Guideposts and Dreams

Dreams are an interesting phenomenon. I don’t always remember my dreams, at least not once I’ve fully awakened. And for about a year after Sami died, I don’t recall seeing her in my dreams at all. That has slowly changed - I sometimes see her now in my dreams as she was before she got sick. Last week, she appeared in a dream, and while I can’t remember the details, I do remember that the setting for the dream was our house in Auburn - the home we shared for 22-plus years. When I awakened (needing to go to the bathroom), I got out of bed on the side where I’d slept when we shared a bed (I now sleep on what Sami always said was her side of the bed, but that’s a topic for another essay). And I headed for the bathroom door where it had been in our old house. And what is now, in my new house, my closet. Fortunately I awoke before I peed in my boots! As you might imagine, this was all very disorienting - I was eating breakfast before I could piece all of this together and realize that I woke up thinking I was in our old house. In my old life. And as my sister said, I suspect, somewhere, Sami had a good laugh about it.

Three years ago this week, Sami was about halfway through her chemo and radiation therapy treatment. We were in a space in which we were both hopeful and frightened. Hopeful that the two craniotomies, plus the cancer treatments, would buy us some time. Hopeful that she might get into a clinical trial at UCSF. And frightened by what we were learning about glioblastoma. Frightened by the seizure she had on the Saturday before Easter.

I find that the passage of time, at least to some degree, changes my perspective on what happened to Sami. On what happened to us. This morning, while I was walking my dogs on a rainy morning in my new community, I thought back to the day (or more accurately, the hours) in January 2023 when we began to realize something was wrong. We had stopped to visit with some folks about Mexican gray wolves in the little town of Reserve, New Mexico (I visited - Sami was bored, I think). After lunch, we resumed our trip towards Flagstaff on a snowy 2-lane highway that was unfamiliar to both of us. I drove; Sami napped. As I recall, “Traveling Alone” by Jason Isbell played on my Spotify playlist, with the lyrics: 

Mountain’s rough this time of year.

Close the highway down,

They don’t warn the town.

I’ve been fighting second gear

For 15 miles or so,

Trying to beat the angry snow.

And I know every town worth passing through.

What good does knowing do

With no one to show it to?

I’ve grown tired of traveling alone.

I can’t hear this song without remembering that trip. And its aftermath. When we drove out of the snow, Sami woke up. And began to have difficulty finishing her sentences (a symptom we’d later learn was called aphasia). Neither one of us understood what was happening, and I responded by becoming annoyed with her distraction. The next day, her aphasia continued, and with the benefit of hindsight, I began to notice other symptoms - confusion, exhaustion, a facial droop.

This morning, that 24-hour stretch in January 2023 seems like an inflection point. Before, we were enjoying each other’s company and thinking about the coming return to home and work. After, once we were home, and Sami began to experience more symptoms, we were scared. And nothing else mattered except Sami’s health.

Another inflection point, I’ve realized, followed in late May of that year, when Sami had another - and more significant - seizure. That morning, she went to the emergency room in Auburn by ambulance. Several days later, when we realized that she couldn’t walk on her own, we took her to the emergency room in Roseville. She wouldn’t come home again for more than three weeks - Sutter Roseville transferred her to UCSF. After two weeks of figuring out that she was continuing to have subclinical seizures - and trying to control them, she spent another week in the acute rehabilitation program at St. Francis Hospital in San Francisco. She came home with a wheel chair and a walker - and I realize looking back now, that she didn’t walk again without help after that seizure in May.

As I’ve written previously, Sami’s illness and passing seemed like a slow-motion emergency. From the day we first went to the emergency room in January, to the day when Sami passed in August, only 199 days elapsed. At the time, though, just living from day to day felt like an eternity. I remember feeling like we were moving from one crisis to the next. Today, three years later, I am struck by the fact that all of it happened in just over six months. And that more than three years have passed since that drive from Reserve, NM, to Flagstaff, AZ.

But my dream last week also made me realize how radically different my life is today than it was in January 2023. I live alone. In a new house in a new community. I work a different job. I have sheep and goats, but I’m not a rancher. My grief has evolved; exhaustion can still catch up with me. Subconsciously, I feel like I’m looking for new guideposts - and my dream made me realize that some of the old guideposts (like which side of the bed I’m sleeping on) are still present.