Grief, Memory, and Geography

Over the last week, my work has taken me to several places in the Sierra Nevada that Sami and I visited. Last week, I participated in a Forest Service meadow monitoring training in the Lakes Basin Recreation Area between Sierra City and Graeagle. I camped with my dogs next to Snag Lake, near Gold Lake Highway. This week, I’m collecting data for an ongoing targeted grazing research project at UC Berkeley’s Blodgett Research Forest east of Georgetown. After a warm day of crawling through deer brush, I took my dogs swimming up Wentworth Springs Road at Stumpy Meadows Reservoir.

These excursions remind me of earlier trips to these regions with Sami - in some cases, even before we were parents. I can remember driving Wentworth Springs Road headed for Ice House Reservoir one Memorial Day weekend when we were first married, in the early 1990s. As I recall, we learned that the campground at Ice House was full, and decided to head for the Sonora Pass area. I can also remember a trip past Stumpy Meadows with our friends John and Sandy Schwartzler - and their American Cream mules - in the early 2000s. We drove the mules on logging roads all afternoon. It was one of my first experiences driving a team!

Somewhere around 2000, we took our vacation at Elwell Lakes Lodge in the Lakes Basin country. We stayed in a cabin and spent our days hiking and fishing. I think Lara was nearly 3 years old - I can remember packing her on my back when she grew tired of walking. And I remember catching brook trout on a little lake on the west side of Long Lake. It was a great trip - and our first real vacation as parents.

But these trips happened more than 20 years ago now. These memories are both happy and hazy. And at this stage in my grieving process, I find myself wishing I could ask Sami what she remembers about them. Did we really stay at my parents’ house on that night we found no room at Ice House (and were my parents gone, as I seem to remember)? When we drove the mules, was Emma old enough to walk? Did Lara get to help drive them for a bit? Did our first trip to Lakes Basin lead to a second camping trip? And did we experience an earthquake while we were playing at a nearby lake? And what lake was it?

I wrote recently that I was struggling with not having big conversations about Sami’s wishes for me and the girls after she got sick. But I’ve realized that what I really miss, in many ways, is being able to reminisce about these happy experiences. I miss seeing these memories through Sami’s eyes. I miss laughing about how we both remembered different things about these happy times.

Much like music, the geography that Sami and I once enjoyed together can be bittersweet for me. Traveling routes alone that we once traveled together can make me both sad and happy. In my little corner of the planet - the Sierra Nevada and Sierra foothills between Quincy and Yosemite - I’ll often go around a bend in the road, or drive up the main street of a little town - and remember something that we experienced together in that place.

But I’ve also realized - just today - that I’m doing things (finally) by myself that Sami would not have enjoyed doing together (at least at the age we’d both be now). Several years before she got sick, Sami said she no longer enjoyed camping if it meant sleeping on the ground. I’ve always loved to camp - and still do. And this spring and early summer, I’ve camped both for fun and for work - 3 nights in the last month. I hope I continue to find new things (or rediscover old things) that I enjoy doing on my own. I suppose this is part of the grieving process as well.

Memory is an interesting phenomenon. I’ve always thought the smell of fresh cut grass in the spring meant baseball; in the fall, it meant football. Music has always transported me back to the place - and the emotions - where I first heard a particular song. And the geography I return to, I’m learning, reminds me of experiencing it for the first time with Sami. At least this evening, these memories don’t bring the intense sadness they did when I first traveled after Sami’s passing. At least this evening, they bring a mix of melancholy and happiness. Maybe that’s moving forward with my grief….

Cellular Memory

Now that I’m on my own, Father’s Days are bittersweet. This evening, as I was doing the dishes, I had a flashback to Father’s Day 2023. We were in San Francisco at the end of a three week stretch at UCSF and St. Francis Memorial. Sami had been treated for ongoing subclinical seizures at UCSF. And St. Francis prepared us for living with Sami’s inability to care for herself. On that particular Father’s Day, I hiked from Ocean Beach to the Golden Gate. And had a burger and beer for lunch while I wrote in my journal. As I recall, I missed our former lives. Little did I know.

We didn’t realize it at the time, but we were at the front end of what turned out to be the beginning of the end of her life. As I look back at my blog posts and journal entries from that time period, I am reminded of how anxious we all were. Of how the trauma of seeing my wife unable to articulate how she was feeling through the brain fog she was experiencing affected me physically, mentally, and emotionally. Of how seeing the woman who’d run a half marathon eight months before confined to a wheel chair broke my heart. Of how the dysfunction of the medical-insurance-industrial complex frustrated and angered me. Of my inability to articulate my fear, fatigue, and exhaustion to Sami.

Since Sami died, anniversaries have been difficult. Our wedding anniversary (August 4) and the anniversary of her birthday (November 10) are obviously hard; so is the anniversary of her passing (August 13). Knowing our daughters are without their mother is especially difficult every Mother’s Day. Celebrating Father’s Day without Sami makes the absence of our daughters all the more difficult, even though I know they are where they need to be! But these little anniversaries of the turning points in Sami’s six-plus months of living with (and dying from) glioblastoma are also extremely hard. They are reminders of the trauma and anxiety we felt in 2023.

I have found these past few weeks that I’m especially sad and tired. Part of this, I’m sure, is the melancholy I always feel when I return home after spending time with our daughters (Lara’s wedding was an incredible celebration!). But my sadness and exhaustion seem more visceral. I feel as though the cells of my body remember the stress of those June days three years ago. The physical effects of trauma and anxiety seem slow (very slow!) to leave my body.

Over the last several weeks, I’ve struggled (again) with being alone but not wanting to be in the company of others. I’ve felt dull and listless. I struggle to know what will make me happy at the moment; I feel like I’m in a holding pattern of some kind.

In my last blog post, I wrote that Sami had expressed her wishes for our daughters (not directly to me, but at least to a friend). And I wrote that Emma, and now Lara, have fulfilled Sami’s wishes for them. But as I was feeding my animals this morning, I realized that since I don’t know what Sami wished for me, I feel as though I’m in an in-between place. And as I write these words, I’m struck by the fact that I can’t ever know what she wished for me. Hard words, but maybe ultimately freeing?

Conversations We Never Had

Nine days ago, I returned home from an eleven day trip through the Southwest. Our oldest daughter, Lara, married her partner of five years, Micah Funk, in Las Cruces, New Mexico. On the trip down, I caravaned with my sister and brother-in-law - Lara wanted home-raised lamb as part of their wedding meal (along with the chickens she and Micah raised and processed). Emma, our youngest, was Lara’s maid of honor. She and her boyfriend Karson drove through the night on the Tuesday before the wedding to help with preparations. Both Lara and Emma sewed their own dresses. Lara and Micah grew dried flowers for the wedding, which were displayed in bud vases Lara made. We spent the days before the wedding helping Lara and Micah get ready. And the wedding itself was incredibly beautiful - and unique in the way both of my daughters are unique. I can’t quite describe it beyond that.

The wedding was on Friday; on Sunday, I left for the second half of my trip (a meandering route through the Southwest, culminating in two days at the Grand Canyon). As has always been the case since I’ve been alone, leaving my daughters was incredibly hard. As happy as I was during the week of the wedding, I was equally sad on the drive to Albuquerque - I think I cried during a good part of the three-hour trip.

My route through northern New Mexico, southern Colorado, the Four Corners, the Navajo Nation, and (finally) the Grand Canyon, was beyond description. I’ve read fiction and nonfiction works about the landscape I drove through; even the best writers couldn’t prepare me for the beauty of the landscape. And while I realize this is a trite expression, the Grand Canyon took my breath away. Like everyone with a cell phone, I took lots of photos - but I found that I didn’t want any photos with me in the foreground. The immensity of the Grand Canyon made me feel appropriately insignificant.

But the drive home was difficult, despite the beauty. Lara and Micah had graciously invited me to make a toast after dinner at the wedding. As I considered what I wanted to say, I thought about those who were not able to be in Las Cruces to celebrate the wedding. My Mom and Dad, whose health prevented them from traveling. Lara’s maternal grandparents, Sami and Barbara, and her uncle Sherif, who passed away some years ago. And Sami. Especially Sami.

Shortly after she was diagnosed with glioblastoma, Sami told me, “I always assumed I’d outlive you.” During the course of our marriage, we talked generally about our wishes about our own mortality. We both hoped - even more after Sami’s parents died - that we’d be able to be at home until the end of our lives. Towards the end of Sami’s extended stay at UCSF and St. Francis Hospital (when we had begun to realize that she wouldn’t recover), we had a very emotional discussion about whether she wanted to go back to a hospital once we returned home. She did not - and I did not want her to. And, as it turned out, she was home until the end. She passed in the bedroom we’d shared in our home in Auburn.

But we didn’t talk about our wishes for one another. We didn’t acknowledge, as Jason Isbell writes, that it was “likely one of us will have to spend some days alone.” We joked about it - the old joke about the husband who asks his wife if she’d remarry if he died:

“Would you let him live in our house?” he asked.

“Yes - I love this neighborhood, and it’s nearly paid for.”

“Would you let your new husband sleep in our bed?”

“Probably,” she answered, “It’s a nice bed.”

“Would you let him use my golf clubs?!” he asked, worried now.

“No,” she said, “He’s left-handed.”

Since neither one of us golfed, we usually changed the punchline to:

“Would you let him ride in my saddle?!”

“No,” she said, “He rides English.”

After she got sick, Sami told her friend and colleague Michele that she hoped Emma would graduate from college (Emma studied from home during the spring semester of her sophomore year at the University of Idaho, and graduated on time - and with honors - in May 2025). And she hoped that Lara and Micah would get married. On May 15, 2026, both of the hopes that Sami articulated for her daughters came to pass.

But what were her hopes for me? For that matter, what would have been my hopes for Sami, had I preceded her in death? We never talked about it. I can’t speak for her, but I know the possibility that one of us would be left alone never really occurred to me until the spring of 2023. Would she have wanted me to seek another relationship? Would I have wanted her to do so? I think I would have, but I never had to consider the question. I don’t know that Sami ever thought about it, either.

Looking back, I know that part of why I never asked Sami any of these questions was because they made me feel as though I was giving up any hope for Sami's recovery. I felt like I needed to stay hopeful - to focus on a future with Sami rather than the (as it turned out) inevitable future without her.

I find myself now in a place where I would like companionship. I think I’m ready for a relationship - maybe. But I also know that the grief I carry with me can be a barrier. At least for me, and likely for any potential companion. If I’m honest, I also worry about what other people will think - my family, my friends. Sami.

All of which brings me back to the idea of marriage. I was so incredibly fortunate to be married to Sami for 33 years. Our marriage was not - by any measure - perfect. We disagreed. We argued. We hurt one another at times. But we persisted. We molded our personal lives to each other - driving through the arid Southwest, I kept coming back to the idea that our relationship was like that between a river and its banks. We shaped each other - and now that Sami is gone, I’m unsure of my own course going forward.

 

Two Things at the Same Time

This will probably not surprise anyone who knows me, but the photo album on my phone is dominated by photos of sheep. Me with sheep. Dogs with sheep. Goats with sheep. Sheep with sheep. For the last 20 years, raising sheep has been a huge part of my life. Being a shepherd is at the core of my self-identity. I am nearly always happy when I’m in the presence of sheep.

 

As I’ve written before, another part of my self-identity for more than 30 years was being Sami’s husband and partner. Of being the “Mr.” in “Dr. and Mr. Macon.” Sami and I both had our own lives (our own friends, our own careers, our own interests), but for the 35 years we were together (33 as husband and wife) we were also Dan and Sami. Sami and Dan.

 

I have realized, approaching three years since Sami’s passing, that both identities have changed. I now raise sheep as a hobby – I guess I’m still a shepherd, but it doesn’t feel the same to me. And I’m Sami’s widower. These changes are related, to some degree. I gave up raising sheep as a business to care for Sami and then to accommodate the transition to living solo. Learning to manage a household all on my own seemed overwhelming at first – like I couldn’t care for a flock of sheep while also caring for myself. And so I’ve also realized that I grieve for both losses.

 

Earlier this week, I posted a photo of myself leading my little hobby flock of sheep and goats into a new paddock. It was a beautiful evening in the Sierra foothills – one of those spring evenings where the clouds are rolling in but the sun is still shining. And I was laughing because the sheep and goats were following me with the enthusiasm of grazing animals who know they’re being led to fresh grass. Looking at the photo today, I definitely look happy. I WAS happy!

 

This morning, someone remarked about my smiling photo, saying, “It looks like you’re BACK!” The comment caught me off guard, which I found curious. What does “you’re back” mean? Back from grief? Back from mourning? Back to my old self?

 

I suppose that I can see that from another’s perspective – maybe I haven’t looked or seemed very happy (or at least happy very often) over these last three years. But being “back” doesn’t describe how I feel. I don’t think anyone gets “back” to who they were before they experienced such a profound loss. I don’t think anyone gets “over” grieving – and I’m not sure that I want to “move on.” I do want to move forward. To carry what being Sami’s partner (and what being a shepherd) was like into whoever I will become, for however long I have left. I want to be open to new relationships – friendship and companionship – but I also want to acknowledge that the three decades I spent as Sami’s partner have shaped who I am now. And who I will always be. Just like two decades of raising sheep commercially mean I’ll always think of myself as a shepherd.

 

And so back to my smile in the photo I took yesterday. I was genuinely happy. And I was also missing Sami. I missed telling her that the sheep and goats followed me like dogs. That the sky was beautiful. That it was a lovely springtime evening. I was both happy and sad, as I often am. More and more, I find that I can enjoy the happiness while embracing the sadness. I feel two things in the same moment. Maybe that’s what I mean by moving forward? 

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.

Solitude and Loneliness

I’ve never been bothered by being alone, at least until recently. During most of my life, I’ve often found solitude in being in my own company. But I’ve realized recently that solitude involves choice - when I choose to be alone, I find that being alone is enjoyable. Fulfilling, even. But as I’ve written before - and as Sturgill Simpson says better than I could - I’m alone [now] in a way that I’ve never been before. And as a result, I find that the line between solitude and loneliness is blurred for me. I realize that I can find solitude - and loneliness - even when I’m with other people.

I’ve been thinking about these concepts frequently this week - not entirely sure why. My first thought was that solitude is a choice, loneliness is not. I can choose to go off by myself; being alone (because Sami died) is not a condition I chose. But I’ve realized over these days of mulling this over that “choice” doesn’t quite capture the difference. At least not in the sense that I can choose solitude but loneliness is imposed on me.

Just over two years ago, I made the decision to sell our place in Auburn and move back closer to my childhood home. I’m close with my sister and her family, and they still live in Tuolumne County where we grew up. My mom had been diagnosed with dementia, and I felt like I needed to be closer to help with her care. And to be honest, I felt like I needed a change of scenery after Sami’s illness and passing. The familiarity of the home we’d shared for more than 20 years was no longer entirely comforting.

I realized when I made the decision that leaving the community where we’d raised our girls would be difficult. Leaving the friends who were part of our farming and ranching community, and the colleagues at my local cooperative extension office, would be hard. Leaving the landscape where I’d raised livestock for 20 years would (and did) make me sorrowful. But I knew that being closer to my family would be positive. I knew that I was going back to a community where I still had ties. I looked forward to living in a smaller, more rural community. I looked forward to the change of scenery.

Largely, most of these expectations have become reality. I am glad I can be closer to my family. I’m glad I can help my sister care for my parents. I have enjoyed renewing old friendships. But I’ve also become aware that changing my environment has not alleviated the loneliness I felt in the year I spent in Auburn after Sami died. I’ve realized that I’ve not sought out local friendships. And I’ve realized that I’ve been a difficult person to get to know.

I’ve recently been told by several friends that I’m a hard person to read, too. They are probably right - as open and honest as I feel like I can be in my writing, I’m not an open book when it comes to talking in person. When a friend first told me this, I thought, “Well, of course - I’m still processing what happened to Sami.” But that’s probably not entirely true. I think I’ve always been quiet and introspective about serious matters - which is probably confusing when I’m also trying to make people laugh in social situations. I seem to oscillate between using humor to diffuse tension and withdrawing to think about difficult decisions.

I joked (via text) with some friends the other night that I was becoming the quintessential “Norwegian bachelor farmer” of Garrison Keilor’s stories - I even sent them a photo of all my laundry hanging on the line, and said, “My neighbors are probably tired of seeing my underwear drying on the clothesline!” But the next morning, I felt the weight of caring for my little 6-acre property, of keeping house, all by myself. I know I can rely on family and friends to help when I need it; you’d think that learning to accept help while Sami was sick would help me accept it now. But I do feel alone. I do feel responsible for the house and the animals and the property. Maybe that’s what loneliness is.

Sami would probably agree that I could be hard to read. As I’ve said before, I miss having someone NOT to talk to after a day at work. I miss the quiet companionship that Sami and I enjoyed. I miss hearing someone puttering in the other room. I miss being the first one in the house to wake up, knowing that someone else was there. Maybe that’s what solitude is?

Last Times

I know this is probably a function of the time of year, but I’ve been thinking about the significance of “last times” this week. I suppose “the end” seems like more of an autumn idea, but late winter and early spring will probably always be associated with the onset of Sami’s brain cancer for me. And with the last times that we did things together.

In my life, I’ve often known when I was doing something for the last time. The last day of school. My last football game in high school. Graduation days (high school and college) The first day of a new job was always preceded by the last day of the old one. The last high school soccer game that Lara or Emma would play. I have videos of the last times I worked several of my border collies, Mo and Ernie (who actually belonged to Lara and Emma, respectively). With Mo, I knew he needed to retire - he simply couldn’t handle the physicality of working sheep any longer. My friend and partner Roger Ingram captured drone footage of the last time we used Mo to move the sheep into their first lambing paddock. Ernie, on the other hand, developed cancer in his mouth. We had the tumor removed surgically, but it grew back within six weeks. That fall, I knew I needed to retire him, too - before he couldn’t eat anymore. And so I took him to Oak Hill Ranch to move ewes onto fresh feed one last time.

Each of these last times make me somewhat melancholy - I miss the days of sitting in the bleachers at Placer High School watching the girls play soccer. I miss Mo and Ernie’s presence, ability, and quirkiness. I miss (now that I realize how simple they were) the days of high school football and college fun. But despite my melancholy, these are largely happy memories.

I’ve realized, though, that sometimes we don’t know when we’ve done something for the last time until we look back. And that’s what has occupied my mind over these last few months. Sami and I enjoyed our last Sierra picnic in September 2022. We took our last trip to see Emma in college that November. We drove to New Mexico together for the first - and last - time in January 2023. Had I known these would be a few of many “last times,” would I have savored them more? I don’t know. I do feel like the trauma of Sami’s illness and passing has made me more conscious of my own fleeting time among the people I love. Of my own opportunities to enjoy “firsts” as well as “lasts.”

I wrote recently about reliving the trauma of Sami’s glioblastoma (Days Like This). Looking back at the summer of 2023, I realize now that I was experiencing so many “last times” - I can distinctly remember the last time Sami laid her head on my shoulder. The last time I held her hand. The last time I saw her physically. These “lasts” bring on something more intense than melancholy - they are profoundly sad memories, even two-and-a-half years later.

But as I write this essay, I also realize that I will still experience some “firsts.” Having gone through these “lasts,” I hope I can embrace the joy and excitement of new things. I hope that I can be fully present in every experience my future life holds - no matter how long that future is. And I hope that the “lasts” I’ve already experienced will eventually transform into - I don’t think “happy” is the right word - comforting, maybe? - memories.