Happy memories

I biked to the Mercer Slough blueberry farm in Bellevue with friends yesterday. The ride was good, as was the berry-picking, but the day's heat really got to me. My ride wasn't all that long but we were picking blueberries in the heat for a couple of hours. I felt exhausted and migrainal afterwards so I was content to order a pizza for dinner and enjoy it while watching Firefly episodes on DVD.

What was remarkable about the day to me was that my memories of time with Sandy made me smile, without any hint of pain. That was a lovely change. Usually, even memories that make me laugh come with a heavy feeling in my chest.

I biked an unusual route to get to the I-90 tunnel so I could drop off some library books that were due, and flashed on a time that Sandy and I had taken the same route for the same reason in 2010, before we knew why she had so much trouble breathing. We were frustrated by her health that day, but at that early point in the ride, we were feeling adventurous and optimistic.

Later yesterday, my friends and I took a branch of the bike trail we don't usually travel in order to bypass all the construction mess on Jackson. The only other time I'd been on that trail was when Sandy and I explored it several years ago. Then, we wandered in and out among the different branches of the trail, so I had troubleyesterday remembering where they all went (and the trail has expanded since then, too). Still, upon seeing the Korean pagoda at Daejeon Park, I experienced again the curiosity and wonder Sandy and I felt the first time we discovered it, as we stopped to read the signs and appreciate it up close. That day, we puzzled over the "Equality" sculpture in nearby Sturgus Park, speculating about the artist's intentions and describing our own reactions. And then we were surprised to find ourselves on 12th, just south of the Jose Rizal Bridge, and I clumsily rode on the sidewalk across the bridge while Sandy confidently zoomed across in the street. (Yesterday, I knew better, and went for the street, which has been marked with sharrows now, too.)

She modeled the hat for the camera right after receiving it,
around the time she started chemo. She's even wearing a
hospital ID bracelet in this photo, so it must have been the
day she had the port put in or some other procedure. It was
always nice to come home from an ordeal at the medical
center and find packages for Sandy waiting for us.

Hot and uncomfortable last night, aware that I'd not applied enough sunscreen during the outing and that I was moving into full migraine territory, I was delighted to see the episode of Firefly where Jayne receives a hat from his mother. When Sandy first had chemo back in 2006, a friend ordered her a "Jayne hat," made by an enterprising fan to closely resemble the rather unfortunate hat, complete with earflaps, that Jayne received from his mom. Sandy's hat included a handwritten note to Jayne, with the exact words from the episode. She was thrilled and she treasured that hat, wore it a lot. Belly likes to carry it around the house. I don't wear it because orange is really hard for a redhead to carry off, but when Belly hasn't deposited it in some inconvenient location, I keep it visible. Watching the episode, I remembered the first time Sandy and I saw it together, and the look of glee on her face when she opened the box in 2006, and how comforting that hat was for her at various times in the last five years of her life. Many people were generous enough to make or buy her hats for chemo, and she wore several of them even unrelated to cancer treatment, but the Jayne hat was her default. So this time when I watched the show, having so strongly come to associate that fuzzy orange thing with Sandy, it tickled me to see Jayne wearing Sandy's hat.

Today, my memories have been more mixed. The pain is closer to the surface again. But it's encouraging to know that I can, sometimes, have memories with only the happy and none of the pain.