Echoes

I had my routine echocardiogram today. From the moment I scheduled it, I've been anxious.

I used to find the test reassuring and soothing; I'd had routine echocardiography done since I was 12, and I likened the sound of my own heartbeat to the feeling of being back in the womb. I enjoyed chatting with the technicians, and I sometimes even fell asleep.

All that changed in 2008. The echo itself was more stressful than usual because the technician was oddly defensive and contentious; it was the first time I haven't bonded with an echo tech. And unlike the reports I'd grown used to receiving ("It's continuing to progress, but you're fine for now."), this echo was followed by a phone call from my new cardiologist, who started the conversation with the words, "It's time." Time for what? Open-heart surgery.

Since then, I'm a little nervous about having an echo. Will I get the tech I don't like? Will it show that my valve has worsened? Will I once again feel completely out of control of my own body? I did breathing exercises this morning to calm the jitters I felt. I did lovingkindness meditation to prepare myself to be openminded about the technician. I reminded myself that I have a different cardiologist, one that I like and respect, and that he told me last year that he doesn't expect to see any change in my new valve for at least a decade. The plan is to have just this one more echo to see how my heart is doing three years after surgery, and then probably not have another one for five years.

The last echo I had was two years ago. In the meantime, grief has been hard on my body, I know, and so was a year of fear and caregiving. Neither period of stress was in the original plan. But then, my valve should be able to handle whatever life dishes up, so maybe it'll be fine.

I was relieved to get a tech I've liked in the past. Our conversation ranged across a variety of topics, many of them very personal, and we acknowledged the real, positive connection we felt before I left. Honestly, the echo was worth it just for that 45-minute conversation. She also said a few different times that my valve looked good. Techs aren't supposed to give much information, since the cardiologist hasn't actually looked at the data yet. I was reassured, though, because I know she sees a lot of ultrasounds, and she knows exactly what's going on with me. I'm still a little nervous, but I'm feeling pretty good about what I'll likely hear from the cardiologist when I meet with him in a couple of weeks. Certainly there wasn't anything urgent.

Sandy had an odd combination of belief in the
doctors' ability to heal and despair that anyone
could help her, no matter what the medical
problem was. But she never seemed to have
the anxiety or learned dread about medical facilities
that I did. They were no more traumatizing
to her than anyplace else she went.

Once again I was at Group Health, adding to the memories I have of that facility. Each time I go in for my own care, it's a little easier to set foot on the campus. The sense of doom and despair is lightening, as I have positive experiences to counteract the memories from visits at the end of Sandy's life. One of these days, I hope to have the courage and strength to go upstairs to visit with and thank the oncology infusion nurses who cared for us while Sandy had chemo. Before she died, they asked me to remember to come see them, but I've not wanted to embark on a sobfest amidst patients who need hope.

I'm more aware than ever just how much past experiences influence the present. We are not naive actors in the world, unencumbered by assumptions and prejudice. But when we're more aware of those influences, it's easier to integrate them into the fabric of life, making them a part of — but not the overwhelming sum of — the whole. Today's echo joined the set of echocardiograms I've had there and elsewhere, the larger set of experiences I've had at that facility, the even larger set of memories I have from all medical settings, and even the huge set of experiences I've had in conversation and connection with other human beings. It changes the expectations I have for the next echo, medical appointment, or conversation — this time for the better. That's kind of cool.

Fumbling concern

In an effort to find some relief for Sandy's unexplained pain and nausea, we saw her primary care provider, Hannah, shortly after we returned from vacation. I'd met her doctor once before, and we both really liked her. She listened and asked intelligent questions. She gave us some useful information about building up the ibuprofen in Sandy's system, taking the maximum dose regularly to try to stay ahead of the pain. And she mused that the neck pain Sandy described sounded like meningitis. Of course, we were all thinking of bacterial or viral meningitis, and we had no reason to think Sandy had been exposed. It seemed unlikely, and the test is a spinal puncture, which is incredibly painful, so we decided not to do that just yet.

I felt good about the visit, because I felt that Sandy was heard and respected, and that we received some new information we could use to tailor our routine. Sandy was understandably more frustrated; she wanted definitive answers and, more important, definitive remedies.

But what stirs the most emotion for me about that visit were Hannah's questions for me. I'd just spent two weeks caregiving full-time in light of Sandy's erratic pain and newly persistent nausea. I was exhausted and fragile, fearing the upcoming radiation, fighting off a sense of foreboding brought about the pain and nausea, and missing my usual routines while we were away. I'm sure I didn't look all that great, and I know I was quick to tears.

Hannah asked if I was taking care of myself. I told her that I was. In fact, I was doing a pretty good job. I ate well, made sure I had exercise, got regular sleep, and when we weren't on vacation, spent time with friends a few times a week. But Hannah didn't know any of that. She didn't know me. She told me that I needed to take care of myself so I could take better care of Sandy.

Here's what I heard: "You're not doing a good job of taking care of Sandy. You're letting her suffer. You're neglecting her. You're a bad spouse."

I knew even then that she phrased it as she did because many caregivers neglect their own health, and the best way to motivate them is to remind them, essentially, that they need to put their own oxygen mask on first. I'm sure she wasn't meaning to say that I was letting Sandy down. But in my fragile state, I felt defensive at the idea that I wasn't taking good care of myself, and terrified that I wasn't doing right by Sandy.

As we waited for a prescription in the pharmacy, Sandy and I talked about the encounter. Sandy was angry about what Hannah had said, but not for the same reasons. She was incensed at the implication that I should take care of myself only because Sandy needed me, that I didn't deserve health and wellbeing in my own right. Sandy felt the comments somehow compromised my worth, and she was outraged.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Sandy, taken in Missouri
in November 2005, when we played at the park with our niece
and nephew. She was healthy and fit and full of fun; this is how
I picture her when I fantasize about her coming back in a
fresh, healthy body, able to enjoy life fully.

It was appropriate and thoughtful for Hannah to ask about me. Her approach would have been effective for many people, I'm sure. But because she wasn't my doctor and didn't have a history with me, she couldn't know just how regimented my self-care is, how well my naturopath has trained me, and how many resources I take advantage of. She also didn't understand just how worried Sandy was about becoming a burden, and how concerned she was about our relationship being more than just patient and caregiver. So Hannah's words — meant to help — hit nerves for both of us.

I reflect on that visit frequently. Her recognition of the symptoms of meningitis, when it turned out that the pain was a result of inflamed meninges, invaded by cancer. No one else caught that. My belief now that even if we'd identified the cause of the pain then — or even back in April, the cancer had moved beyond current medicine's ability to control it. Sandy's emphasis on my inherent worth, as a person, and my particular worth, as her Brie. My fear that nothing I was doing was good enough, that I was failing Sandy.

I wonder just how often my attempt to express concern or extend support clashes with the recipient's experience and ends up causing more pain or strife. I'm sure it happens. I'm far from omniscient, and I'm often clumsy with my sentiments. Sometimes I'm just careless. Fear of missing the mark isn't going to keep me from attempting to be helpful, but I hope to recognize how my words land and have the opportunity to restate my thoughts, to clarify my intent, when they do cause pain. I don't know how much Hannah saw in our reactions. I know I wept, and I think she may have misinterpreted that as me feeling overwhelmed and not knowing how to take care of myself. As was often the case, I don't think Sandy showed her reaction until we were alone.

When I worry about my conversational stumbles, I take comfort in the knowledge that I don't hold Hannah's words against her; indeed, I still think she was a great doctor for Sandy and I appreciated her concern later when Sandy was in the hospital. So maybe others can see through my errors and recognize that any pain I cause is also unintentional. I hope so.

Memorial Day

Memorial Day has meant different things to me at different points in my life: A time to visit relatives' graves in Nebraska. Seattle's Folklife Festival. A day off work.

I've been living every day recently with one foot in the present and one in the same date a year ago. Sometimes that second foot stretches out further to straddle the date in 2010, too. So this year, Memorial Day weekend has been about our returning from vacation a year ago, stressing about cleaning the rental car after Sandy vomited in it on the final day of our trip.

On Memorial Day itself, Sandy attended a friend's barbecue and came home drunk, not having realized how much she'd been imbibing. I'd stayed home, happily having a little time to myself after two weeks of being with each other around the clock, so I don't know how much she drank. She was frustrated with herself for having so much, though, because she felt awful, off-kilter, out of control of her own movements. Of course, we didn't know that the cancer had occupied her nervous system, and that almost certainly affected the way alcohol influenced her; I suspect the amount she drank would have been reasonable for her a few months before.

With that broad grin on her face, you'd never know she was
having trouble breathing and had just learned she had a
terminal illness. Sandy was able to live in the moment,
and, luckily for me, she dragged me into it with her.

Two years ago, we went to Salish Lodge on Memorial Day weekend. We'd made the reservation before Sandy had her chest X-ray, and at that time, we expected to bike up to Snoqualmie Falls, enjoy a nice night in the lodge and a hearty breakfast the next morning, and then bike home. By the time we went, Sandy was on supplemental oxygen and heavy-duty pain meds. We almost decided not to go, but we'd paid and wouldn't be eligible for a refund, so we drove up there and had a wonderful, relaxing night. We both needed some pampering.

I've been wandering through the landscapes of my memories so much that it surprised me this morning to remember that Memorial Day is a day set aside for remembering those who have died. It's fitting and appropriate to have such a day, and to notice it as a nation — both to honor those who have served in the military and those who have not. This year, it feels superfluous to me, though, as every day is my own personal Memorial Day.

Possessions as stories

I think about death a lot now. Sandy's death, of course, but also my own. My life is all that keeps our house our home. My life is what gives most of our belongings their meaning. When I die, some of these things — some books, dishes, memorabilia, clothing — will go to our friends and family. But most of it will go . . . where?

In The Inevitable, the compilation of essays on death and dying, Lance Olsen wrote:

My mother. . . dying of cancer. . . inventorying the clutter that took her nearly seventy-four years to quilt around herself, noting out of the blue, almost casually, to no one in particular: All these things will forget their stories the moment I’m gone.

Most of the time, I am simply home, amidst the artifacts of our lives. Neither Sandy nor I enjoyed shopping, so there's little in this house that doesn't have some purpose — or that didn't have some purpose at one time. I'm a hoarder, but not a gatherer. That is, I don't accumulate things for the purpose of having them, but once they're here, I tend to keep them. That's come in handy when we've needed to jury-rig repairs, when rummaging through the storage room turns up the perfect cord or bit of metal or plastic container.

A year ago tonight, we had dinner with Cassandra and Steve
in California. They took the last pictures that were ever taken
of us together. Sandy wore that hoodie almost every day the
last several months of her life. I've worn it almost every day
since she died, but I still think it's her when I see it in the mirror.

I give things away when I'm sure others can make use of them. It's hard to decide to part with them, but once they're gone, I'm fine. I try to remember that okayness when my perspective shifts and I see everything around me as it might look to those tasked with settling my estate. The books whose presence comfort me seem overwhelming then — what a chore to sort through them and send important books to specific people and others to a used bookstore! The same with CDs, DVDs, everything in the kitchen. And all my writing! More than a hundred notebooks of journal entries, with some nuggets of wisdom nestled among the whining and repetition. Do I ask someone to read them, or should they just be destroyed, unread?

Handling Sandy's estate was easier, because so many of our possessions were never going to go anywhere; they stay at home. Because I was privy to so many aspects of her life, so much information about who was important to her and why, I found it less daunting to recognize items of importance and set them aside for individuals. I know I've missed some things and some people. But I've been careful about what's gone to Goodwill; most things remain here so that when I realize where they should go, they can. We were talking about such things during the week we were here at home. Sandy was concerned about making a list of things to give to people, but she was too tired to do it. I told her if we didn't get it all written down, I'd take care of it. And she said, "But how will you know?"

What neither she nor I knew was that she'd be around to guide me in the process. But I still have doubts, still fumble. And our lives were intertwined for more than a decade. I can't be certain that I'll be able to communicate with people after I'm gone, and though I'm close to the ones who will be doing the sorting, they can't know the story behind each possession. So how much do I document, and how much do I let it go and assume that people who need certain things will come forward and claim them, and that the other things will find their way into new lives, whether intact or through recycling?

After the Nisqually quake, the Oregonian ran a story advising people to use bungee cords to keep their books on their shelves. That makes sense if you know an earthquake is imminent, but an earthquake is not a hurricane — with our current technology, we can't see it coming. Most people don't find bungee cords stretched across their bookcases attractive, though Oregonians are probably more open to it than most.

If I knew my death was coming in the next year, I'd probably at least put little colored stickers on things, marking the varying levels of importance. I'd also start giving things away myself, and selling books and CDs that I don't expect to need in the next year. Basically, I'd try to make things easier for my executor. But I don't know when I'm going to die, and so I don't know how far to go with these efforts.

I know I still need to rewrite my legal documents, though that will be difficult because it's yet another admission that Sandy isn't coming back to take care of things for me. And I'm trying to declutter, identifying the things that no longer have purpose or meaning and sending them off to other homes. And I want to make a list of the things that were Sandy's that I've kept, that need to go to her closest friends and family members when I die. But how much more of my life should I give to preparing for the time after I'm gone? I could easily live another 50 years.

Ultimately, how many of the stories that are attached to these possessions need to survive after I go?

Sometimes I'm still startled to remember that Sandy literally took nothing with her. When she died, she was wearing homemade socks, a pump for pain medication, and a bed sheet. I brought the socks home; the pump was discarded; the bed sheet was washed. She took no possessions, and she needed none (though she's been borrowing things; I'm still waiting for those state quarters to reappear). The possessions were left behind for those who needed the comfort they offered. I guess at some level I have to trust that my possessions will serve the same purpose, and that the people tasked with their disposal will find the right places for them. But it's strange to shift back and forth between seeing our home, filled with the stuff of us, and a house filled with just stuff.

Sandy's cave

I grew up in cave country, and my siblings and I were dragged into many a commercially prepared cavern as children. I know what they smell like, can remember the dampness in the air and the platforms and handrails. The moment that the guide turns off the lights so you can see just how dark the cave gets (and the time that my father's fancy new watch glowed green, destroying the effect).

If I stumbled across a cave while hiking, I'd be intrigued and curious, of course. But I haven't craved tourist-destination caves since I was very young.

Sandy, however, had never seen a cave, or at least not that she remembered. Every time we planned to visit my family in Missouri, we'd talk about getting to a cave while we were there, but in the chaos of the visits, we never found the time.

When we planned the trip to the Southwest last year, we didn't talk about looking for caves. The idea didn't occur to either of us until halfway through our travels. Then, one morning as Sandy slept and I played around with maps, trying to figure out the most efficient way to see what she wanted to see without spending extra time on the road, it occurred to me to search for caves between Las Vegas and San Jose, California. When she woke up, I was able to tell her I'd found us one.

While Sandy needed both hands to negotiate the path, I had the
camera and tried to take photos of everything she pointed
out as interesting.

Sandy was thrilled, especially when I read the description that claimed it was accessible. (That proved to be true once you were in the cave itself, but the path up to it was painfully steep and long.) A year ago today, she saw her cave, Boyden Cavern.

I was worried about her most of the time we were in the cave itself, after a nauseating drive along winding roads to get there and then the slow, challenging climb up the path. I wasn't sure it was worth it, especially because it was all so familiar to me. The same handrails, the same smells, the same formations (does every cave have a "wedding cake"?), the same demonstration of pitch-black darkness. But it was all new and exciting to Sandy. Once she stopped feeling so nauseated and felt steadier with her walking sticks, she was enthralled. And when the guide offered us an extended, off-the-beaten-path tour, which he warned might include some treacherous navigation, I hesitated. Sandy didn't. She wanted to see more, and other group members were all happy to assist her in doing so.

After the others had left, Sandy wanted a photo of us in front of the cave.

Though we had a sense of foreboding, neither of us expected her to die so soon after that. Seeing a cave wasn't a bucket-list item for her, but I was able to keep a promise I'd made her years before. So I'm glad we had the opportunity when we did.

Sandy making her way down the steep trail alongside the
Kings River, which was incredibly refreshing after our nausea
earlier. (The winding road had made me nauseated, too.)

We lingered after the others had left, chatting with the guide and then taking our time wandering back down the steep path. A lovely river rolls by, and we stopped to enjoy it and to marvel at various things that grew along the natural rock walls. Boyden Cavern is in Sequoia National Park, so we stopped to see the giant sequoias on our way out of the park, and were inspired by the Fallen Monarch and other huge trees. 

Like all the days of our vacation, it feels like it was just a few weeks ago. I don't know whether these memories will ever be transferred to longterm memory or if they'll forever stay cached in a spot marked "recent." I'm kind of hoping they stay where they are.

Expressing condolences

My cousin's mother-in-law died suddenly a few weeks ago. My heart went out to him, their children, and especially his wife, Angela. I've never experienced the death of a parent, and I hope to enjoy my mother's presence for a few more decades. But I remember the feeling I had when Mom's supposedly routine open-heart surgery ran into complications a decade ago and the surgeons thought they might lose her on the table. I remember screaming in the backyard, as Sandy was pruning a rose bush. We were 2000 miles from the hospital, able only to wait for more information, and Sandy knew that the only comfort she could give me at the time was just to let me scream at the world. Mom came through the ordeal just fine (and unlike her children, she was not traumatized by it). But it was a close call, and I could see grief just over the horizon.

I am now well-acquainted with grief, of course. Losing a spouse is different from losing a parent, but never is a terrible burden for any griever. When I got the news about Angela's mother, I knew I'd send a card. I even thought for a few minutes that I might have some words of wisdom to offer, that something about this ordeal of mine might benefit someone else. And then I put off writing the card for a few days. Even selecting a card was difficult, and I had no idea what to say.

My grief has not made me an expert on grieving or on talking about death. If anything, I'm now all too aware that the experience is a deeply personal and individual one. I cannot begin to understand what another's loss feels like.

Still, I thought back to my reactions to all the cards, email, and phone calls that had come just after Sandy's death. Honestly, I don't remember the details of most of them. My brother's phone call stands out, because we don't talk often and we don't talk about difficult things much now that we're adults; that conversation was real and powerful, though, an extended hand that I gratefully grabbed. There are three cards whose contents I specifically remember: One was from a friend of Sandy's I'd never met, a woman who'd lost her husband to cancer a few years ago; she told me not to let anyone else tell me how to grieve, and I welcomed her advice and support at a time that I felt insane. Another was from Sandy's favorite nurse; she shared her memory about how Sandy's face lit up when I entered the room. The third was from my Great-Aunt Betty; she wrote that she had no idea what to say and so she'd unearthed the card I sent her when her husband, Richard, died, and she quoted my own words back to me.

Just as the condolence cards were meaningful for their
existence rather than their contents, the cards and gifts and
supportive online messages Sandy received when she first
went through treatment, when we learned the cancer had
metastasized, and as she was dying were all most important
because they existed, though many of the words and
specific gifts touched her (and my) heart as well. This
hat was a gift from a friend as she started chemo in 2006;
she wore it frequently that year and in the winters that
followed. I can't get away with wearing orange on my head,
but it's one of Belly's favorite things to carry around the house.

There were hundreds of other cards whose contents I don't recall offhand. None offended me, though some irked me with the sentiment that Sandy wasn't in pain anymore. (So help me, that is one thing I will never say to someone who is grieving.) But what was most meaningful about the cards was that they came. They were a physical reminder that people loved Sandy, people loved me, and more than that, that people — those I knew well, only slightly, or had never even met — understood that I, a fellow human being, was hurting. The fact that those cards came told me that I was not alone.

I didn't keep tabs on who sent cards, or deduct points for those who didn't. It's easy to put off sending condolences when you don't know what to say; I've done it myself more times than I care to count. Instead, I was surprised by and incredibly grateful for each envelope or email that arrived. Individually, they made specific days easier, lifting my despair just a bit. Collectively, they communicated a sense of community, the knowledge that people were out there in the world when I was ready to return to it.

So I wrote words on the card and mailed it. I don't know what I wrote, and I doubt my words will be memorable to Angela. But I trust that the card itself will convey that she and her family were (and are) in my thoughts. Just as the card they sent me after Sandy died did. 

Casual references

Last August, I quickly learned to spend time only with people who knew me, and preferably Sandy, very well. My grief enveloped every aspect of my life, so I needed to be able to talk comfortably about Sandy, her life, her death, my bereavement, and our post-death communication. I could really only do that with people I already knew quite well.

Gradually, I began to feel safe spending time with people I didn't know, but I still felt compelled to talk about Sandy most of the time. I especially needed to tell people that she had died. It felt dishonest not to disclose the single most important piece of my current identity. The few times that I had a conversation with someone about any topic and didn't tell them that Sandy had died — even on a bus or in a grocery store checkout line — I squirmed, feeling deceitful and unknown.

Eventually, I found I could exchange chit-chat about politics, the weather, dogs, or other topics in passing without telling strangers that Sandy had died. But if I told an anecdote about her, I had to reference her death — and after so many years together, it's rare that I don't mention Sandy in any conversation of more than a few minutes.

A year ago today, we drove from Moab to Bryce Canyon. As
we drove out of Moab, we decided spontaneously to take one
more quick tour of Arches. Since we'd spent a full day there
earlier in the week, we knew where we wanted to return. We
hiked down a little way into Park Avenue, a canyon with
amazing formations on either side. We were excited about
the opportunity to see more of these structures up close,
knowing we may never get to see any of it again.

We discovered a little trail we hadn't seen the previous time
we were there, and were thrilled to see the Three Gossips
from different angles, much closer. There they are, and
there, of course, is Sandy's head, too. Sometimes I'm glad
I'm not a very careful photographer!

I was surprised yesterday to realize that another shift has occurred. I attended a community meeting about neighborhood improvements that are part of a state highway project. The meeting was actually an open house type of setting, with WSDOT employees staffing displays, answering questions, and listening to feedback. Several dozen community members attended, and the kinds of people who come to these things tend to be intelligent, thoughtful, and engaging. I enjoyed myself thoroughly, moving from one stimulating conversation to another. Those interactions were energizing. I was aware that I couldn't have been so present, able to think creatively and express myself articulately, last fall. (Indeed, I attended a similar meeting about the Seattle Transit Master Plan last fall and, while I had a few good conversations, I felt flustered and overwhelmed instead of energized and empowered. It wasn't the event that was the problem; it was my state of mind.)

Only today did it dawn on me that I talked about Sandy with multiple people yesterday morning and never mentioned that she died. Her death wasn't relevant to the stories I told. For example, when someone brought up the conflict between the South Lake Union Trolley tracks and bicycle tires, I mentioned that my partner had thought cyclists who complained about the tracks were whining about a minor nuisance until the day she came home a bit battered and reported that the tracks had gotten her. There was much nodding, and the conversation continued. It didn't matter that she died; her experiences, and my experiences with her, are still relevant.

I no longer need every conversation to be about me and my loss, and I don't have to follow every mention of Sandy with a parenthetical phrase about her death. When she was alive, I wouldn't have felt compelled to say how long we'd been together, or how old she was, or where we lived, or what she ate for lunch, or where she worked, or any other aspect of her life unless it was relevant to the story. And I'm back there now. That's pretty cool.

My goal has been to integrate my memories of Sandy and my love for her into my life without sacrificing my own engagement in the world. I want to keep her with me as I grow and have new experiences. My new ability to talk about her casually, in ways that are appropriate to the current conversation, without making her identity all about her death — that's real progress. It gives me hope that I can continue to heal without leaving Sandy behind.

Finding comfort in physics

A friend posted to Facebook the text from an NPR commentary I'd never heard. Aaron Freeman wrote about having a physicist speak at your funeral, comforting your family with the knowledge we have about the conservation of energy. It echoes the beliefs I've found reassuring in the past, and makes room for the experiences I've had in the past ten months.

Today has been hard. Weather changes brought sinus pressure and low energy, but mostly I felt burdened by despair, fully aware that it was ten months ago tonight that I watched Sandy take her last breath.

I haven't read Facebook in a while, but on a whim, I checked it tonight, and there was this essay that I found incredibly soothing. The full thing is on the NPR website at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4675953.

Here are the parts I particularly liked, as I sobbed my way through the whole thing (emphasis mine):

I don't know that Sandy ever would have
called herself orderly, exactly. And her
hair is most unfortunate in this photo.
But she was proud of her tomato plant
on the deck. I'd already planted all the
ones I'd started from seed that year, and
she wanted to try another variety, to have
a tomato plant that was her responsibility.
As I recall, it was a great success— and
the fruit visible in this photo proves it.
This post didn't inspire me to include this
photo; it was seeing a picture of Laura's
newly planted tomatoes, and tending the
plants I've started this year that led to it.

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.

And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.

You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly.

           - Aaron Freeman

Grief brain

Many cancer patients experience chemo brain, which some describe as a fuzziness in thinking or memory issues. It can last long after chemotherapy, and in fact, there's some evidence now that it isn't a side effect of chemo but of cancer itself.

I knew that grief, too, affects thinking. It seems obvious that, as the brain attempts to integrate an impossible reality, it would be drawing resources away from other areas. I've warned my clients and colleagues over the past ten months that they should check and double-check my work more closely than usual, and I have made some pretty boneheaded errors. But I've been surprised that, generally, I've felt able to think clearly and work well.

Since roughly October, I've not felt my logical processes or comprehension are compromised. Instead, I seem to have lost my ability to make sense of time and how events relate to each other. The part of my brain that is affected appears to be the part that is responsible for moving short-term memory into long-term storage, properly filed and cross-referenced. It's something I've excelled at for most of my life. I'm known for my memory of dates. I've always been able to hang events off of milestones or other markers that secure them in their appropriate spot.

I still can tell you when events occurred in the first 43 years of my life. The memories are instinctual; they're in my cells.

Sandy wondered whether chemo brain increased her noun
aphasia and impaired her short-term memory. It was hard
to tell, really, because her short-term memory had always been
poor, as evidenced by her tendency to double-book herself,
lose her keys, or forget her plane tickets (back when they
were on paper). After we got together, I became her short-
term memory in many practical ways.

And I do have clear memories of things that have happened, times I've spent with friends and family, work I've done since July 19, too. But they're all in a jumble. They have not found a home in the filing cabinet of my memory, because time stopped on July 19. I can remember some specific dates, because they were dates I made a big deal of at the time: August 9, August 20, September 18, Thanksgiving Day (whatever date that was), December 16. But knowing those dates doesn't change the way the events feel in my body. They could have happened last week or ten months ago. They're all shoved into a single file, one labeled "After Sandy died."

Meanwhile, I continue to subconsciously count time backward from July. I had lunch with an old friend last week, and we were talking about memories from when we'd done volunteer work together. I said, "That was five years ago." He was amazed, found it difficult to believe so much time had passed.

Hours later, I realized I'd been wrong. I knew as I talked to him that I was talking about events in 2006, but I didn't realize this is 2012, and that 2006 was six years ago. Even as I live it, day by day, I still think of 2012 as the year that never happened. No matter what the Mayan calendars say, time ended on July 19, 2011.

Chemo brain can affect people for years. I've been assuming that grief brain will ease more quickly. I miss being able to place events in order, to understand my life as a flow of interactions and activities through time. I suspect this year will always be a jumble, as everything's already been filed. But it will be interesting to see if my brain is able to recognize time's existence and resume its old system in the coming months and years.

Sandy's vacay

Before we even entered Arches National Park, we took photos
from the parking lot, amazed at the beauty around us.

A year ago today, we arrived in Moab. As we'd driven there from Salt Lake City, the landscape had changed in breathtaking ways. Sandy slept through much of the drive, and it was all I could do to keep from waking her over and over again to gasp with me at the rock walls and natural sculptures we passed.

I think of my moods now as a rollercoaster ride, but they're incredibly stable compared to the experience of that vacation. I went with the flow much more gracefully than I usually do, out of concern for Sandy and my desire for her to have the vacation she'd been dreaming about. But adapting to her shifts in mood and health were exhausting. One moment, she despaired, certain that we should abort the trip—just ship our things, drop off the rental car locally, and fly home. An hour later, reading about the region, she'd lobby me to extend our trip another couple of days so that we could visit the Grand Canyon, more of Colorado, and any number of other places.

Walking that line was hard for me. I wanted to honor her pain and her wishes, but I didn't want to make a major decision based on the way she felt at one particular moment. Sandy had always tended to assume that however she felt in the present was how she had always felt and always would feel. As the cancer crept further into her brain (unbeknownst to us) and her pain grew even less predictable, her perspective narrowed further. It was up to me to try to back up and look at the bigger picture, sort out the deeper goals, and communicate those in a way that led to a mutual decision, as opposed to tears.

Our full day at Arches, on the 17th of May, Sandy felt great.
She wasn't having headaches or hip pain, or that weird
tingling in her legs. The night before, she'd nearly convinced
me that we should head for home first thing in the morning.
I'm so glad we didn't; we both really needed a good day.

For most of our two-week trip, I had few opinions about where we should go and what we should see. Instead, I tried to gain clarity on hers. I'd been looking forward to our vacation, somehow imagining that we'd leave cancer behind and, freed from our daily pressures, be our vital, active selves out in the world. We may have intended to leave cancer at home, but it stowed away, hidden among all the camping gear and the backpacks. Within a couple of days, it had become clear to me that I was not on vacation; I was there to make sure Sandy had the "vacay" she wanted. I'd gone from having my caregiving role integrated into the larger fabric of our lives to having it be my only role. Sandy's pain left her understandably self-absorbed, and I don't think she had any idea how stressful those weeks were for me. I certainly didn't tell her.

Sandy pointed out the formation that looked like Nefertiti,
though our books didn't mention it. Later, we found a
reference to it online and Sandy beamed. Really, it was
irresistible to see people and familiar icons in the rocks.

I did enjoy seeing some beautiful sights, and I loved those moments that Sandy felt clear and witty, experiencing the beauty with the same awe I did. I didn't love the moments that she was in pain, upset, accusing, or frustrated — but a year later, I long to be on that road trip again. I don't want her to be in pain, of course. What I remember most clearly are the moments of grace, the times that she was herself and felt good, that we interacted as equals, that I could believe that we'd move past the pain into a better future together.

Green light for the bench!

I got word today that the location I chose for Sandy's bench has been approved. I'm absolutely thrilled. It's on the I-90 trail, just east of the bridge as you arrive on Mercer Island. I think it's the perfect spot, because it's where she always stopped to catch her breath, regroup with others, and peel off extra layers. Additionally, it's a place I pass frequently, as do many friends. It's also not far from a parking lot, so even those who don't feel up to biking across the I-90 bridge can visit it if they want to.

The top image shows the satellite view of the location; the bottom map is meant to provide a little
context, in case the site isn't familiar. It's a pleasant spot with a view of the lake and the playfield.
And though it looks in the image as if it's surrounded by cars, the trees provide a buffer and it's a low-
traffic area much of the time. I had a few second choices in mind, but this is the one that really makes sense.

She wanted a bench, and I'd made that commitment to her many times over the years, so I'd be doing this regardless. But I have come to think of it as a substitute gravesite, in a way. While I believe that anyone can communicate with Sandy from any location, it can be helpful to have a place to focus that reflection. There's no burial site for her, and I'd prefer not to have everyone parade into our bedroom to hang out with her ashes whenever they miss her. But the bench will be there, with her name and some words about her, and I like to think it might, at some level, serve the purpose that cemeteries serve.

She posed in front of the ceanothus at
the Center for Urban Horticulture in Seattle in 2004.

In addition to the bench, I've asked to have a ceanothus planted there. Flowers just don't get much bluer than ceanothus, and they were among her favorites. Before we knew what they were, many years ago, while we were stopped at a stoplight, she urged (okay, ordered) me to get out of the car and snip a bit of a bush so she could find out how to get it into her life. We never identified a place in our yard that would get enough sun to support a ceanothus, but maybe she can have one by her bench. I should find out soon.

I've already paid. The Mercer Island Parks Department will order and install (and maintain in perpetuity) the bench, and the ceanothus, if it's approved. What remains on my task list is to come up with the words for the plaque. I need to come up with something within the next few weeks. So I'm asking for help.

Her name will be on it, of course. There are about three lines of text allowed. They'll send me the exact dimensions, but I'd like to have some ideas before I even get the numbers. I think it should be about Sandy, or a message she'd want to communicate, rather than about how much she is missed. (The bench itself communicates that she is missed.) Ideally, it would incorporate her love of cycling, her focus on community, and laughter. (Reading, too, potentially, though I'm planning to have a bench put in when the park on our block is redesigned this year, and its plaque will say something about reading, because she read there.)

This is brainstorming and crowdsourcing, folks. Any idea might stimulate another. So if you have any thoughts on what the plaque might say, please toss them my way through the comments field here, email, carrier pigeon, or any other method that works for you! Thanks in advance for your creativity and inspiration.

TiVo as messenger

As I was watching TV last night, I said, "I want you to come home, please." I issue some variant of that request many times a day, whether I'm despondent or ecstatic or somewhere in between. I don't usually get any obvious response.

As usual, I was fast-forwarding through commercials, but I noticed them as they buzzed by on the screen. And then the screen froze. Text on the screen said I hate the way things ended.

A year ago, we were on vacation, unaware that the ending
had already begun. A year ago this morning, we woke in
Pendleton, Oregon, and Sandy worried about going any farther
with her unpredictable pain, nausea, and leg twitches. But we
hadn't seen anything yet, so we agreed to press on at least to
our first "sight." The next day, we toured Craters of the Moon,
a bleak but captivating landscape. We marveled at how
plants and animals adapted and sometimes thrived even
amongthe destruction left by lava.

Puzzled, I wondered whether the broadcast had been disrupted when the show was originally recorded, or what might have happened to freeze the screen while TiVo was fast-forwarding. Then I looked more closely at the screen and saw that TiVo had been paused. But not by my hand.

I, too, hate the way things ended. Hate that they ended. Hate that her life ended. But I was delighted by her apparently opportunistic use of the media to communicate. Bewildered and amused, I rewound to see the commercial that had put the words on the screen. I watched it a few times, not for the commercial but almost to prove to myself that it didn't just automatically stop on those words, that it had been unusual for those words to stay on the screen, that TiVo wasn't programmed to pause there.

A few nights ago, I read more about communicating with the dead. There was a check list of sorts to help you determine whether strange events in your life might be communication from the other side. One of the questions was about electronics turning on and off without human intervention. At the time, I thought, no, that hasn't been happening. But maybe my reading about it gave Sandy a sense of her own power — and a desire to try it.

It seems so small, really — a goofy commercial pausing at a particular moment. But through such small events come strong sentiments and a continuing feeling of connection. I hope she keeps exploring her own potential and sharing her thoughts with me and all the other people she loves.

What goes up. . .

Tour de Cure this year was an interesting mix of nostalgia and
being in the moment. I enjoyed the company of my fellow
cyclists yesterday, and I also kept flashing back to riding with
Sandy and Colleen in 2007. That year, it took us two hours
longer to do the route. But I can't figure out now why we
did it at all, when Sandy had only been done with radiation
for a couple of weeks, we'd ridden very little while she had
cancer treatment the previous eight months, and I was still
healing from splitting my lip and otherwise banging myself
up as I hit the ground with my face a couple of weeks earlier.

I've been having a good day. Tour de Cure went well yesterday. With beautiful weather, Colleen, Cynthia, Greg, and I enjoyed the 42-mile ride, and I got home in time to get a few other things done. This morning, I woke feeling energetic and I was out in the garden early enough to get some work done preparing the bed for the tomatoes before the sun caught up with me and pushed me elsewhere. I have also done some cleaning and some puttering and some navel-gazing. All in all, I was feeling pretty centered. As has been the case recently, I've been missing Sandy terribly one moment, and feeling her presence the next.

As I toured the garden, though, I found an iPhone and a stocking cap at the back of the yard, near the artichokes. I know they haven't been there terribly long because I check on the artichokes every couple of weeks. I brought the phone in, charged it, and hoped to find the name of its owner, all the while puzzling over how it could have gotten there.

These yard decorations delighted us in 2007 and pleased me
again yesterday. While I didn't remember much of the route,
there were points like this one that sent me back in time.

The phone is password-protected, of course, so once it was charged, I had no luck getting into it to find the owner's information. However, several text messages appeared on the screen when I first turned it on. (Seems like Apple should create a way that you can password-protect your data while also providing some way for someone who finds your phone to contact you, yet not actually display private messages before you've even logged in!)  I did a little detective work, and it seems very likely — almost certain — that the phone belongs to the would-be intruder. So now I'm creeped out and shaky all over again, imagining him stumbling around back there. And I'm angry again, too.

I called the precinct and was told they don't have records of property reported missing at the main desk; I'd need to call back tomorrow when the property desk would be open. (It's Sunday now.) But I explained the situation to the guy on the phone and he agreed that it was probably the intruder's phone and that I owed the guy no favors. In fact, he said he'd probably throw it away if he were in my position.

So now I'm debating whether to bother calling the property desk tomorrow. I may attempt to wipe the phone clean and see if it can be rehabilitated and put to use by some charitable organization — or just take it in for electronic recycling. I'm unnerved even having it in the house. Were Sandy here, she would be trying all the techniques I've found online for wiping a phone clean without needing the password. I think I've figured out the intruder's identity thanks to the Facebook page of a buddy who texted him. Sandy would either be planning to contact the guy and yell at him, or she'd be talking me down as I made plans to do so. Mainly, she'd be here for me to vent to every time some new thought came to me, or every time I just got so angry again I had to share.

Unexplained giddiness

I've been feeling good the past couple of days, almost giddy. It's surprising because I'm PMSing, and that's usually when my grief is the deepest, when I feel most despairing. I don't know why I haven't posted here except that I'm afraid of jinxing my happiness and discovering that it was a facade all along.

As I finished writing this post, I asked what photo I should
use, and this is the one that popped up on the screensaver.
She posed with flowers that were growing against the wall
at the Alcazar in Sevilla, Spain, in 1999.

Part of my delight certainly stems from the strong presence of Sandy the past several days. I feel her frequently, almost constantly, and her presence is also joyful. Now, of course, some of that sense is doubtless due to Obama's finally supporting marriage equality publicly and all the commotion that's erupted from his simple sentence. But I felt good even before that, when I should have been upset about North Carolina's amendment vote, about the shenanigans in Colorado that prevented the passage of a civil unions bill, about anniversaries and memories of what was going on a year ago (a year ago yesterday, we saw the MRI that showed an additional lesion in her brain, and we struggled to understand just what brain radiation would mean) and two years ago (tests, tests, and more tests on the road to a certain metastatic cancer diagnosis).

I'm not complaining about feeling good. But I'd love to identify a cause, something I can replicate. I'm sure our newfound sunshine has something to do with it, and the biking I've been doing. I've had wonderful outings and meals with friends — both close friends and those I've not seen in years. I'm feeling intellectually alert and alive, as if I've shaken off a fog. I'm seeing a path (in fact, multiple paths) for myself, and I'm enjoying support and encouragement in those ventures from people I don't know well as well as from friends. I'm enjoying a sense of potential, a kind of hope that overrides the weight of never.

Mostly, I'm filled with gratitude almost every time I think about Sandy. At night, I despair and beg her to return to me. But during the day, I'm learning that being in love can produce a rush of endorphins even when the object of that love has died. It's both exciting and comforting that I get to be in love with Sandy for as long as this life lasts, and, apparently, beyond. Maybe that would make anyone giddy.

Remapping time

It was only two years ago that we first had any idea that the cancer had returned. I'd felt a sense of relief a few days earlier, on May 1, as the third anniversary of the end of Sandy's initial treatment ended. We had no idea that the collection of seemingly unrelated symptoms she'd been experiencing were cancer's calling card.

She'd begun having migraine auras in the summer of 2009, but because I routinely have migraines, we weren't alarmed. I suggested she mention them to her doctors, but she didn't think they were relevant; I wasn't accompanying her to those appointments. We assumed the auras were a symptom that came along with the onset of menopause.

She had lower back pain, but it didn't seem markedly different from lower back pain she'd had off and on for much of her adult life. She'd had trouble catching her breath for a couple of years, too, and chest X-rays had shown nothing of interest. So she assumed she just was out of shape. A bone scan in September 2009 had shown only her osteoarthritis, no cancer. And her mammogram in November 2009 was reassuringly uninteresting.

Meanwhile, she was trying new antidepressants, so we attributed weight loss to their side effects. In fact, she stayed on them longer than she should have, despite other side effects, hoping to lose more weight.

When she was having trouble catching her breath even on the downhill stretches of bike rides, I became much more concerned and urged her to get her heart checked out. She agreed and took it seriously. We were worried about what the echo and treadmill test would show, but we had confidence that we'd be able to rectify any problems. We were completely unprepared for the phone message from the oncologist, noting areas of concern in her chest X-ray, and informing us that they wanted to do additional tests.

It was late in the evening on May 6 that we heard the message. We'd just walked home from an evening spent with friends. We were in a good mood, and ready to be home and get ready for bed. I pressed Play on the answering machine and we both heard Dr. Chen's voice. That moment is frozen in my brain and in my body. I know where I was standing, where she was; I know exactly how I walked toward her, saying "Oh my God, I could lose you." And her typically understated response, with a sigh: "They'll probably want to do a biopsy."

I could lose you.

I hadn't been thinking about breast cancer that much as the threat had seemed to fade into the distance. But I'd done my homework earlier, and I knew that metastatic breast cancer is a death sentence. I knew that breast cancer usually travels from the breast to the lymph nodes to the lungs, the liver, the bones, and the brain. I knew that we wouldn't have heard from the oncologist if they weren't pretty certain it was cancer in the lungs. I knew this was very bad.

Two years ago today, Sandy called as soon as she could in the morning to learn more about the X-ray results, and then she went to work. I spent most of the day on the phone. I'd call a close friend, sob as I told them what had happened, accept their comfort, and then, feeling better, hang up. A few minutes later, I'd panic again, and I'd call someone else. Lather, rinse, repeat. I remember walking to the library as the unwanted thoughts about Sandy dying slipped into my brain: I stood on the corner of 14th & Madison, just a couple of blocks from home, and the world went dark. Completely dark. No sun (though it was a sunny day), no noise (though it's a busy intersection), no hope (though I'm an incorrigible optimist). I stared into the abyss. I resolved that that wouldn't be our future, that I couldn't lose her because, well, because.

I cherish the photos Tina took of us in
late June, 2010. She kept shooting while
we were chatty and laughing, moving
around. Now I sometimes click through
the set as if it's a flipbook. They captured
our interactions so well, and I treasure
the images of Sandy's common gestures,
including the pointing thing she did for
emphasis, as she's doing in this photo.

Soon we latched on to the idea that maybe it was tuberculosis—scary, dangerous, but curable—while we waited for further tests. It was on Friday that I'd glimpsed the darkness. By Sunday, I was optimistic that it really was TB, helped by Sandy's conviction that "this doesn't feel like cancer." At a brunch gathering with friends, Sandy laughed with everyone about all the phone calls I'd made on Friday. She was grateful I'd had so many people I could call, and I was grateful to believe this could be something else.

It's been hard for me to understand that all of that was just two years ago. Cancer consumed me for the last fourteen months of Sandy's life. We worked diligently to integrate it so that it didn't dominate our lives, especially hers. But that darkness hovered, ready to fill my vision when I was tired or we received any bad news, or when Sandy was in pain or frustrated about anything.

I lived in fear, struggling to have hope. Sometimes superstitiously believing that if I thought about her dying, she would. Other times, thinking just the opposite: preparing for the worst, so it would never happen.

It quickly came to feel like she had always had cancer, that I had always been almost singlemindedly focused on her quality of life and tracking the research to find a cure.

Now it's been almost ten months since she died. I find it difficult to believe she's been gone that long. At the same time, it seems crazy that we learned about this intruder only two years ago. It may seem contradictory, but it all comes down to how little time we had after that phone message: less than 14 and a half months. We should have had more time. We should have had a cure.

Vulnerability

When I first bought this house in 1995, I lived alone, and I didn't expect that to change. There were times that I was nervous living alone—most notably, right after the time someone tried to kick my front door in at 4:00 in the morning—but I generally felt comfortable and confident.

Sandy and I got together less than a year after I moved in, and long before she officially changed residence in December 1997, she was here much of the time. And then, of course, we lived together for thirteen and a half years.

Sometimes I'd wake in the night, thinking I heard noises downstairs that indicated intruders, and I'd be frustrated by Sandy's snoring or snuffling in her sleep. I couldn't focus on my imaginary danger with her sleep-sounds interfering. And when there were actual security issues that concerned me (cops outside looking for a man they said had "disappeared behind the blue house," for example), Sandy tended to assume that everything would play out exactly as it should without her involvement. As she said to me the night I was prowling the windows, monitoring the manhunt, "You need to tell me what you want me to do. Because my reaction is to go back to sleep."

But there is comfort in another human's presence, especially when it's the human you love most in the world. I was often more skittish at night when she was out of town. So when her life expectancy was suddenly shortened two years ago, I wondered whether I'd have the nerve to live alone again if she died. We'd been talking about getting a dog for years, and I thought I might need a dog for peace of mind if I were left here alone. We were planning to take the dog search more seriously just as soon as she was through radiation and on a new chemo schedule. But she died before we got there.

What has been unexpected is not so much that I'm okay living alone, but that I'm not living alone. I haven't felt any more vulnerable to the outside world than I did with Sandy here, and in large part that's because I feel like she is still here. Even after I started moving away from the reassuring idea that she would return (and make no mistake, I'm still begging her to find her way back), I continue to feel her here strongly enough that I feel like I'm lying when I answer a survey question about how many people live in our household.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, I woke to loud sounds coming from the kitchen. I assumed the cats had gotten themselves into trouble, or that some critter or other was trying desperately to get in through the locked cat door. It sounded very much like a body being thrown against the door. I threw my robe on and went down to the kitchen without even grabbing my glasses. No cats to be seen, but there was definitely something throwing itself against the door. I banged on the door once and yelled something barely intelligible; that's worked in the past to send miscreant critters scurrying off the deck. And then I looked out the window, afraid I'd see a large raccoon. Instead, I saw a man.

I also heard him talking, chuckling; I thought there might be two people. I pushed the kitchen cart in front of the door and called 911. The body slams (kicks? I don't know what he was doing exactly) were interspersed with periods of knocking and with him trying the doorknob repeatedly. I stayed on with the 911 dispatcher until the police arrived, which didn't take long. Meanwhile, I yelled "Go away" as firmly as I could manage a couple of times, from a distance of about ten feet from the door. His behavior would change each time, so I know he heard me. But he did not go away.

The police talked with him, and then one of them came to talk with me, and then they escorted him off the property. I raced upstairs to put on pants and grab my glasses, attempting to make sense of the world. And then the cop came back to the door to check in with me before they departed. He told me the guy was drunk, had thought he knew someone who lived here. He's a young guy, from Bellingham. I asked what they were going to do with him, assuming they'd take him to Harborview to dry out. Their plan was to put him in a taxi and send him to a hotel. I commented that it was nice that he'd get to sleep well.

I was even angrier when the cop told me that they weren't going to file a police report because "there's no way a prosecutor would do anything with this." I wanted to know how the guy would be accountable for his violent behavior, and it became increasingly apparent that the cop didn't believe me. He seems to have thought the guy was knocking loudly and I just freaked out. He didn't say that, but other comments made it obvious that he didn't have a lot of respect for me. (Later I saw my hair and was frankly amused that he wasn't laughing hysterically.) He said things like "He's never been in any trouble," and I said, "How would you know, if no one files a report?" When I said I didn't even know if he'd damaged the door, we went outside and looked at it together; I said it looked okay, and that was good, at least, and the cop said I'd probably just heard things "rattling." I urged him to listen to the 911 recording, which should have the sounds of the guy trying to knock the door down, but I know he won't bother.

When I said, "So what if he'd gotten in? What do you think would have happened?" the cop said, "He probably would have just fallen asleep on the couch." Infuriating. The whole encounter, he was incredibly patronizing. He even told me at one point, "Well, you live near a lot of bars." What does that have to do with anything? 

I insisted on an incident report, which he wrote up as "trespass," not attempted breaking and entering or drunken and disorderly conduct or anything else that would begin to capture the experience I had. The guy hadn't come up to the back door and just knocked, even loudly.

After the cop left, Nada appeared, but it took me about fifteen minutes to find Belly. He'd hidden himself away securely. Neither cat was eager to venture into the kitchen. They knew how scary the action had been.

We all went back to bed about an hour later. By then, it was 3:30 a.m. It took me another hour or two to get to sleep. I'd worried that I'd be anxious about someone breaking in, but I actually found it reassuring that the door had held. Instead, I lay awake fuming about the cop's attitude and his dismissal of my report that the guy had been aggressive and violent in his behavior. I am short, and wearing a bathrobe, with my hair flying every which way, I probably looked like a woman prone to panic. But honestly, I'm not. If I'd awakened to someone knocking on the back door at 2:30 a.m., I'd have been startled and nervous, of course, but I'd have yelled through the door to ask what they wanted and informed them that they had the wrong house. This was not someone knocking on the door.

I'm still fuming, obviously, and haven't decided whether this is a battle worth fighting. I suspect it would require an expenditure of energy I can't spare for results that would anger me even more. But what I've found more interesting is my reaction to the threat itself.

She's here, and she's alarmed!

I did not consciously feel Sandy in the house while I waited for the cops that night, but when the 911 dispatcher asked me if I was alone, I hesitated. I knew, rationally, that I was, but I didn't feel like I was. It took me a second to come up with the right answer.

After everyone was gone, I spent time calming down the cats, and then we all went to bed. As I said, I lay awake fuming about the cops, but I didn't worry about another attempt at a break-in. And my dreams were not about being vulnerable; they were about being patronized. In my dream, a niece who lives many miles away had heard about what happened and sent people to come stay with me so that I could feel safe and would be able to sleep. But I didn't know any of this people, and their presence kept me from sleeping. I finally kicked them all out, annoyed that all these people thought I was so fragile that I needed their comfort.

I have spent a few minutes figuring out a more effective way to barricade the back door, should I ever need to, after I realized that the kitchen cart was on wheels and wouldn't have deterred anyone. And I'm considering a recording of barking dogs until I someday have a dog enter my life. But those reactions are part of the emergency-preparedness game I play. They're paired with the constant inquiry into how I could have done something more effectively, and that's mostly about how to convey the truth to the cops in a way that they'll hear - audio recordings? video recordings? How can I keep from being patronized in the future?

Yesterday was a dark and rainy day, I hadn't had enough sleep, and I worked under pressure with a looming deadline all day. I stopped working at 8:00 p.m. and found the world disorienting. I didn't want to go to bed last night, dreading fear and anxiety. But I was fine.

Sandy's been here more again today, and I'm recognizing this unwanted bit of drama as a test of my nerves, a way of seeing whether I've been fooling myself in thinking I'm safe here. And in thinking I don't live alone. And in thinking that maybe Sandy can protect me.

It's not even been 48 hours, so my evaluation is preliminary. But I'm feeling pretty good about it. For one thing, I've realized that Sandy's physical presence in the house wouldn't have made a difference in how events unfolded; you really only need one person to call 911 and yell "Go away." She may have been able to get the cop to listen, but he would probably have dismissed her account, too. And I'm glad nothing like this happened when she was sick or dying, desperate for elusive sleep, and when my nervous system was stretched to its limit.

I don't know whether she had anything to do with keeping the guy out. I asked her afterwards if maybe she could work to deter someone like that before he even entered our yard, say. But having her presence, feeling it especially strongly today, is a comfort. And being in our home, alone with Sandy's presence and our kitties, gives me more strength than a gated community ever could.

More photos!

When I looked more carefully at our old camera last week, I realized that it had a full roll of film in it. So I dropped the roll off for processing yesterday and received the CD of images today. I find it kind of curious that we were using the old camera because the photos are time-stamped from 2002, after we had the digital camera.

Some of the pictures are of us in front of the house on a snowy day in January (so young!). Most are of a vacation to Santa Barbara in March 2002. I couldn't have told you when that trip was, as we went to Santa Barbara together several times, but I remember that vacation well because it was the only time we spent much time at the zoo.

The anti-climax of the roll are two photos of people's feet at a bash at our house in April of that year. Kind of a pity the camera wasn't tilted up a bit so that you could actually see who the people are, but the unfortunate angle reminds me how nice it is to be able to see instantly how a photo turned out on a digital camera.

Long before pain from treatment, cancer, or her hip, Sandy
sought out opportunities to lie flat on the ground. This isn't
the best picture in terms of photographic quality or style,
but it captures that vacation - and Sandy - very well.

I have many things to say here, but I'm up against a deadline on a work project, so all my musings will have to wait for other days. For now, I leave you with a photo of Sandy, resting. We were in Santa Barbara, coasting around all day to the bird sanctuary and the zoo and a few other places on the beach cruiser bikes that were free for guests' use at the place we always stayed.