Do They Remember?

Maybe 14 or 15 years ago, I gave away one of my favorite livestock guardian dogs, Boise. He was an Akbash-cross, and he was named by our youngest daughter, Emma. She wanted to name him Daisy, but I said, “Emma, he’s a boy dog.” She replied, “Okay, his name is Boise.” Since that time, every livestock guardian dog we’ve owned was named after a western town - we’ve had Reno, Vegas, Bodie, Dillon, and Elko. And I might be forgetting one or two!

Boise was a great dog - protective of his sheep, submissive in their presence. But his protectiveness led him to leave our electro-net paddocks. If there was something that needed to get away from the sheep, he made sure to let them know. In our operation, on leased pastures in the midst of small ranchettes, we couldn’t keep a dog who wouldn’t stay in his pasture. And so I gave him to McCormack Sheep and Grain in Rio Vista, where he would protect sheep on more than 3,000 acres. And where the neighbors (all farmers and ranchers) wouldn’t object to a big white dog chasing coyotes through their properties.

Several years later, for a short time, I went to work for McCormack Sheep and Grain. On my first day, I drove up to the lambing barn and Boise ran out to the road and gave me absolute hell. I rolled down the window and said, “Hey, Boise!” He paused, and then went into a whole body wag. He didn’t recognize the truck, but he recognized me! Or at least my voice, my appearance, and my scent.

I think of my experience with Boise periodically when I’m feeding the mules. Or working my small handful of sheep and goats with Mae, my border collie. Or when I decide to try to brush my last remaining livestock guardian dog, Bodie. Or on days like today, when I visit the sheep owned by my friend Nathan, who took my guardian dog Dillon when I sold most of my sheep after Sami’s passing. By the way, I’m pretty sure Dillon recognized me!.

I think of this because these animals - my mules, Frisbee and Boomer, and my dogs, Mae and Bodie, are the animals who “knew” Sami. And the animals who Sami knew. Do they recognize her absence? Do they remember?

I don’t want to anthropomorphize animals, but I do wonder about how animals recognize places, people, and things. I suspect sight and smell are a big part of this - and probably sound. Why did Boise recognize me when I rolled down my window and spoke to him?

Boomer, Sami’s mule, is an interesting case study. He was an extreme case of a “one person mule.” He preferred women, but he much preferred Sami to anyone else. When Sami was alive, he’d rarely - if ever - let me approach him, let alone put a halter on me. I’ve never ridden Boomer

Today, he’s still reluctant to let me touch him. But with a bribe of grain (or with the manipulation of ignoring him while spending time with his sister - and my mule - Frisbee), I can handle him. I wonder if I had a piece of clothing that smelled like Sami whether this would be easier.

What about the dogs that knew Sami. Bodie hates to be brushed, but he would tolerate it from Sami. Mae doesn’t like to work for anyone but me, but she’d grudgingly work for Sami. Do they remember her?

And I wonder about the nature of memory. Sensory perceptions - a song, a scent, or a particular sight that we enjoyed together can bring back memories of Sami. Today, I heard the song Road to Las Cruces (the Corb Lund version), which we happened to hear as we were approaching Las Cruces on our last trip together in 2023. And the song - the words, yes, but also the tune - brought back memories. And even though I’m in a new place, these hot, late July days bring back memories of Sami’s last seizure and our decision to enter hospice care.

I do think animals and humans get to know one another. My mules certainly see when the light comes on in the kitchen in the morning - and they give me about 45 minutes to myself before they expect to be fed. Bodie knows when the border collies yip with excitement in the mornings and evenings that I’m headed out to feed him. Is this nothing more than a Pavlovian response? Maybe. But I think it’s more than conditioning. I also think about the point in time when I will have animals who didn’t know Sami. And who Sami didn’t know. 

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.

Flashbacks

When I walked out my front door this morning to do my animal chores, I heard a nuthatch chirping in one of the trees in my front yard. I was immediately transported back to our house in Auburn in February or March of 2023. To a warm late winter or early spring day when I was home with Sami, following her second craniotomy - I was taking a nap on the deck and heard (and then watched) a nuthatch crawling down one of the mulberry trees towards me. Until that moment, I didn’t know what a nuthatch’s song sounded like, or at least that the song I’d heard before came from a nuthatch. I realized this morning that the sound of a nuthatch is firmly imprinted in my brain - and it will be forever associated with the fatigue and anxiety I felt back in those early months of 2023.

Later this morning, while I was on my walk, I reflected on another walk I’d taken during that same time period. I’m pretty sure the girls were not home - and I’m certain that we were all worried about leaving Sami alone. I needed to walk, but I wasn’t comfortable leaving the house - so I walked two miles doing laps between the house and the barn. And listened to a less-than-comforting podcast about glioblastoma.

These flashbacks, for me, are different from my “normal” memories about Sami. Flashbacks seem to have the capacity to transport me back to an instant - to the sights, smells, and sounds of that moment. And to the feelings I experienced.

In the months immediately following Sami’s passing, the only things I could recall were flashbacks to these episodes during her illness. At the time, I wrote that I couldn’t really remember the sound of Sami’s voice - or much of anything from before she started having symptoms. Thankfully, the happy memories of our 34 years together are easier to recall today. 

But the flashbacks still come. Sometimes they are music-related - I’ll hear a song that reminds me of our trip home from New Mexico, when we started to realize something was wrong. Sometimes these flashbacks come when I’m at a doctor’s office (I’ve written previously about my experience with “white coat syndrome”). Sometimes they come when I visit our old hometown (as I did yesterday).

While I’m grateful that the happy memories come easier to me today, I still find that these flashbacks can knock me on my heels (or perhaps on another part of my anatomy, somewhat higher than my heels, but also on the back side of my body). And in these times, I find that I need to withdraw. To look inward. To give myself a break and sit with the physical and emotional reminders of what it meant to be Sami’s caregiver. I did that today.

I guess this is part of what I object to when I hear that grief is a feeling that we “get over.” I have an essay hung on my refrigerator by Dr. Dennis Klass, given to me by a hospice counselor. It says,

“Time can lessen the hurt; the empty place we have can seem smaller as other things and experiences fill our life;....we can learn to remember the good and hold onto that. But we can’t ‘get over it,’ because to get over it would mean we were not changed by the experience.”

In some sense, these flashbacks are very difficult, at least for me. They take me back to what was (at least so far) the hardest time of my life. But they also help me remember that the experience changed me. They force me to stop and think about how.

13.1

On November 13, 2022, Sami ran the Monterey Bay Half Marathon - her second time running the race. She’d trained for it through the summer and fall of that year. One of my favorite photos of her is from that day - shivering in the pre-dawn chill near the start-line next to Fishermen’s Wharf. When her group crossed the starting mat, I went for a walk of my own - I walked 6 miles, and had time to grab a cup of coffee, in the time it took Sami to complete 13.1 miles. I watched her finish.

We had a wonderful trip to Monterey for the race. We drove down Saturday morning, picked up her race packet, and enjoyed dinner at one of our favorite seafood restaurants. I’ve visited Monterey and Pacific Grove since I was a kid (they were among my parents’ favorite places); Sami and I picked out her engagement and wedding rings at a jewelry store in Monterey in 1990. On this trip, we sat on the beach near Lover’s Point after dinner and watched the tide come in.

Sami’s race didn’t go as well as she’d hoped. As I recall, she wanted to finish in just over two hours - averaging just under a 10-minute mile. And she was on pace to do it (again, my recollection is a little hazy, but I remember checking the race app and seeing her on pace). But somewhere after mile 9, she slowed down. She didn’t know why her pace slowed, but she was very disappointed. At the finish area, she had a bowl of soup, and I enjoyed her complimentary post-race beer. We went back to our motel, showered, had lunch at another favorite restaurant, and headed home. She slept most of the way back to Auburn.

Seventy-six days later, on January 28, 2023, Sami had the first of what ended up being two craniotomies. She’d probably had at least two seizures earlier in the month; she had other symptoms on our trip to Las Cruces, NM. And just 273 days after she ran a half marathon, she passed away from glioblastoma.

When she got sick, Sami had been training for another half marathon in Sacramento on St. Patrick’s Day. At some point in early January, she’d fallen during a training run. She told us, “I don’t know what happened - I just ended up on the ground.” As all of us began to wonder about early symptoms we’d missed, this episode stood out.

The speed at which all of this happened still boggles my mind. That my incredibly beautiful, active, and intelligent wife could go from distance runner to cancer patient to deceased in exactly nine months seems impossible. And yet it happened. Nine months to the day, which I only realized as I wrote this essay.

In two weeks, I will walk/run the Monterey Bay Half Marathon, along with our daughters, my sister and her oldest daughter, and a friend. This will be the first race I’ve “competed” in since high school track - and the first distance “race” I’ve run since the Jamestown Run 10K when I was 12 or 13. At some point after Sami died, I decided that I wanted (needed!) to put in the training time to allow me to complete 13.1 miles - to participate in a race that was so special for Sami, in a place that was so special to both of us.

During a summer and fall of training, I’ve realized that I want to finish this race in the allowable time of 3 hours and 30 minutes. This means I’ll need to average 16-minute miles. Since I’ve been training at 2600 feet above sea level, on hills, I’m feeling reasonably confident that I’ll be able to do this - this morning, I walked 9 miles averaging just under 15:30 per mile. And I’ve also been able to jog a bit - I’m hopeful that at sea level, I’ll be able to finish 13.1 miles in just over three hours. We’ll see.

The race itself is important to me - I want to prove to myself that I’m almost as strong as Sami was. But the fact that we’re doing this together - as a family - is even more important. I know that crossing the finish line will be emotional for all of us. I know that I will want to get in the ocean after we complete the race - Sami’s ashes were spread in the ocean, and I will need to feel her “embrace.” I know I will cry.

But the process has also been helpful. Doing something as a group has been enjoyable. Having a goal - one that improves my physical fitness - has been wonderful. I’ve been a walker for quite some time; having something to shoot for has made me more dedicated. Maybe I’ll keep entering these kinds of events! And doing something contemplative - for me, walking is a bit of a meditation - has helped me examine my memories of Sami. And not just the hard things that happened between her last race and her last breath. Training for this 13.1 miles has helped me recall other important parts of our 34 years together.

Memory is Strange

On long driving trips, Sami and I would alternate driving. And whoever was driving when we stopped for fuel would put the gas on their debit card. Sami took the “protect your PIN” advice seriously; she would hide her PIN even from me, which I of course teased her about! Nearly two years after her passing, I think about this every time I put fuel in my truck. This memory makes me smile! It also makes me wistful.

In the immediate aftermath of Sami’s death in August 2023, I found that I couldn’t remember the sound of her voice. Or even how she looked before she got sick. I certainly couldn’t remember the feeling of her touch. I suppose the trauma of her cancer, and all that it entailed, made these happy memories difficult to bring to mind. I could look at old photos of her - of us - and feel like I couldn’t recall the emotions that the images should have evoked. I was numb.

This trauma, in many ways, has been more difficult than my grief. Several weeks ago, I found myself immobilized by the memory of the night that Sami decided to enter hospice care (she passed just two weeks later). My concern for the well-being of my folks made me recall this old anxiety - I cancelled weekend plans in case I was needed.

Today, though, the happy memories come easier. I find myself remembering camping trips and date nights. I smile when I see photos of Sami bottle-feeding lambs or holding puppies. I laugh to myself when I see funny pics of us together. And there are other physical reminders in my house. Handwritten notes that help me recall her neat handwriting. The “Samia Z. Macon, DVM” sign that she took from Loomis Basin Large Animal Clinic when she went out on her own (and which now hangs on my toolshed). Our wedding china. The “Protect your PIN” message when I fill my truck.

Sadness is still part of my life. I miss Sami every day. I miss sharing the ups and downs of our days in the evening; I miss being the first person up in the morning. I miss the sound of the tea kettle on the stove - Sami rarely drank my “real” coffee, preferring instant coffee instead. I miss preparing meals together. I see her enjoying my new house - even though I know we’d have never moved here when she was alive. Somedays, I find her absence palpable. The space that she inhabited in my life - and I in hers - are a void. I miss her touch. I miss the great wads of her long hair in the shower drain. I miss waking up next to her.

But I also feel like I’m learning to embrace sadness. Today, my grief doesn’t feel debilitating. Sure, the tears still overflow from time to time. But the sadness is part of remembering, too. I find that I can be both happy about the time we shared together and sad that it was cut short. As I’ve written previously, I’ve come to embrace my sadness like an old friend - like a visitation from Sami.

The Geography of Grief - and Memory

An exploration of the physical reminders of loss...

One morning last week, as I was preparing to join a virtual meeting from my dining room table, I decided to brew a cup of decaffeinated coffee. I reached into the cupboard and pulled out a mason jar of ground coffee, which Sami had labeled. Her handwriting stopped me in my tracks. I realized that even in my new place, there are physical reminders of Sami. Reminders that bring me up short, that make me wistful. Or sad.

Last month, I had meetings in Davis on two consecutive days. Rather than make the two hour drive home on the first night - and back on the second morning - I stayed in town. On the second morning, I went for a walk through town and campus before breakfast. The city of Davis has changed since I was a student there nearly 40 years ago; much of the UC Davis campus remains familiar. Especially the Quad. As I walked through the Quad early on that February morning, I remembered eating lunch with Sami when we first started dating in 1988. I felt the physical sensation of walking through campus holding her hand. Of lying in the sun on the grass with my head in her lap.

In my new place, I have a digital picture frame on the sideboard that I see when I walk in my front door. The sideboard was from Sami’s parents; the picture frame was a gift to Sami after she got sick. Friends and family shared photos with Sami - as did I. One of my favorites is a photo I took of the two of us at Sterling Lake in the Sierra Nevada east of Auburn in September 2022. We both look incredibly happy, and my memory of that day is that we thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company. And I realize, whenever that photo comes up in the frame, that Sami likely already had a brain tumor.

Some of these geographical reminders are difficult. While I’ve driven to (and from) Idaho since Sami passed away, I’ve not been ready to drive to New Mexico. Our trip to Las Cruces in January 2023 marked the beginning of our journey with glioblastoma. While I’ve visited Monterey several times since Sami ran the Monterey Bay Half Marathon in November 2022, both visits have been emotionally difficult. 

In the 19 months (tomorrow) since Sami left us, I’ve found that these physical reminders - places and objects - don’t always affect me in the same way. Sometimes, they’ve made me inconsolably sad. Other times, they make me nostalgic and happy for the life we had. Some things, like the jar of coffee, will be used up eventually. Other things, like the places we enjoyed going together, will always be there - and will probably always be bittersweet for me.

Grief seems like a journey through an unfamiliar landscape, in many ways. Sometimes a song, a scent, a place, will remind me of Sami. At the risk of seeming trite, sometimes I’m reminded of the Ted Kleszewiski quote about hitting a baseball:

“How hard is hitting? You ever walk into a pitch-black room full of furniture that you’ve never been in before and try to walk through it without bumping into anything? Well, it’s harder than that.”

In the 10-plus years I played baseball as a kid, I was never a great hitter. But navigating grief seems much much harder than hitting a baseball. I’ve stubbed my toes frequently. My shins are bruised.

But sometimes - more now than 19 months ago - memories bring smiles. A place we both enjoyed can bring me happiness. An object that Sami touched can make me smile. Seeing Sami’s handwriting (on a recipe, or on an envelope) brings back good memories. Maybe the actual journey through these memories - through my grief - helps me navigate more confidently. Maybe I’m feeling my way through a new geography.