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.