more. The ache doesn't disappear all at once, and Sandy's absence is often more than I can bear. But more and more lately, I'm having these moments of being happy in the moment. Not forgetting all that transpired; the shock of Sandy's death hits harder if I've managed to forget it for several minutes. But moments of holding what happened, honoring the pain I've felt and the tremendous losses, and letting those feelings be bathed in the comforting light of hope and opportunity.

I wondered a few days ago if I'd ever truly feel joy again. I don't remember feeling it since Sandy died. But this morning, there it was. Almost as if it were waving to me. It's a welcome reunion. I've always loved having the sense that I might just burst from the goodness in the world. It had been a long time since I last felt that. And though the joy did not persist beyond the first few hours I was up, and though pain has washed through me multiple times today since that radiant awakening, I know those moments of joy will provide the fuel I need to keep going until the next time.

Unrelated landmarks

Seven years ago today, our lives changed in three substantial, unrelated ways. After two years with failing kidneys, our cat, Roo, died just before her 18th birthday. After weeks of anticipating it, Sandy got laid off from her job at Microsoft. And after working for months on a committee for the organization, I joined the board of Equal Rights Washington.

In her prime, Roo was a very large, lumbering
cat. She was a tortoiseshell with gorgeous
markings, and a somewhat challenging personality.
She wasn't particularly active - preferred to have
the toy brought to her, thank you very much -
and the only times we really saw her run were
right after she'd pooped in the yard (she ran away
instead of covering) or when she heard the heater
kick on in the bedroom and rushed to get to her
pillow in front of it. Life wasn't so bad for Roo.

I remember parts of the day vividly. Roo was suffering, no longer able to drag herself to the litterbox, whimpering except when she slept in my arms. I called Sandy at work to tell her I thought the time had come, and I called a vet who made home visits to come and euthanize Roo. Sandy had a meeting with her manager scheduled for that afternoon; she came home, stayed with me while Roo died, and then went back to work, saying, "Sorry, honey, I need to go get laid off."

I'd been mourning Roo for two years, since we'd learned that she had chronic renal failure. Initially, we'd tried to give her fluids, but she'd fought them, sending the liquid spraying all over the room. So I'd essentially provided hospice care for two years, as her world grew smaller. She had her pillow a few feet from my desk in my office; her food was there, too, and I'd point it out to her when she couldn't find it. I'd get up in the middle of the night to show her the food, awakened by her yowls of dementia and hunger. Sandy and I had temporarily stopped traveling together because we just couldn't expect a catsitter to do all that we did for Roo.

Fifteen months earlier, a cat crisis and human crisis had occurred at the same time, as Prudence died suddenly and unexpectedly, followed shortly by Sandy's terrifying seizures. That confluence had shaken my belief in the safety of the world; from it, I learned that anything could go wrong at any time.

But on April 5, 2005, the events were very different. Both Roo's death and Sandy's being laid off would have been devastating if they'd been unexpected. But I'd had a chance to spend a lot of quality time with Roo, to appreciate her long life and her eccentric personality. And Sandy had recognized the slow periods in the product cycle and known that her whole team was likely to be shown the door; layoffs at Microsoft weren't uncommon. Microsoft had a policy that after you were laid off, you could continue to use company resources for several weeks to look for another job; most people quickly found work with another Microsoft team. Sandy planned to take advantage of that.

Roo wasn't an easy cat to bond with. Sandy wasn't all that
close to Roo until the last year of Roo's life, when she'd
mellowed a little bit. Then they had some nice time together.

In Roo's death, there was sadness, but also joy that Longfellow, who had been confined to the basement for years, would have the run of the house and get his people full-time.* In Sandy's being laid off, there was a feeling of loss but also of opportunity.

My joining the ERW board was momentous only in that I'd actively avoided joining any nonprofit boards in the past, but this was the only way I could find to make a real difference in the organization. We had no idea that my work with ERW would swallow so much of our time and energy in the coming months, or that I'd leave it when Sandy was undergoing aggressive chemotherapy. At the time, it was just the thing that got me out of the house that night, when I otherwise would have stayed home keeping Roo's body company.

April 5 was an important day in many respects. Sandy didn't end up looking for more work at Microsoft; instead, she decided to go to grad school and pursue her dream of teaching. We had been talking about finally remodeling the kitchen, and we shelved that plan as money grew tighter (never have done it, due to all the health issues). With Roo no longer needing such attention, we were able to travel more. That day ushered in changes, and unlike many days that do, we knew it was a landmark day at the time. 

*Lest you think we were horrible people, the basement is a finished apartment, which includes the TV room, where we spent a fair amount of time. We had two old lady cats when Longfellow joined us (cats he'd already terrified outside), and at first he was FELV+ so had to be quarantined. We expected Roo to die at any time and thought we'd try to integrate the household when she did. The entire time Longfellow lived in the basement, I ate lunch with him every day, we spent time with him every evening, and Sandy spent hours and hours with him on the weekends. But, a herder, he really wanted to keep an eye on his people around the clock.