Elliptical Orbits

While I’ve moved most of my life to Calaveras County, my job is still in Placer County until the end of September. Consequently, I’ve been living in both communities; I spent last week working in San Andreas or from home during the day, and unpacking my belongings in the evenings. This week (and for most of the next three weeks), I’ll be working in Auburn during much of the week, and driving home on the weekends. And during these last three weeks in Placer County, I’ll be saying goodbyes. Sami and I moved to Placer County in 1994, so many of these goodbyes are to friends I’ve known for a long time.

I have felt relieved since the stress of moving ended after the third week of August. Sure, I still have some ranch equipment to move, and I still have much to unpack, put away, and set up at my new place. I still need to move my sheep and our mules. But the emotional strain of saying goodbye to the home where we’d raised our children - and where Sami died - was alleviated when I could no longer call our Joeger Road place home. That said, as I drove to my last Placer County Agricultural Commission meeting last night, I realized these human goodbyes would be difficult, too.

This morning, I visited the ranch of my friends David and Barbara Gallino, between Auburn and Grass Valley. David reminded me that we’d met 36 years ago, when I was a junior at UC Davis and an intern at the California Cattlemen’s Association - and when David was just starting to run cows on a Tahoe National Forest grazing permit. We talked about some of the ranchers we’ve both known over the years - both here in Placer and Nevada Counties, and in my “new” community in Calaveras County. We talked about what it was like growing up on a dairy in Grass Valley, about how he and Barbara bought their ranch in the late 1970s. In short, we had a great visit.

Driving back to the office, I thought about the nature of friendship. I’ve always thought of my community as a collection of overlapping circles of friendship. But I realized this morning that perhaps my geometric understanding of friendship is not quite right. Friendships, I think, are more like the elliptical orbits of comets. Since I met David and Barbara in 1988, I would often go months, if not years, without seeing them or even talking to them. But every time the orbit of my life (or theirs) would loop us back into contact, we’d pick up where we left off. We always had something to talk about - and to laugh about - like we did this morning.

Reflecting further on what it means to be leaving this community, I realized that I have reconnected with other friends during and after Sami’s illness. I’ve had dinner with college and high school friends who I hadn’t seen in decades. I’ve visited my friends in Humboldt County several times, and they’ve stayed with me. I’ve stopped in to see friends that I knew in Calaveras County before Sami and I had kids. Friends of Sami’s have reached out and included me in their orbits, as well. And new acquaintances whose orbits have brought them into similar contact with tragedy and grief have intersected my trajectory.

I have been fortunate to be part of a number of overlapping ranching communities during the course of my life. I grew up in a community where ranching and logging were highly visible - on the rangelands and forests surrounding Sonora; on Washington Street on Saturday mornings. My early career with the California Cattlemen’s Association opened new communities (and friendships), as did my ongoing volunteer experience with the California Wool Growers Association. As I’ve grown older, the length of my elliptical orbit has increased, as has the number of friends. My “community” seems galactic in scale sometimes. I’m a fortunate man.

Ranching communities - like most communities I suppose - rely on shared stories as a way to laugh at themselves, as a way to remind each other about what the community values, and (as I’ve learned in the last 18 months) as a way to embrace those who may be struggling. I have realized over these months that my family was the topic of conversation and concern within the many communities we’ve been part of - in many cases, these conversations happened (at least initially) without our knowledge. I find this to be incredibly humbling - that people would think about us, even in our absence. And these shared stories often get bounced around - I realized today that David and Barbara had heard about a high country trip I’d made with Emma five years ago from someone else. In sharing that they’d heard the story, they also shared that it was important to their understanding of our place, and the values we all put on our connections to place and to people.

So while I continue to feel somewhat bittersweet about leaving this particular community, I realized today that communities are places that we touch during our individual orbits. I realized that the friends that are important to me will still be a part of my journey, and I part of theirs. I realized that my true friends are those people with whom I can pick up where we left off - no matter how long ago that was. And that my true friends have held me in their thoughts and hearts all along.

Random Thoughts at the End of May

May 24, 2024 - I normally use my blog posts to share information, perspectives, and ideas - and I usually try to organize my essays better than this one. I apologize for this disorganized post - thanks for bearing with me.

For more than 20 years, I’ve kept a weather journal. I’ve recorded high and low temperatures, precipitation, and significant natural events (like the first Oriole of the spring, or the day I see Sandhill Cranes in early fall, or the date that the first lilac blooms). On days when I’m not home, I try to record where I was. And, occasionally, I record other significant events - things that happened in our family’s life.

Last night, when I recorded the day’s weather, I saw my entry from May 23, 2023. In addition to the weather observations I made a year ago, I wrote simply, “seizure.” 

Seeing the word took me back to last May. Emma and I had just returned from moving her into her new apartment in Idaho, and Lara and Micah were still staying with us in Auburn. On that morning, I recall getting out of the shower when one of the girls came running into our bedroom to tell me that “Mom is having a bad seizure.” They had already helped keep Sami safe and called 911 by the time I was able to join them in the living room, a minute or two later.

Looking back, that singular episode was confirmation that Sami’s glioblastoma was progressing - only I didn’t fully realize it at the time. We’d learned the week before that an MRI at UCSF had shown another “flare” on her brain, which meant she wasn’t eligible for a clinical trial. After they checked her out at the emergency room in Auburn on the morning of her seizure, they sent her home - but over the next week, she grew progressively weaker and had more difficulty walking. By Memorial Day 2023, we decided we needed to go back to the ER. She was unable to walk to the car.

When we arrived at the ER in Roseville, the doctor told us we should be thinking about hospice care immediately - which was terribly upsetting to all of us (especially Sami). We finally talked to her medical team at UCSF, and the nurse practitioner told me, “We’re not ready to say we can’t help Sami any more - she needs to come here.” Early the next morning, Sami was transferred to UCSF.

Ultimately, the team at UCSF figured out that Sami was continuing to have subclinical seizures. With a change of anti-seizure medication and an additional cancer drug, we left San Francisco three weeks later exhausted but a bit more hopeful.

But looking back, I’m not sure UCSF was able to help much after all. In mid-July, we learned that Sami had two new lesions on her brain. At the end of July, she suffered another significant seizure. By mid-August, glioblastoma had taken her life.

If I had known a year ago today what lay in store for Sami, I don’t think I’d have changed anything we did last summer. But last night, as I read last year’s journal entry, I realized that Sami’s seizure marked a transition to a new stage of Sami’s cancer - a transition I hadn’t completely understood when it occurred.

In February 2023, after Sami’s second craniotomy, I listened to an episode of the podcast, “Terrible, Thanks for Asking.” Podcast host, Nora McInerny, lost her partner to brain cancer. In the episode, she interviewed a man who’d lost his partner, too - and they talked about “death with dignity” laws. 

After her first surgery, Sami had made us promise that if she didn’t want to continue chemo and radiation treatments, we had to let her make that decision. And at some point, she must have said something about being more “proactive” in ending treatment - I don’t remember what she said, but just before her second surgery, I purchased a gun safe for my hunting rifles (which had been in a locked cabinet) and for Sami’s veterinary euthanasia drugs, because I was worried that Sami might do something drastic. Ultimately, by the time Sami asked her medical team about California’s End of Life Option Act (which allows terminally ill patients who are of sound mind to receive medical aid in dying), we were told that the process would take longer than Sami likely had left. Reflecting on all of this today, I am beginning to realize that Sami longed for some control over her life (and ultimately, her death).

This spring, I’ve struggled with a sense of sorrow that Sami wasn’t able to articulate her hopes for the girls, or for me. I guess I had hoped that once we all knew she was dying, and that her passing was imminent, we’d be able to have deep conversations about what our lives together had meant to all of us, and about what we hoped our futures would hold. From the distance now of more than nine months, I am beginning to think that Sami’s sorrow and fear were not entirely due to the fact that she knew she was dying. Sami was such a strong and independent woman for her entire adult life - I think much of her sadness and distress came from a fear of having to depend on us for even the most basic functions of living. I think she feared being a burden. And I think this helps me understand her desire to control the nature of her passing, which was so hard for me to comprehend in the moment.

May 2024 has been a difficult month for me - I’m sure in part because of the mental processing I’ve just described. The month of May also brought the first Mother’s Day without the mother of my daughters - difficult for all of us. In addition, I listed our home for sale - and accepted an offer (it’s now in escrow). I started looking seriously at homes in Calaveras County, where I’ll be working come October. I learned of the loss of a colleague and also of a neighbor to cancer. I gained greater clarity about what my mom is going through, and about the realities of helping my parents navigate this new chapter in their lives. I sold most of my sheep, which I described to a friend as feeling like I had finished a really great book that I didn’t want to end. I realized (again) how much Sami and I used one another as a sounding board and a reality check - and how much we shared the load of day-to-day living. Coming home to an empty house remains difficult.

Which brings me to a few thoughts about friendship. A friend who’d lost her husband several years ago called me when she learned I’d listed our home for sale. She told me that selling her home (which her family had lived in for more than 40 years) had been difficult but helpful. She felt as though she’d been able to leave the painful memories of losing her husband at the old house, and that the happy memories moved with her to her new home.

Personally, I find that I sometimes need reassurance that I’m still able to function - that I haven’t totally let myself, our house, our critters, or our property descend into total dishevelment. I wonder, at times, if my friends are checking in on me to reassure themselves of the same thing (and to help out when needed)! Time and again, my true friends have held me up - they’ve made me laugh and let me cry. They’ve let me be alone when I’ve needed solitude. They’ve been gracious when my social batteries are drained and I can’t bear to be around anyone, and in some ways, I suppose I've self-isolated over this last month. But my friends keep inviting me to do things even when I say no. I’m incredibly thankful, and I hope they keep asking!

I’ve also realized that some people I thought were friends have not been helpful. Some have not reached out at all; others have acted as if it is time for me to “move on.” Slowly, I’ve been letting go of the hurt and anger associated with these “friendships.” Maybe that’s what moving on means.

And finally, I have to say that I’m so grateful for having a new puppy. Even though the house is empty, Ky’s energy and joy make coming home easier. I cannot watch Ky and not smile!