Anniversaries

Over the course of the last year, I have found some measure of comfort in music - music that reminds me of Sami, music that we enjoyed together (especially early in our relationship), music that makes me laugh. And, sometimes, music that has the power to make me cry. 

Our daughters introduced me to one of the artists I’ve come to enjoy a great deal in the last 18 months - Jason Isbell. And as I approach what would have been our 34th wedding anniversary (on August 4) and the first anniversary of Sami’s passing, one song in particular stands out - “If we were Vampires.” Here’s the second verse and chorus:

“If we were vampires and death was a joke, we'd go out on the sidewalk and smoke and laugh at all the lovers and their plans. I wouldn't feel the need to hold your hand.

“Maybe time running out is a gift. I'll work hard 'til the end of my shift and give you every second I can find. And hope it isn't me who's left behind.

“It's knowing that this can't go on forever. Likely one of us will have to spend some days alone. Maybe we'll get forty years together. But one day I'll be gone, or one day you'll be gone.”

I know I’ve referenced this song in previous blogs, but it’s a song that I keep coming back to - much like coming back to some of my favorite authors (Ivan Doig, for one), I find it comforting to know that artists more articulate than me have thought and written about similar emotions. And similar trauma.

Looking back on that incredibly hot August day in Sonora in 1990 when Sami and I were married, I don’t recall our exact vows, but I know our wedding was pretty traditional. I know there was something about “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.” I also know that at the age of 23, I still felt invincible - the “until death do us part” portion of our vows didn’t register with me at the time. Now, 34 years after we each said, “I do” to those promises, their weight takes my breath away. I think intellectually I knew all along that “this can’t go on forever,” but emotionally (at least at 23), I had no capacity for imagining what this experience would be like (does anyone?!). Over the last week, I have found that I have flashbacks to Sami’s last two weeks. Looking back at my journal entries from that period, I am struck by how emotionally and physically exhausted I was. And yet I also feel - I don’t know how to articulate this without it seeming like bragging - a sense that I saw the vows that we took 34 years ago through to the last. I worked “‘til the end of my shift.”

I was traveling on August 4 and will be working on August 13. Both days are important to me; both days are also just regular days to much of the rest of the world. In some sense, I feel like the world has moved on. I can’t - I don’t want to move “on.” Forward, hopefully.

These anniversaries also happen to coincide with my move from Auburn to Mountain Ranch. Today, Auburn Moving Company came to move most of the things in our house; for the rest of the week, my family will help me move everything else. But tonight, I’m sitting alone in a very empty house.

For the last week or so, my emotions have been very close to the surface - a recognition of these difficult first anniversaries, I’m sure. Simple things - like catching the scent of Sami’s favorite perfume while packing our bathroom, or coming across a photo of her from early in our marriage, bring tears - as does knocking around a house that has been full of love, laughter, sadness, anger - in other words, life! - for more than 23 years. 

Reminders of the trauma we endured as a family are equally difficult. On Sunday, as I got off a plane at the Sacramento airport, a young girl who’d been seated in front of me suffered a seizure. Her mom helped keep her safe; her dad had already taken their other children up the jetway. I rushed to him to let him know, and offered to help with the other kids. I know my response must have seemed odd (even troubling) to these complete strangers, but I was immediately transported to the seizures Sami suffered last spring and summer. I wanted to help. I wanted this family to trust me - to know that I had experience with the trauma they were going through. And I can only imagine that they found our interaction disturbing. I was surprised by how much this incident shook me. Two nights later, the memory still brings tears.

My sister has told me on several occasions that she thinks I’m incredibly brave - brave for moving to a new house, brave for having faced what our family faced in 2023, brave for simply getting up each day and putting one foot in front of the other. I don’t know. I don’t feel particularly brave. I feel like I simply got up each day during Sami’s illness and tried to figure out what was needed of me that day. I’m still trying to figure this out a year after Sami left us. And I still don’t know. I still feel as though I’m stumbling through a room I’ve never been in before, in the dark.

While I’m moving all of our things to Mountain Ranch this week, I won’t officially live in Calaveras County until late September, when I transfer to my new position with the Central Sierra region of the University of California Cooperative Extension. Some friends have graciously offered me a room in their home in Auburn during the week; on the weekends, I plan to work on putting my new home together. But I’m looking forward to making the move permanent - to no longer living in the limbo of not knowing where I need to be, or what I need to do. After the incredible disruption of the last 18 months, I’m looking forward to being settled.