Broken Solar Lights

The last time a new year rolled in, I was in a state of frozen shock. We had received word mid-morning that the only hospice house in our county had a bed for Chris and, a surprisingly short time later, he left our home for the last time by ambulance. After waiting and wading through four difficult weeks, the time had come for this move. There was no control over the timing, no planning could really be done, and then we had to just go. Maybe it was better that way, for what do you discuss as you pack for the final journey? It was New Year’s Eve, of all possible days, and it felt ironic or fitting, or both. Well, why not since the holiday is already ruined with traumatic brain tumor memories?

Chris seemed more at ease with the support at the hospice house. I knew it was right even though I didn’t know much of anything else. As family prepared to leave for the night, Chris wanted a burger. Working in the area, I knew just where to go to finally do something that would give him comfort. As I call up that moment now, I know that Chris really loved that burger. It was the last time that he enjoyed food, maybe even with gusto, if I remember right. As the last hours of 2018 quietly ran out, I curled up in an uncomfortable plastic-coated reclining chair next to Chris’s bed and stared out at the woods and frozen pond. Flickering, broken solar lights on the barren deck sent random sparks into the night, like the last vestiges of summer dying a prolonged death. Forget happy new year, try hopeless new year instead.

The end of the year will never be a carefree time for me; I’m not sure I’ll be ready to truly celebrate New Year’s Eve again. Twelve years ago, life changed when Chris had his first general seizure and we became aware of the different track he and we were set on. Three years ago, he experienced an intense focal/partial seizure at a New Year’s Eve dinner party and we were both filled with dread that the tumor was back. We found out a few weeks later that it was… One year ago, he left our home permanently. Today, well today is lonely. It feels like the rest of the world is excited about a new decade whereas I’m reluctant to leave 2019, the last year Chris started with me. I’m not enthusiastic about what the next year or decade will bring. I am not full of plans and optimism. Today, I’m resigned to living out the minutes and memories as they come.

Like those flickering solar lights, my internal state oscillates with seemingly no order or productive function. In one minute, my stomach clenches with despair and the empty missing feeling. In another, I can call up happy memories. I remember Chris as we stood at the front of the church and said our vows, the most tender and open look on his face as he reached for the ring to give me, his fingers headed for his ring until gently prompted for mine, and I smile. But then he’s not here to marvel over the madness of what we went through. I remember the seizures and ambulance rides, the long talks about absolutely everything, the horrible MRI reports, silly family jokes and stunts, the shocking loss of vision and reading ability, happy evenings, desperate emergency room visits and hospital stays, long hugs, the last slow winks. Back, forth, back, forth. Missing, thankful, mourning, loving, lost. Dark, light, dark, light, dark. So much dark even when the tiny light flicks back on.
   

I suppose the next year will be full of much of the same. I miss him.

Need

A month ago, we picked out a Christmas tree and I hauled it into the house by myself. I found the boxes of decorations in the attic and lugged them down without assistance. They had been packed up haphazardly last year on a break I took from the hospice house. At the time, I knew that I needed the house de-Christmased for the after, whenever it commenced, and so I went into extreme robot mode to get it done with the help of my parents. As I opened the boxes this year and went through them, nothing was broken but my heart - there was our life in all its former happiness despite the disarray. The wolf from the Harvard Museum of Natural History, First Christmas Together (2004), ornaments we bought together, Baby’s First Christmas (2007, 2011) and on and on. The kids needed Christmas and I needed to provide it. I knew it would be close to unbearable, so I got it done in one night. Yes, it was mostly my effort. For me the speed was more necessary than their help, so when they disappeared before the task had really started, I didn’t say anything. It was probably better that way since the waterworks started up in earnest…

Almost everything from our Christmas collection was arranged and displayed except the window lights. Those were Chris’s tradition. We put them up in our first apartment and then grew to love them in our house; we even purchased timers for each room to make it easy to light up the night and go to bed without thinking. Last year, the effort of putting them up was too much during a desperate time and the light would have been too bright for the situation anyway. This year, I just couldn’t find it in me. I meant to do it because the kids wanted them, but I put it off until it was too late. They sat in their boxes in the living room for all of December.

Christmas approached and we did our best. The kids enjoyed music on the smart speaker daily and we made some cookies, but I couldn’t make or send a card. There is no way to sugarcoat this life and pass it off as holiday joy. (Anyone who reads here knows that I need several hundred words to say much of anything, definitely not card-able...) We carried through with the plan I finally made to go to visit my family for the big days and dropped our beloved Phoenix off with a dog-sitter. It was good to be with family, of course, and good to be away from our house. In the end it was a decent compromise between canceling Christmas altogether and staying home for a hollowed-out Christmas morning in front of our fireplace. I managed to shop for all of the gifts alone and planned what to bring on the trip and what to keep back for surprises upon our return. Thankfully nobody still believes in Santa, it would have been too hard without Chris. It was hard enough… Christmas came and went. We survived.

Now we are back. Coming home has been brutal as it always is after a holiday or time away. The permanence of Chris’s absence settles farther in with every task of unpacking and reentering daily life. With the actual holiday over now, I need it erased from the house as fast as possible. I could do the sparkles and some light for the kids, but only for so long. It was beautifully mild today, so down came the outside lights. The tree was dry, so, time to swallow the sobs and handle all of the ornaments again. I got the tree out of the house, the needles cleaned up, and the vacuum cleaner filter dumped, Chris’s old job. My energy fizzled and so tonight there are boxes covering the couch and decorations littering the table. I will finish it off tomorrow. I need to get it done and so I will.

Right now, I feel bone tired from crying and replaying hundreds of memories. I need to quiet my mind and I need to sleep.

Need.

Need is a specific word. I try not to hyperbolize and say need when I mean want. Some of the things I need are under my control and I can make happen. The deepest, most important things I need are out of reach, though. The Rolling Stones were wrong - I’m not going to find that I get what I need.

I need this nightmare to end. I need it to never have happened in the first place. I need Chris. 

Christmas

Chris always liked songs for expressing how he felt. This one is perfect for Christmas. We love him and miss him so much.

Wintersong, Sarah McLachlan

The lake is frozen over

The trees are white with snow

And all around

Reminders of you

Are everywhere I go

It's late and morning's in no hurry

But sleep won't set me free

I lie awake and try to recall

How your body felt beside me

When silence gets too hard to handle

And the night too long

And this is how I see you

In the snow on Christmas morning

Love and happiness surround you

As you throw your arms up to the sky

I keep this moment by and by

Oh I miss you now, my love

Merry Christmas, merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, my love

Sense of joy fills the air

And I daydream and I stare

Up at the tree and I see

Your star up there

And this is how I see you

In the snow on Christmas morning

Love and happiness surround you

As you throw your arms up to the sky

I keep this moment by and by

Boarded Up Apartment

On Thanksgiving of last year, we were just beginning to fall off the glioblastoma cliff although it wasn’t yet obvious how far and fast the plummet would be. It had been a bitterly cold day for November and N wanted to build an outdoor fire. Chris was having some trouble walking, but I held his arm and he made it to the backyard to shiver around the homemade firepit and admire the little blaze our son made all by himself. Later, we gathered for the usual Thanksgiving feast with family. I clearly remember standing next to him, my arm around him, his body solid. It had been a hard day because we all knew trouble was coming, but it was still a good family holiday.

Chris was not there at the Thanksgiving table this year. He wasn’t settled into the corner of the couch afterward and he wasn’t trying to cajole people into a posed photo. It was quiet. It was brutal.

Phoenix was with us this year, one more reminder of Chris’s absence because he couldn’t be around dogs without suffering allergenic misery. I escaped for a while to try to breathe by taking a post-dinner walk with that consolation prize dog. It was colder than I thought it would be, though not frigid like last year. Phoenix nosed around, happy to explore unfamiliar turf. I set off purposefully to walk on the street Chris lived on when we met. Like pressing a bruise, I needed to see his old apartment and feel the pain of a special time now past, never to replay again. The street surprised me in that many of the homes had been renovated and looked really spiffed up. As I approached the two-family house that held his former apartment, I could see that the building had been painted a different color since Chris last lived there, but it didn’t look fresh. In fact, the house stood out from the others on the street in its dilapidation - the doorway that led to Chris’s old place was boarded up with a piece of plywood. 

  

I stood in the blustery wind and stared at the place for a few minutes. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of desolation. All of those happy memories reduced to a rundown, boarded-up house with a collapsing front porch.

You can’t go back.

No, you can’t go back. How many ways do I have to learn this? Did I need to see Chris’s old place in disrepair and literally barricaded off to know this?

The truth is I do know this, but I still don’t want it to be true.

I wanted to break down that plywood and feel the rush of new love. I wanted to meet his roommates for the first time and see their surprised Chris-has-a-girl??? faces again. I wanted to make fun of all the dishes piled up from a week of three guys living the bachelor life and wash them with Chris.

I can’t stop wanting the holiday scene to include Chris standing in his mother’s dining room with my arm around his waist, familiar and alive.

Come back.

You can’t go back.

But I need you to come back, I miss you. I don't know what to do without you.

Come back.

The boarded-up apartment gave the only response to my mixed-up silent declarations.

He is not coming back. You can’t go back.

On Your Birthday

Today would have been your 42^nd birthday, Chris. You would have had to stop teasing me with that terrible singsong “old lady” chant of yours for another 10 months until my next birthday, when I would jump ahead again. This is hard. We miss you. Still, we did our best on this first November 17th since you died. We chose to go places we went with you, to be with the people who meant so much to you, and we remembered you and the happy times we had together. We are indeed thankful for the time we had with you, but we can’t help but wish for more. Pictures bring comfort, but there will be no new ones, and that hurts. As I recognize my own growth and evolution over the last year, I wonder about the person you would have become had you been granted the time to age. I can’t help but remember what I told you as you were leaving the world – you did so good, you were so good. I love you.

Pilgrimage

This one has been sitting as a draft in the works for a long time... It was hard to write, but important for me to finish, even three and half months later.

What does it mean to process a loss? It is an ill-defined cliché but one I hear and use frequently. I’ve been processing Chris’s death without pause for all of 2019. But what have I been doing?

Remembering, regretting, reliving.

Missing, moaning, mourning.

Wondering, wandering, wanting.

Lamenting, lingering, loving.

Puzzling, perseverating, pining.

Pilgrimage.

Processing…

Processing can occur at any time of day, in any state of consciousness, with or without intention. One of the more meaningful acts of processing has been pilgrimage. When I made my first pilgrimage on what would have been our 15^th wedding anniversary, I wondered all day whether that word was appropriate for what I was doing, which was visiting several places that were important to Chris and me, seeking something meaningful. These places are significant in the sense that these are places outside of our home in which we spent some of the best quality time together and grew closer together as partners. I’ve been wanting to write about this for a long time, because I did indeed find something meaningful, it’s just impossible to put it adequately into words.

I started by loading a T pass with several subway rides and went down onto the Alewife platform. Though it had been many years since doing this, it felt like slipping back into a comfortable routine. I made my way to the first stop on my agenda, Café Vittoria in the North End of Boston. This is a place where we went early on in our relationship. It is not a clear memory in my mind, but I do remember that Chris ordered cappuccino, added a couple of packets of sugar in the raw, then promptly stirred all of the gorgeous foam right into that drink. I teased him about it for a long time after that and he got a good laugh out of it, too. When I arrived at the cafe in 2019, I almost laughed because the place seemed completely unfamiliar. I think there were multiple levels to the cafe, but I felt stupid and nobody behind the counter seemed particularly friendly, so I just left. Café Vittoria was relegated to a nebulous, happy memory of the past. Some things will just be that way, I think, and this one was easy to leave behind.

Though it was a hot July day, threateningly humid and hazy, I decided to walk to my next destination; I knew from past wanderings on a late February night in 2018 that I could walk from the North End to MGH. That was the night of Chris’s third and last brain surgery. It had been a long day of waiting and stillness - waiting at home for it to be time to go, waiting for an afternoon surgery that was delayed, waiting for news of the procedure, and finally waiting for the surgeon to find me, the last person left in the waiting room from hell, to give me the full report that the tumor didn’t look like glioblastoma (spoiler – it was glioblastoma). Maybe the third brain surgery was the charm, because I knew not to hurry to where Chris was recovering since likely I would not be able to see him for a couple of hours. I killed the time by walking alone in the Boston night. The city was still lit up for Christmas even though it was two months gone. I walked looking for a place I could eat or even just get a glass of wine to decompress and let out the pent-up waiting breath I had been holding for a long time. No restaurant or bar seemed appropriate. I wandered from MGH to Government Center, watched some happy young couples ice skating, then walked to the North End before turning back to face the neuro ICU and whatever condition Chris was in.

Yes, in July of 2019, on what would have been our 15^th wedding anniversary, I made a pilgrimage to the hospital of all places. I had been feeling the draw of the place for some time but not had the opportunity to make the trip until this day. Slathered with sunscreen and hoping to avoid a thunderstorm, I walked from the North End, through the plaza at Government Center, and down Cambridge street to MGH. As I turned down the street and headed into the Yawkey building, I felt a lift of recognition.

This all really happened.

I’m sure it sounds strange that going to the hospital gave me relief, but it did. It’s been such a strange experience without Chris. I remember his decline in terrible detail, but it still somehow feels surreal that he could actually be permanently gone. Brain cancer? Who would have thought he would have such a rare diagnosis. At times I wonder if I made it up. Being at MGH made it clear to me that I did not because the lobby, café, halls, stairs, and elevators were all as familiar as my home. No, I didn’t make this up. This all happened.

While it was terrible, we had some incredible time together, in general and yes, even at this place. I wonder how many other people have done this, gone back to the hospital while not receiving treatment or visiting a patient. From my reading, I know my urge to revisit the hospital is not unique. Nothing I have felt or written about is actually unique. It’s funny how universal grief is and yet how alone one can feel when immersed in it…

I tried to take care and not get in the way of the business taking place there, but I still took my time and walked a few of those familiar halls. Being in the physical space where so many life-changing moments transpired brought back the intensity of those past days and, more importantly, the connection and love we shared. Here we sat countless times waiting for appointments, there I spent three long, long days waiting while Chris was in surgery. The fear and uncertainty came back to me, but Chris felt nearer than ever.

I sought out a patient education room that houses a Health Story Collaborative listening kiosk. From the HSC website, I thought that excerpts of Chris’s interview would be available on the kiosk along with other patients’ stories so I checked out headphones from the front desk and settled in to scroll through the audio files. I listened to several and then started impatiently flipping through the touchscreen pages. Chris wasn’t there. The kiosk wasn’t as updated as the HSC website. Disappointment coursed through my veins for a few minutes. I realized that I had desperately wanted to find Chris. While I knew that he wouldn’t really be there, I thought hearing his voice in this place would give me something. Chris spent so much time here, endured so much, tried hard to be a patient-partner, and I wanted these few recorded thoughts about his experience available at the place he entrusted with his very life. Briefly I closed my eyes and wished I had not come, my heart is too fragile for this kind of disappointment.

When I looked around the room again, I realized that time was slipping on, and I still had an important stop at MGH. Similar to so many other days, I forced myself to keep going. I took the familiar Yawkey elevators up to the 8^th floor. I would not go to the 9^th. No, the 9^th floor would be too much. That’s where the Pappas Center for Neuro-Oncology is located. People would recognize me there, and that was not my purpose today. Today was for anonymity and making my private pilgrimage. The 8^th floor would be close enough to allow me to touch the difficult days. It is laid out in the same way, with the same benches and views, and is home to the infusion center where Chris received Avastin for about 8 months.

When I stepped off the elevator, I could imagine ducking into the restrooms and waiting for Chris at the bench, our routine. I walked a little way down the hallway and took in the stunning and familiar view of Beacon Hill. Oh, we had seen that view from the 9^th floor in all seasons, all times of day… I passed by the waiting area for the infusion center and had to steel myself from sitting in the chairs we usually waited in. Chris wouldn’t be there, but I yearned to sit in his absence, the closest I can get now. No, not that waiting room, that would not be right.

I walked on down the hall and around the corner to enter the Healing Garden. This is a quiet space for patients and families. We had been there a couple of times to process difficult news, particularly in early 2018 when the MRI after Chris’s holiday season general seizure showed not only tumor growth, but also that it had infiltrated new parts of his brain. That was a tough, tough day. We had a feeling that the sand in the top of the hourglass was rapidly speeding through the chute and the oncologist in his brutally frank way confirmed that. We needed a space to sit and the Healing Garden had been ours alone that day.

On July 31, 2019, the Healing Garden was sadly packed with patients needing respite from chemo and families clearly broken from bad news. Since it was summer, the glass space opened to a rooftop garden overlooking Boston and Cambridge, so I quickly went outside to allow those who needed the indoor space and seating the ability to be there. Once outside, I looked at the view for a minute. We had not been wrong that last time we were at the Healing Garden, things were not looking good and in fact were terrible and did move as quickly as feared. I almost threw up with the realization again that Chris, my husband and best friend, had suffered and died.

Strangely enough, I would say that the Healing Garden did not disappoint although it bequeathed me an experience I was not expecting – a blast of bitter cold reality on a hot day. It was like that garden was a guide, pressing my fingers to the wound and forcing them to poke sharply, and at the same time connecting me to Chris.

I didn’t spend a long time in the garden and I won’t go back. It’s a place that helped us and me, but I won’t be selfish enough to take up space there again in this way. Besides, the day was really getting on and a storm was definitely brewing. I decided to walk over the Longfellow Bridge instead of entering the hot subway system again. I didn’t want the eyes of strangers on me nor my space encroached on. I walked over this bridge that I have crossed alone countless times in an earlier chapter of life – running during grad school. I left my recent past with Chris at MGH to visit memories of him from many years earlier at MIT.

As rain was imminent, I went into a building as soon as I could and once again muscle memory took over. I knew how to navigate from building to building to visit places that meant something to me. Again, I avoided a place where I might be recognized; I did not visit the chemistry building. Instead, I walked the halls housing the library, the lecture hall where we took cumulative exams, classrooms in which I taught recitation, and coffee stands. This place was a formative period of my life. It was hard. I made lifelong friends and met Chris. Once again, being in the physical place elicited memories that I had been unable to call up before. One of my earliest memories of Chris and his friend puzzling over a homework problem came alive in this courtyard. My mind’s eye saw him walking toward me with his particular walk and gentle smile.

It all really happened.

Gratitude, nostalgia, sweetness. All of these things washed over me and I wanted to linger, but once more I became aware of time passing and I needed to move on. I made my way through buildings until I couldn’t avoid going out in the street. The rain had started and it looked truly ominous, so I picked up the pace and headed to Kendall Square. Literally as I ducked into our old place, the Cambridge Brewing Company, a clap of thunder made me jump. The place appeared deserted, but a few staff members were sitting in the back. I boldly approached and asked if I could sit anywhere. They said that would be fine, so I picked our table. I chose the seat where I sat the last time we were here when we made a day of the last MGH appointment, and I directly faced Chris’s empty seat. Although I felt a little strange being alone, I claimed a place that was ours. I ordered a beer and our usual nachos, and enjoyed the memories of other times with Chris and friends. I read some of my favorite parts of Paul Kalanathi’s memoir as I ate, trying to stretch my time.

There was something so right about this day. I could not have felt closer to Chris even as I acutely felt his absence in some of our places. Writing about it now is making me sad, but on that day, I felt almost euphoric at times, my sadness was transformed for a little while.

 He was here in all of these places. He made all the difference to me. He loved me and I loved him. It all happened.

Afterward, I had to return to my children and leave my introspective and retrospective journey. Indeed, it was a pilgrimage.*

* 

What "Gone" Looks Like

Recently the kids asked if we could take a hike at a place we have gone as a family of four a few times, Mt. Wachusett. We looked at the weekend forecast and saw a perfect day on tap that coincided with an unscheduled Saturday. We woke up and were rewarded with reality fitting the forecast, so we eagerly packed water, snacks, lunch, dog supplies and then set off. The drive was enjoyable - the sky was a perfect October blue and the leaves were blazing orange and yellow against it, the reds of peak foliage were mostly gone but brown had not yet taken over. Once we arrived at the reservation, the various parking lots were jammed with cars full of people with the same idea to soak up a nice Saturday before a blustery Nor'easter rolled in on Sunday. We scored a parking spot and Phoenix began pulling us along the path, under the gate, and there we were, in the woods on a glorious fall morning. We admired the lake briefly and then headed up the mountain. The path names were familiar to Nathan and to Julia's delight, we scrambled over rocks and fallen trees. She declared it worth the drive at the steepest part. Well, the ambitious hike and the frosted donut with Halloween sprinkles she got as a bribe for taking the car ride with a good attitude made it worth it...

Thank goodness for Phoenix, the refrain of the last seven months. As is often the case, her funny antics allowed us to focus on her, something we all care about. In turn, that focus enabled us to be easy with one another. Phoenix is getting to be a big dog, probably 55 pounds now, and her strength is considerable; it required me to mostly concentrate on the here and now to avoid a major mishap instead of getting completely lost in memories. Particularly on the way down! The beauty of the day, this wonderful place, and the kids' bubbly excitement made me happy in a way that I don't often feel these days. We talked a lot about Dad and good times with him at the mountain. Those special memories were accessible to me by being back at Wachusett, and while that brought sadness, it wasn't overwhelming. 

The summit was crowded with people and dogs, but we took a few minutes to rest and take a selfie at a lookout spot where we had taken a family photo in 2015, our first time hiking Wachusett. That first family exploration of Wachusett was the day after Thanksgiving and unseasonably warm; we had "opted outside" and made it up the mountain together. Chris took several pictures with his camera and jollied certain small hikers out of difficult moods at key times. It had been a really good day. That old family selfie at the summit is one of my favorite pictures, I had it made into a magnet that is on the fridge now and I look at it many times a day. 

11/27/2015

On this past weekend's trip to Wachusett, I took a few photos with my phone. That wiggly puppy and those excited kids made for less than stellar pictures due to motion, but I'm really pleased with the shots I captured. It was a truly good day and now I can look back at it. Our selfie at the top was a one-try effort, the kids left my side as soon as I snapped it. When I looked closely at the photo later, I see that it came out better than I could have hoped for. I'm staring at it now and I see us in the sun with genuine smiles, and I see a literal gap where one person is missing. This singular photo sums up what it is like for us now. This is what Chris being gone looks like, this is what gone means. We have to go on without Chris and we are figuring that out. Sometimes we have happiness and enthusiasm, but there is always, always an empty place that cannot be filled. We wish he could be here with us. It would be so much better if he were with us. We miss him and we love him. That will never change...

This is what gone looks like: 

10/26/2019

Fridays

There’s something special about Friday; everyone at work or school is a little more cheerful than usual in the morning and energetic in the afternoon, driven by an eagerness to cut out early. My office neighbor used to appear in my doorway on Friday afternoons with a grin and announce “it’s quittin’ time!” It always made me smile. Academic freedom makes an early departure for the weekend quite realistic barring occasional department meetings, inevitably slated for the only time everyone is available – Friday afternoon.

I used to enjoy Fridays as much as anyone. Back in grad school, we had to work in lab on the weekends but Friday still felt like the beginning of a break because Saturday wouldn’t be a super long day and Sunday would be a day off. So, in our twenties, Friday nights would often be spent out with our friends at the Cambridge Brewing Company followed by a late movie. In our thirties, Friday hailed the beginning of uninterrupted family time, always welcome in the busy-ness of our life. Early on, I’d leave early, pick baby N up from daycare, and hike at the conservation land near our house. I’d walk with him strapped to my chest and point out the cows. In more recent years, I’d sneak a run in before getting the kids, or if Chris was home early, he’d play with them so I could get exercise. Then, we’d often escape from the week’s mess of school papers strewn on the table and dirty clothes in heaps, heading to a restaurant to enjoy food that someone else prepared and leave the remnants and crumbs behind, laughing while waiting and chatting easily on the way home. 

Now, Friday is complicated. When Friday rolls around, I keep finding myself surprised we made it to the end of another week because the rhythm of day-evening-night seems to be a long slog of tasks to be completed followed by waking up still tired and doing it again. So yes, I’m always relieved when Friday arrives; whew, we made it through another week. It’s definitely a feeling of relief, but I wouldn’t classify it as being happy. No, happy is what I see when my colleagues rush off, excited to leave their professional cares behind and enjoy down time with the people they love. This is when I’m hit with sadness and envy that cuts to my core. Someone is celebrating his wife’s birthday, another off to coach one of many weekend soccer games while I’m going home to clean up the disaster area that is the dining room table, fold three baskets of laundry, and maybe we will have a scrounge dinner night of whatever we want from whatever we can find (cereal is a meal). I’ll probably check in on bills and various accounts later when it’s so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Friday is not really fun anymore…

Our “new normal” has a quietness that is exaggerated when we try to replicate old normal family time, so over the past year we preferred to stay at home. Going out as a threesome was too lonely to bear, it seemed. Lately, though, I’ve sensed a change in our small family. Without discussing it, all three of us have seemed more receptive to attempting old normal things. Honestly, the kids have towed me along in their readiness. The first time they wanted to go to UNO’s on a Friday night, I said fine, let’s do it. It’s just a chain restaurant serving American food, nothing special. Ah, but it’s one where we had gone many times together. I agreed to the plan not realizing that a hundred memories would wash over me and choke the air out of the room…

As we walked up to the entrance, my mind's eye went into overdrive. I saw Chris carrying an infant carseat, and then there he was holding a small hand while happy toddler feet skipped. When Nathan was very young, he was riveted by the numerous screens at this restaurant since we didn’t let him watch much TV. Chris and I found that we could talk more together if we went to UNO’s and guiltily sometimes chose it for this reason. Occasionally a magician would wander around the dining room making balloon creatures for kids and doing magic tricks; we hired him for a birthday party years ago. Preceding our family life, Chris and I would eat at this chain with friends from grad school. He’d often enjoy a mango iced tea (referred to as an MIT by his friend) and insist on getting the mashed potato pizza appetizer topped with bacon and cheese. We would talk about the chemistry department characters, laugh over nerdy things, and watch October baseball.

The place was full of families with carefree Friday night smiles. Once seated, we remembered aloud the things Dad liked from the menu and ordered those pizza skins. J and I played tic tac toe as we waited, but there was an empty seat across from me and no easy banter. N sat alone on his side of the table, immersed in a baseball game on TV. The longer we waited,  the more our family of three felt out of place. I wanted to get the heck out of there as soon as possible but, as our luck would have it, the service was slow and our time there interminable. The more minutes that ticked by the less there was to say. A few tears slipped down my face and I tried hard not to let it get the best of me. The kids didn’t cry or express their sadness, maybe they didn’t know what to do with a sad mom or memories of their own. We were all relieved when the bill finally arrived and we were released back into the comfort of our own world. At home, we retreated to separate corners of the house to seek relief in our chosen distractions.

Fridays are hard…

Scrappy, Joyless, and Dark

It been a busy five weeks. Working full time as a solo parent is no joke, it’s hard. There is so much to do! I’m realizing that I basically have to be in motion all of the time for things to stay on track, food to get on the table, lunches packed, minimal tidying up, laundry done, homework supervised, permission slips signed, bills paid, financial meetings to occur, the car to be maintained, the dog walked, and oh yeah, my professional work to get done. Not to mention the emotional work of figuring this all out and trying to support everybody’s moods and needs while walking on eggshells at times.

I’ve been hesitant to write this out because it sounds whiny, I know it does. Poor me, my life is so hard… The crazy logistics of raising kids and caring for a home with only one adult CAN be managed and I am learning how to do so. It is not always graceful or smooth, but life is moving forward. The kids are growing, learning, participating in activities, and happy at many times. There are no pressing problems to be addressed. We are actually very lucky in the scheme of a young-ish family that lost its primary bread-winning parent. Many people in my situation would have to move and/or find a different, higher-paying job. Thanks to Chris’s hard work and amazing career, we are fine. We have no real financial issues, just new details to be put in place. Whenever I feel stressed about this, I try to remember what a privilege it is to not worry about money, to not have to make other monumental changes to our already different life, and to have healthy children who do not struggle in school. Our lifeboat has been wildly rocked, but it has not been tipped over.

Yes, I can accomplish the tasks of my life. Indeed, I can make calls, ask questions, stay up late, get to the orthodontist, bike home from the car repair place. At work I can teach my classes, learn how to carry out the responsibilities of my new and temporary position, look at student records, write careful emails to people I don’t know, operate out of two buildings. On the one hand, I am realizing how capable I am. This is good, I was reluctantly empowered by the terrible situation and now I’ve risen to the occasion. On the other, my scrappy operating mode has a harder edge than I imagined I could have. I hate to admit it, but sometimes I’m not as kind as I should be to my children or even the dog. My patience for others runs short quickly and, though I try to conceal it, I bet it has been noticed. I’m not so proud of this hardness. Has it always been there but Chris softened it? Or, is it new, the straight slash mark of a deep loss?

Regardless, there’s nothing I can do right now to sand it down. The one person who could help me with that is not available. Once the chaos of the day is over and the kids are in bed, the old familiar enjoyable part of life is painfully absent. There is nobody with whom to go over it all, laugh it off, and relax. There is nobody to talk to. The one thing that made all of life easy to bear and fun to experience was Chris, and he’s just not coming back. Everything is joyless to me now.

The saying that your spouse is your “better half” was true for us, I think. He was so good, so steady, so patient, so fun-loving. Better. He would have been better at this. If the roles were reversed, I know Chris would have been sad and he would have had to make drastic life changes that would have been logistically challenging, but I doubt he would have some of the ugly feelings of grief. He always said, “it is what it is” in the face of his unimaginable burdens and he never really asked “why me?” I remember all of this and put it together, and I wonder if Chris would have been as unable to be happy as I am now. I can’t say for sure, but I have this dark feeling it would have been better for everyone if it had happened the other way around instead of how it did.  

There was no choice in the matter, though, was there? You get your cards and can't change them, you can only play them. I was the one who survived. I feel guilty for surviving and at the same time, I know that I should appreciate my survival more. I should do more than just get through each day and take more notice of the wonderful things about being alive.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to keep going on in this way, but I will. Just like Chris, and just like Paul Kalanithi, who quoted Samuel Beckett:

“…in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.”

Missing You in Zurich

Chris’s scientific community honored him by dedicating part of an annual symposium to him. The organizers and his company were kind to include me and pay my way to attend. The trip has been one of those milestones of reckoning for me. I could sense the enormity of it in preparing and then it slammed into me as I began my solo journey. Now that I’m in the airport waiting to go home, there is so much to process from this trip; a lot of wonderful events and interactions with people who loved Chris but a freshly opened grief wound, too. This morning as I was walking around Zurich alone and found myself in a scenic lookout that we had been to together, thoughts of Chris and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem were on my mind. The opening lines to her famous poem, slightly adapted, are an apt way to describe how much I miss him.

How do I miss you? Let me count the ways.
I miss you to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach...

I just miss him. And I feel so grateful that Chris understood me so well and loved me for who I am. The sadness is profound today.

Used To It (?)

Time continues to slip by and I continue to worry that I am doing this all wrong. If I focus deeply on Chris and delve into the details of memories I can find him there, but the pain of his ordeal comes rushing back and the devastation of his physical absence can be unbearable. When I prevent myself from doing this for stretches I can anesthetize my brain but that has its downsides, namely that I feel I am betraying Chris and forgetting him.

What is right one day does not necessarily feel so the next so I continue to take it one day at a time and try to honor what Chris would think about the situation. With respect to most things, I hesitate to declare what Chris would or would not think, but I do feel strongly that he wouldn’t want me to lose sleep or peace over how much time I spend entrenched in memories of him. He knows I love him, and I know he loves me. Active, present voice. Love doesn’t die, it doesn’t end. The more I allow myself to dwell in that knowledge the better.

With the craziness of back-to-school I have not had time to allow myself to get lost in grief. There are too many things to do and I must keep in motion to get them all done. This ramped up activity and intellectual stimulation at work has been helpful and has given way to a more functional mode. This week I have felt a bit more peace, too, a bit more of Chris’s steady love under the surface of my daily life. When you have a good marriage it is hard to put into words what makes it a source of comfort, security, and joy. There’s just a feeling of constant well-being knowing that you have your person in the world and your person has you, and this co-constructed, tiny world can bear most hurts and delight in life’s joys. When your person is alive and well, you don’t need to be talking with him or actively thinking of him to be held by that framework of loving support. Believe it or not, I’ve tapped into this again at times. Sometimes as I drive to work or go about my business I just feel that sense that all is well between us and our love feels present, and this sustains me.

Sometimes. It would be dishonest to overstate this progress. Other times I am in such pain and it hurts so acutely that I experience that strangled, hard-to-breathe feeling. I wonder how long that will last, or if it will ever stop happening for good. As others have written, many others, the searing pain of early grief can be a gift because your person feels close. Some express that they miss that awful groaning, the true keening, once it becomes rare. I think I see how that could be as I am more used to Chris being dead.

“Used to it.” This phrase was spoken by one of my children this week. The phrase went straight from the child’s lips through my heart, like a laser-focused dagger. I recoiled inside myself but I tried not to show it. I silently cried my apology to Chris that this could possibly be so, for how could we ever be used to his absence? He should be right here with us and it still feels terribly wrong that he is not. I tried to listen to my child while wordlessly vowing to Chris to keep speaking of him and remembering him with the kids. I will. He knew that and counted on it, and there’s no way I would stop. It is hard-wired into my parenting. I don’t know why I panicked like that. With a little distance from that moment, I feel better but still have to convince myself that there is no shame if my family is used to the way things are now. In fact, that is quite healthy. Once again there is something I am quite sure of - Chris would want his children (and me) to be able to move forward effectively and productively. He would want us to get used to this new life.

I don’t particularly want to be used to this because I don’t want it to be this way at all. Still, there is no choice. I am certainly not ready to say that I’m used to it, but I’m much farther down the road. This is good. This is healthy. This is moving forward. But, it’s still unbelievably painful.   

The Good, Bad, and Emergency Contact Hell of Back-to-School

Just a quick report from the professional trenches. My first "real" day back on Monday was terrific! I was stressed about being under-prepared, but there was enough time to get the final tasks accomplished before my classes and they went well. Especially the chemistry class. The wonder of small-scale academic life is the fresh start feeling in the fall. New students who don't hate you yet, the personal vows to be more organized and work less at night, friendly chats with colleagues. It was an amazing high after the butterflies subsided. My new, temporary role has me running around campus and teaching in two buildings while holding office hours in two separate offices in different buildings yet. Compared to the semester that I never had to leave the floor that my office is on, this is quite a change. It's a bit crazy-making, but different is good. The theme of life is that trying to do the same old things minus Chris is terribly sad and doesn't work, but making small changes/additions helps. The same is true at work. My old office with all of my old pictures and memories feels stale and suffocating in its silence, but my new office is in a hub of activity. I can't help but be distracted by being busy, busy, busy with new tasks and interactions with students and faculty outside my department. Chris is never far from the front of my mind, and I noticed that I felt more peaceful about him. For a few stretches it felt like it used to, like he was in my life but just not actively at that moment. It was a normal feeling when I would be at work when he was alive - we didn't communicate too much during the day when he was healthy and working. The sharpest pang of loss came when I arrived at work and there was nobody to text to say, "At work, hope you have a great day!" It probably sounds dumb, but I keep realizing how many layers there are to my loss. The small gestures were so important to our relationship. Still, I felt like Chris was there for me as he always was. I'll take a good day when I get one!

The second and third days were less spectacular due to catastrophic computer issues and being without my laptop, but I guess you could say it all worked out. I'm full professor now so who cares if I look bad because I don't have certain documents. Not my fault! Anyway, I'm looking forward to catching up on lost time now that I have my laptop back. I'm busily at work tonight as one can see :)

The kids went back to school today. We enjoyed that first day of school excitement. Unfortunately there were bus scheduling problems across the schools and many kids, including them, were affected by long, long waits on both ends. They survived after sufficient venting while I had a glass of wine tonight. I think it is safe to say that it is already tiring but already good for the humans to get out of the house to school/work. The canine family member may disagree but Phoenix appeared to survive her long lonely day on the couch with no accidents and no chewing incidents. I shudder to think about how much howling there was at people/dogs passing by but, as the saying goes, out of earshot out of mind. 

I need to get used to managing everything about the school routine again. Chris had been so wonderful about tag-teaming the packing of lunches and snack, signing forms, applying sunscreen and waiting for buses. It is awfully lonely without him. Also, there is just so much to do... I try to make sure I keep on top of dishes, laundry and some basic tidying, but inevitably something gives; right now there is a large pile of papers needing to be filed. (Phoenix better not get into it!)

The worst part of going back to school for me is the parent homework - forms. The myriad pieces of paper with duplicated information stating emergency contacts and such. Ugh, there it is. Christopher P Davie is still listed as father, thankfully, but staring me in the face is his legal status - deceased. Receives mail? No. Receives email? No. Child can be dismissed to? No. There is the cold truth laid out for me in neat type. This is not the first time I have had to update emergency contact information. The doctor and dentist offices have needed it, my own workplace has needed it. My stomach always churns as I delete Chris and add local family names. For the schools, the weight of listing friends/neighbors hung heavily over me. There is no spare parent, nobody else to pick up the vomiting child. That's too much to ask of someone else unless it is a true emergency. I hate this. We were such a good team. He should be here... He would be here if he had any control over the situation. The visceral pain of form completion is hard to describe. 

The other issue with back-to-school that I now face is how to interface with teachers. I'm sure divorced parents face awkwardness and I have a newfound sympathy for them. However, they have strength in numbers whereas I'm an alien. This may change, but my approach is to take the bull by the horns. I fired off an email to J's teacher last night to open the lines of communication. Things are going well, but who knows what might change and I need to be vigilant, and I need help from the people who are important in the kids' lives. Actually, I worry most about anticipating school projects about family. My approach to life is to be direct about our loss. It is monumental that Chris has died, there is no beating around the bush or hiding it; I'm committed to speaking of him. The kids need to have a choice about how to handle it, though. They are learning what they are comfortable with. I don't want them wondering what to do about a Father's Day project. Especially in elementary school, I think it's important that the teacher knows and can talk to me about how to handle these things before they occur. Anyway, I think contacting the teacher is critical and yet I still feel awkward, because it stinks, but it's done now. To the teacher's credit, I received a nice reply. Middle school is a different ball of wax. Still thinking about that. They did a great job last year and N is in a different developmental stage, with quite different school projects. I'm not as worried about playing active defense for him. We do have a great school district and there is a lot of support.  

That's the round up. Mostly good, some bad/unfortunate, some excruciatingly painful components of back-to-school. 

Anxiety, The Missing "Stage" of Grief

Currently I am gripped by a debilitating anxiety about going back to work full time and the kids going back to school. The onset of the "new normal" is breathing down my neck and I feel far from normal.

Somewhere I read something about anxiety and grief in which the author called it the missing stage* from the traditional model. I'm a bad student and don't recall my source but I remember the quote distinctly because it resonated with me. Anyone who knows me knows that I run anxious, but right now what I'm feeling is different. I have taught my classes before and it is not rocket science to get them started. Yes, I'm taking on an interim new role but there is a lot of support for it. None of this should or normally would be causing the constant flippy feeling in the pit of my stomach. It is all tied up in muddling through living with loss.

Much as I know the routine will be good for the three of us, I really don't want to leave our summer cocoon where nobody expects much from us. I do not want to start a brand new school year without Chris. Last year he was able to go to the elementary school open house and was fully involved in kicking off the year despite it being a difficult, uncertain time. Now he is not here.

The anxiety creeps up when I stop living one moment at a time, and that is now necessary because functioning in today's world requires concentration, planning, scheduling, timely communication, and execution of all of those plans. Everything is different now. I don't want to think about how it is permanent nor project into the future when the kids are grown and flown, but I am doing that. I don't like what I see ahead of me and there's nothing I can presently do to fix it. Hence, massive anxiety.

It will get better, I do believe that it will. I've made mental plans to take some steps to make life easier, like hiring a cleaner a couple times a month. Minimizing stress will be key, as will getting exercise worked back into the routine. I just need to get a few weeks into it all. Likely the return to work will be good and healthy for me. Best of all, I get to do it with a new job title which means that I don't need to prove myself. I already did. So take that, anxiety!

*Elisabeth Kubler-Ross first described these stages for the terminally ill, not for those living with loss. Much has been written about the shortcomings of the 5 stages of grief for survivors of the death of a loved one because they are not sequential for everyone and the phases can return repeatedly over years.  

You, Us, I, We

Dear Chris,

The day I've been dreading since you died has arrived - our anniversary. I don't know what to make of still being here without you and marking 15 years since the day we were married, the day we made Us official. It is not our 15th anniversary, I guess. The wording "it would have been my 15th anniversary" comes to mind and I don't like how it sounds, but it is fitting. Our marriage required us both to be here and you're not now, so it's not 15 years old. It definitely would have been if you had lived.

July 31, 2004

Fifteen. One of those multiples of five. Not a huge one that people celebrate but also not just a tiny milestone. We only got one of those flashy anniversaries at 10 years. I know it bothered you and you were sad that we wouldn't see others, like 25 or 50 years. I am sad about that, too. In one of my recent spells of daydreaming, I imagined what you would look and be like as an old man. It broke my heart into a few more pieces. You would have reveled in being a grandfather if our kids have children. You would have cared for me for years if you could. We had what it took to make it work for a long lifetime. I know we did. I'm so sorry you didn't get the chance to see more years.

Another of my daydreams is thinking about what I would do if I could have five more minutes with you now. What would I say to you? I spent a long time thinking about how I would pepper you with questions and say all of those things I always say in my head. I love you. I have missed you. Thank you. I am so sorry. That last one is important because I still cannot forgive myself for not playing your last day differently. When I'm being honest with myself, I know that you always forgave me. You always knew that I meant well if I didn't get something right. In fact there was not one thing I ever said or did that you didn't forgive and move on from. I'm trying to remember that as I continue to grapple with regrets. Our special wedding dance song reminds me that words are not needed. We both knew that. So if I could have those five minutes, I don't think I would say anything but instead just give you the tightest hug I could.

Sometimes I still cannot believe you are actually gone. When I can accept that you are gone in other moments, I am astonished that I am able to breathe and move in this world without you. I love you so much. Basically as far back as I can remember you I have loved you. Even early on when I couldn't name that feeling it was there. Something in me immediately recognized you as home. You were so special. So kind and genuine, so gentle. Fun-loving, funny, happy. I miss you so much, the emptiness left behind from your death is endless. I wish I could make you know that I still love you, maybe more than ever, and I always will. I hope you somehow do feel my love. I feel your love in this house, in our family, in my mind and heart. You were incredible and left me a legacy of your love.

I also miss Us, and that is not quite the same as missing you. Everything that made you so special to me as an individual you poured into nurturing Us, just as I freely gave the best parts of me to Us. Forming an unbreakable, loving partnership was important to both of us, and while the work of building Us was mostly joyful, we both learned about compromise, speaking truth, forgiveness, and sacrifice. We didn't have very long to be a regular Us before the specter of grave illness, just three and a half years of marriage. We were close in those years, best friends. I'm thankful for that time because it laid a strong foundation for what was to come. It is hard to describe what did come in the years following your diagnosis. Yes, there was intense worry, great uncertainty, and deep sadness before the recurrence. We turned toward each other, to Us, to get through. I am aware that some couples cannot survive this type of situation and I'm profoundly thankful that we did. I'm proud of you, and I'm proud of me, and I'm proud of Us. The Us that developed over the years, even the really tough ones at the end, gave us a sense of well-being, of peace, and of refuge. As long as we were together everything felt safe.

Us, 2014

Before you died I would have written that confidently - we felt safe and completely fulfilled in our partnership. Now that you're gone, I worry over my words. Am I being accurate if I use "we" in conversation? Do I really know what you were feeling? Am I deluded about Us and how close we were? Was it all even real? Every now and then when I remember conversations, look at pictures, or listen to recordings we made together, I can tap back into the feeling of being Us. Those moments are a gift but also incredibly sad because I miss Us. It is so painful that Us is gone, it really is more wrenching than I imagined. It took two to make Us, to be able to say We, and now there is just me left behind. Everything was better when I was part of Us. The way of the Us life is gone and cannot be replaced. I have to keep saying it to believe it... 

The enormous loss of Us is exemplified by my language choices. Unless I am talking about the past specifically, I have started saying "I" more than "We" in conversation even though it is incredibly painful. I suppose I said "We do this or that" a million times and it was brain muscle memory to keep doing it, but the longer you are gone, the more that type of comment feels wrong. I hate to admit it, but I am sensitive about what people think of me. If I keep saying "We" do people think I cannot understand the situation, that you're gone? Still, phrases of "I do things this way" feel like acid in my mouth, particularly when I'm thinking about taking care of our house and finances, and especially about parenting our children. It feels horrendously disloyal to say "I" but increasingly uncomfortable to say "We." Please forgive me. I'm feeling this all out the best I can. I want you to know that I speak of you freely, frequently, and with the utmost love and respect. 

Yes, I'm doing the best I can. It is not pretty sometimes. When I talk to you in my head I often cry to you that I don't know what to do without you. It's true, I'm quite lost without you. But, I cannot lose myself completely; I am quite aware of my heightened responsibility now. There is no spare parent, I can't go down. I have no idea what I'm doing and live literally a couple of days at a time, just floating along and putting out fires as I go. I don't have the ability to think and plan much farther ahead than that. It's working for right now but I'm worried about going back to work and school. The routine may actually be a needed shove toward effective functioning, I don't really know, but I'm worried everyone will expect me to be normal. I don't know what normal is anymore.

What I do know is that I have a lot of good people around me. Some of them would not surprise you at all. Our families are the best and you always knew it, good friends, too. What I want to tell you is that I have some new friends, Chris. I can't believe it but I have met and become closer to a lot of people because you died. Actually some of these folks I have not even met in person but have interacted with in the brain cancer and wider widowed community. The world is an amazing place. You helped me see this while you were here, and you help me now that you're gone, too.

Chris, I am not exactly sure what you wanted at the end of your life with respect to our wedding vows. When you spoke to our friend to write a piece with her in December, she thought you wanted to renew them but we didn't get to it. You wanted me to share the vows with our parents and we did do that by email. It all adds up to me knowing that our vows were important to you. Please know that they are important to me, too. As with just about anything, they make me sad to revisit but also deeply grateful when I do. I will make sure the kids see these some day.

When I read what you wrote and spoke for me, I smile now because you absolutely lived by these words:

Betsy, this wedding is a celebration of our love for one another and a commitment to be loving and faithful to each other for the rest of our lives. It’s a continuation of a life together that we’ve already begun. You’ve made me so happy already, and the joy of knowing that we have a lifetime to spend together is truly a gift. I promise to do everything I can to help us grow together as a couple, and also to be there to support and encourage you as you grow as an individual. I promise to love you unconditionally, to be there to listen to you, hug you and hold you when you are happy and when you are sad. I promise to be patient, understanding and forgiving; to listen to you, to discuss things, and to work through any problems we might have. I promise to love and hold you through good times and bad, sickness and health for all the days of our lives. I love you!

You did it. You loved me unconditionally until your last day. You forgave me freely, this I will remember forever. You prioritized Us and showed me grace. You expressed your love in every way you could, understanding it was the most important thing to do. You did so well, Chris. We got more than our share of bad times and sickness for 14.5 years of marriage, but you showed me more than 50 years worth of love. You couldn't have been a better husband.

It's only right to remember my vows, too:

Chris, we’ve come so far to arrive at this day. We became friends. We learned to reach out to each other and to share our lives. We became a team. Along the way, you deeply touched me with your thoughtful heart, kind ways and most of all, with your love. Today we fully join our lives, beginning down a new path together. Along the way, I promise to treasure and nurture our partnership, while honoring our individuality. I will encourage us to grow, to serve others, and to take the higher road both independently and as a couple. I promise to support you and be your friend through achievements, disappointments, joys, and sorrows. In times of decision and disagreement, I promise to listen, to be willing to compromise, and to be open to change. I will be there to celebrate with you, and I will be there to cry with you. I promise to hold you, and I promise to love you in good times and hard, in sickness and in health, for all the days of my life. I love you!

I did it, too. I did celebrate with you and I did cry with you, and I hope you felt my support and friendship. I loved you in the good times and in some devastatingly hard times of sickness. We made it together. I am proud of Us. We had an outstanding, successful marriage. I just wish it had been a lot longer...

As July 31 unfolds, I will be mourning you as a husband and person, and I will be missing Us. It will be a very difficult day. As much as it hurts and feels like pouring salt in a wound, it will be the day to take my wedding band off. It seems right to place it on my family necklace with your wedding band. Those two rings can be together and it will be okay. I am selfishly sad about my engagement ring - we picked it out together and I honestly love it. I know that rings don't reflect how much or even whether someone loves you, that kind of love cannot be shown by any symbol and I am absolutely confident that you loved and love me. I shouldn't "need" to have an engagement ring but I do admit to liking the overt sign that someone chose me. Shallow, I know, but I have had to give up so much, must I give up this ring, too? I've thought about this a lot. I think I will try it on my other hand. If I like that, I might have it resized to fit better so I can continue to enjoy it. I know none of this ring stuff matters, Chris. Nothing can change our love. I do not need reminders to think about you, I always am. The rings are something I have to deal with being the person left in the world of the living. I hope you understand. Actually, I know you would. You always did.

Today I will also try to celebrate you and Us. I plan to go to some of our places. I know it will hurt, but I want to remember some of our special or even just typical times in Cambridge and Boston. I won't find you in the present at any of them but I hope I can remember the fun and love that we shared. I hope I can feel Us again even for a few seconds.

I don't know how to end this. It feels like I'm talking to you and I never want to stop. I love you so much. I miss you terribly. Thank you so much for a wonderful life, for being part of a treasured Us. 

Your wife,

Betsy  

That's Not How It Works

Phoenix rose very early this morning as she often does, demanding her breakfast and time in the yard before much of the neighborhood was awake. But being the good pup she is, she was convinced to take a snooze with me after her needs were met. As I dozed off into a light sleep, strange and vivid dreams passed through my mind. I dreamed of Chris, one of only a few times. In this dream, I felt Chris’s comforting presence strongly but I couldn’t find him. He seemed to be right behind me but I couldn’t see or touch him. I said to him imploringly, “I want you to come back.” The only thing dream-Chris communicated to me was, “That’s not how it works.” It was not a mean comment but it also wasn’t particularly reassuring, it was the truth laid out for me. That was it, that was the end of the dream. I woke with an uneasy, unsatisfied feeling and I’ve been thinking about this dream all day.

I’m a practical person; I don’t believe that people come back to us in dreams. Still, when your special, deceased person is suddenly there in a dream it’s hard to remember that dreams are just electrical activity in neurons, well-worn circuitry activated in a state of semi-consciousness. My mind has been busily working on something lately but during the day the thoughts come too fast and are too interrupted to discern a theme or message. The sleep state relaxed other thoughts and only then could I find clarity.

That’s not how it works.

What a simple sentence, an answer to a lot of swirling questions… Chris in his great wisdom and intentional living showed me this, and my own mind processed his lesson and delivered it to me when I most needed it.

In my journey thus far I have had to beat down a lot of unflattering thoughts and questions. Wanting Chris to come back is something I wish for daily. I know it's not possible, but I cannot help it. This dream message was not unkind, only needed, just as we often helped each other in real life. I’m not proud to admit that there are other questions and thoughts it applies to. I have lamented that Chris developed a brain tumor since he was such a good person, such a smart person who was contributing to society through his job and charitable donations. Why did this happen to us when we did everything right? We followed all of the rules, we lived deliberately, we pursued the best medical care and respected all of its recommendations. We did everything right. Why do our children have to suffer this catastrophic loss when they had a devoted, involved father? It all seems like such a waste of good decisions and safe living.  

That’s not how it works.

It’s a good thing, I guess. It’s easy to say “I’m a good person” and overlook my various flaws and shortcomings, not to mention my great privilege. Wouldn’t everyone say he is a good person? Why do I think I’m so good and more deserving of life than any other? It's a selfish, arrogant attitude to assume I don't deserve hardship but others might. Moreover, even if I was right that Chris and I are good people, doesn’t it make sense that this tragedy befell us because we are/were well-situated to handle it? After all, our privileged yet measured, rule-following living gave us a financially and emotionally secure family life. We both paid close attention to our children throughout this ordeal and they have a comfortable, stable life. Who could navigate this better? Maybe the fate that met us is actually appropriate in lieu of colliding with some other family less well off, with a less sure grounding. We were in a good position to handle something horrific and we got that. That doesn’t sit well… We got it because we could handle it?   

                                                                             

That’s not how it works.

Thank goodness that is not how it works. There is no rhyme nor reason.

Why do I find this comforting? There is nothing I or we could have done to avoid it. Just as the random fortunate happening of biology created the specific, unique person of Chris, an unhappy accident of nature caused the brain tumor and took him away. There was no reason, it just happened. The rain falls on the just and unjust, so there is no point in trying to adjudicate who is the just.

The flip side to this comfort is the following question – given this monumental loss, am I now immune to further calamities? No. That’s not how it works. I could be diagnosed with cancer, an autoimmune disorder, taken out by a car accident tomorrow, or encounter any other of a countless array of problems. Even though I cannot bear to imagine, the same is true for our children. Or, maybe we will escape major misfortune for a while. This part of the randomness is not comforting. Lightning can strike twice even though most people are never struck at all.

What to do? All I can do is live with an appropriate amount of preventative caution and benevolence for the sake of the rightness of being good to others, not because being "good" will result in easy living. Also, I need to appreciate what I do have in the here and now. Easier said than done sometimes, but I am trying…

Whatever I saw or heard in that dream came from me, not Chris. Yet, that doesn’t mean that I cannot learn or take something from this dream and it doesn’t mean there was nothing of Chris in it. I knew him well and my mind called up the essence of Chris. It was him and not him at the same time. I needed some answer for my endless pondering and I got one, even though it was somewhat different than what I hoped for.

I am an eternal student of life, I guess, destined to be continually surprised by my own deficiencies.