Decision Paralysis

Early next week, we’ll mark the one year anniversary of our family’s decision (Sami’s included) that Sami needed hospice care. After a seizure, a serious fall, and another ambulance ride to the emergency room in Roseville, we realized that Sami wouldn’t recover from the progression of brain tumors resulting from her glioblastoma diagnosis. Sami entered hospice care on July 31, 2023. Exactly two weeks later, she passed away. The coming milestones (including what would have been our 34th anniversary on August 4) will be difficult.

As Sami’s condition worsened during the second half of her chemo- and radiation-therapy in March and April 2023, I found myself, increasingly, in the role of “decision-maker.” In our 33 years of marriage, we’d always made decisions together (or at least we tried to - both of us made unilateral decisions on occasion). When Sami ended up on the neuro-oncology floor at UCSF in early June, she seemed to look to me for decisions about treatment. Thankfully, both Lara and Emma were there to help talk through Sami’s care options, but I felt an incredible weight descending on my shoulders. As Sami’s spouse - and having power of attorney, thanks to the estate planning that Sami insisted we do - I found myself assenting to most of what her medical team decided was best. I signed my name to more forms than I can recall.

Weighty decisions followed me through the autumn and winter - decisions about how to handle wrapping up Sami’s business affairs, when to hold her Celebration of Life, how to help our community remember Sami’s contributions. Again, our daughters (and our family) helped with these choices, but I felt their weight, physically, mentally, and emotionally.

As we began to realize the seriousness of my Mom’s condition, and as I thought about options for being closer to my folks and to my sister and her family, more decisions loomed. Should I transfer to the same job in another county? Should I sell the home that Sami and I had purchased 23 years ago, the home where our daughters were raised? If I did transfer and relocate, where should that be?

This week marks the near-culmination of those decisions. I have sold our home in Auburn, and purchased a new home in Mountain Ranch (in Calaveras County). Thanks to our collective hard work, I won’t have a house payment. By August 10, I’ll be moved out of our Auburn home. I’ll start my new job (really my old job, but in a new set of counties) on October 1. The process of listing, selling, and buying has been emotionally difficult, for sure. The decisions, at times, have overwhelmed me.

One of the consequences of these big decisions has been that small decisions are difficult - and sometimes impossible - for me to make. What should I have for dinner? Should I take next Tuesday off? Should I spend Sunday afternoon fishing in the mountains or packing boxes? I wish someone else would tell me what I should do; paradoxically, I also find myself avoiding the company of others.

In some ways, I suppose that my inability to make small decisions reflects the after-effects of the trauma we lived through last year. Even now, nearly a year after Sami’s passing, I have flashbacks to some of the more difficult periods of her illness. Trauma and grief are interesting emotions - I sometimes think that the trauma we experienced gets in the way of the grief we need to process. The trauma makes me second guess some of my decisions.

In addition to missing Sami (immensely), I am grieving the prospect of leaving the community where our family has lived for so many years. I’ll miss my friends and colleagues. I’ll miss the pastures where my sheep grazed. I’ll miss some things about our home. But as I think about moving to a new community - a new home - there are also things I’m looking forward to. I’m looking forward to quiet mornings on my new deck, without the sound of traffic on Highway 49 in the background. I’m looking forward to deciding to have dinner with my sister or my parents at 4pm on Friday evening - and being with them before 5:30pm. Tonight, as my non-air-conditioned home climbs to 87ͦ F INSIDE, I’m looking forward to air conditioning. I'm looking forward to seeing my sheep and mules grazing on the hillside above my deck. I’m looking forward to getting to know a new piece of land and a new community. And I’m looking forward to making “small” decisions once again.

Checking In with Myself

In the eighteen months since the onset of Sami’s glioblastoma symptoms, I’ve come to realize that my writing is partly (mostly, maybe?) a way for me to check in with myself. The jumble of thoughts and emotions that have come as part of living in limbo for the last year and a half periodically coalesces into something halfway coherent - or at least something that I need to put into written words to begin to understand. And part of this process of discernment, I’m beginning to understand, is putting these words out into the world. Whether anyone else ever reads them, the act of sharing my writing helps me release what’s been bottled up inside.

Grief, lately, has seemed like a deep well, or maybe a spring. The water level is sometimes static; other times, I can feel it welling up through my chest and into my throat. Sometimes the water overflows. Writing, in some ways, relieves the pressure of grieving.

These last three weeks have been chaotic. After my house sold for more than the asking price less than a week after it was listed, the close of escrow was delayed nearly a month by complications associated with the California Fair Plan insurance scheme. Escrow finally closed yesterday afternoon. I’m also in escrow on a property in Calaveras County (close to my new job, and closer to my family). Hopefully, I’ll have enough overlap in the timing of all of this to get moved by the second week of August.

But with my house closing, I’m confronting the reality of leaving the community where Sami and I spent most of our married life. Therapists and books have told me that making a big decision in the first year after such a loss might be a mistake. I don’t know. Being closer to my family - and being able to help my Mom and Dad navigate their own health issues - is important to me at this stage. Last month, a friend who had recently moved following the loss of her husband told me the move had been helpful. “I was able to leave the hard memories at the old house,” she said, “but the happy memories came with me to my new place.” I hope I find similar peace. But with the reality of moving approaching, I confess that I’m worried about whether this is the right path for me at this stage of grieving.

Over the last several weeks, both Emma and Lara have been able to come home to help me with packing. We’ve had a wonderful time together, but packing up our old lives has been difficult, too. This morning, I realized that they have both now visited the home where they grew up for the last time. I’ve never experienced this; my folks still live in the house I left when I went to college nearly 40 years ago. I’m anxious to have the girls visit me in my new home, but I know it won’t be the same for any of us. And I know I’m a bit afraid of moving to a community where nobody will remember Sami, where nobody will know what my family has gone through.

On Independence Day, I went to a baseball game in Lincoln, planning to stay for the fireworks. The extreme heat, along with the huge crowd, were too much for me; I left after the sixth inning. Driving home, I realized that Lincoln was no longer the sleepy little town it had been when Sami and I moved to Placer County 30 years ago (I bought my first ram from the ranch that was located where the Home Depot sits now). I recalled our first Fourth of July in Penryn in 1994 - we’d driven to the top of Clark Tunnel Road (at that time, a gravel road that connected Penryn with the Newcastle Highway) and watched three or four fireworks shows in the valley below us. Today, that road runs through the Bickford Ranch housing development, and I suspect it’s been paved. Curious about the magnitude of the changes in Placer County in the last 30 years, I came home and looked up the county’s population. In 1994, about 192,000 people called Placer County home. Three decades later, that number has more than doubled. By contrast, Calaveras County (where I’ll be living) has only grown by about 10,000 people in that same 30-year time span.

Like most cliches, “change is inevitable” is at least partly true. But the pace and magnitude of change in Placer County have been weighing on me, even before Sami’s passing. During the spring, as I was traveling to Calaveras County to look at properties, I found myself enjoying the drive on Highway 49 south of the American River - fewer people and fewer cars! Similarly, I found myself dreading the drive westbound on Interstate 80, and generally avoiding Highway 49 through Auburn. While moving my home and my work to Calaveras County is mostly about being closer to family, I’m realizing that I’m also looking forward to living in a smaller town. Even so, leaving our friends here in Auburn will be difficult. Moving away from my support system might be a mistake.

Several weeks ago, I reread The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig, a story about a widower raising three boys on a Montana homestead in the early 1900s. The story is narrated by the oldest boy, and I came across this passage:

“... surely I looked at life a lot more warily after it took Mother from us. In Father’s case, he had our symptoms to tend to as well as his own. In short, none of us was over Mother’s death, but we had adjusted to the extent we could to that missing limb of the family.”

Our family’s experience has certainly made me more wary, and Sami’s loss, in many ways, does feel like an amputation - I still reach out to grasp a hand that isn’t there any more. This summer, I have occasionally struggled with my roles, too - as the father of grieving children, I wish I could take away their sadness and pain. I also wish someone could do the same for me. Some days, I find it incredibly difficult to give comfort when I can’t seem to find any for myself.

Going through the 23 years of accumulated things in our house has brought all of us a mix of laughter, wistfulness, and tears. Earlier this week, I went through Sami’s dresses and found a light blue dress she’d worn to our niece’s wedding eight years ago. As I took the dress off its hanger, I could imagine the feel of the fabric over Sami’s hip as we danced at the wedding, and the well of grief overflowed momentarily. The next day, I consigned Sami’s show saddle and bridles, as well as her show clothes, to a local tack store, and sold her horse trailer - which felt like closing another chapter on Sami’s role in our community. But later, we all laughed about the half dozen used Chick-fil-A containers Sami had saved in a kitchen cupboard. Sami had always insisted that she wasn’t a hoarder, but the evidence this week suggests otherwise! 

Ultimately, I don’t know if moving and changing jobs within the first year of my grief is the right thing to do. I feel like I’ve been living with incredible uncertainty since the morning in late January 2023 when I drove Sami to the emergency room for the first time. My sense of limbo has continued through the aftermath of Sami’s death. Trying to learn to live by myself, trying to be a supportive father and a grieving widower, selling a home and buying another, have all been discombobulating. I feel knocked off kilter. While I know that more changes are inevitable, I hope I find some sense of stability (and purpose, even) in a new home, a new community, and a new job.

End Note: As I post this on Saturday morning, Lara and her boyfriend Micah are driving back to Las Cruces. Emma is in Moscow, Idaho. Both girls have now left this house for the last time. After more than a week of hot, sunny weather, we have cloud cover in Auburn this morning. The low sky makes the empty house seem even quieter than usual. And the water level in my well of grief seems higher than it’s been for some time. I find myself thinking about other “last time” experiences - the last time I’ll sleep in this house, the last time I’ll walk out the door, the last time I’ll cook a meal here. All of these things will happen in the next four weeks. I want the new chapter in my life to start, but I’m awfully sad about this chapter ending. At least on this quiet, cloudy Saturday morning.

Nothing Linear About This

Depending on which Dr. Google you ask, there are either five or seven stages of grief. The original five are (supposedly) denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Sometimes, Dr. Google adds “shock” at the front end, and “testing” between depression and acceptance. As the word “stages” imply, these are apparently phases that one must work through - a linear progression. Having experienced grief over the last 18 months (before and after Sami’s passing), I have found there’s nothing linear about it. While my grief originated with Sami’s diagnosis, I am finding that my own “stage” from one day to the next seems to vary.

To be fair, the labels themselves are descriptive of the emotions I’ve felt since last January (and continue to feel today). The shock of Sami’s diagnosis, and the rapidity with which her condition progressed, remain with me even now. There are days when I simply cannot believe that she’s gone. On occasion, the anger I felt when we couldn’t get answers from our insurance company or from Sami’s medical team will resurface, as well. More than a month ago, I wrote a chronological account of the 207 days between Sami’s first surgery in late January and her eventual passing in mid-August, entirely from memory - telling myself the story of what I’d just lived through (and what Sami had not survived). In many ways, I suppose, my blogs are an effort to tell our story to others - and to try to make sense of what happened. While my depression has not (yet) been debilitating, I do find that some days I simply want to stay in my own little bubble of sadness. And on some days, I’m able to think about the future and about my plans for life without Sami.

Last week, I reached out to a friend for the first time in many weeks and invited him to join me for Taco Tuesday at one of our local breweries. This spring, I’ve often found myself too exhausted from having to be “on” all day at work to have the energy to socialize after work. But last Tuesday evening was nice - we caught up on family news, and I enjoyed being out after work. Last Thursday, I had my annual physical, which confirmed that I’ve been able to keep myself reasonably healthy in this first year of being on my own. But on Saturday morning, inexplicably, I woke up incredibly sad and absolutely exhausted - and had to go to work anyway. When I came home from work, I only had enough energy to fall asleep in my recliner listening to the Giants game.

I fear, at times, that my writing about this experience leaves people with the impression that we had a perfect marriage. I’m old enough (and was married long enough) to know that “perfect” marriages don’t exist. I absolutely know I did things that annoyed the hell out of Sami (and I suspect that many of her friends know this too!). Last week, I laughed at the Robert Earl Keen song “It’s the Little Things” - it reminded me of the petty things that seemed so upsetting to both of us before all of this happened - as REK sings, “It’s the note that you leave on the breakfast table with the list of things to help me plan my day…. It’s the little things that piss me off.” Oddly, remembering the stuff that pissed me off helped me remember that we loved each other in spite of ourselves (to quote another favorite song by John Prine).

The process of selling our family home has caused similarly jumbled emotions for me. I find my tolerance for uncertainty diminished, which I’m sure has annoyed and frustrated the real estate agents I’m working with on both ends of my impending move. Living in limbo - not knowing if or when my house will sell, and whether it will be in time to buy the property I’d like to purchase - is incredibly stressful. Regardless, as the sale of our Auburn home progresses towards closure, I have been thinking about “lasts” for me in Auburn - the last time I’ll mow these lawns, the last time I’ll drink my first cup of coffee while watching the first light hit the backyard trees, the last time I’ll fill the barn with hay. The last time I’ll run into a friend at the feed store or shopping for groceries. I think about whether Sami would be doing the same thing had I been the one to die first. I don’t think she would be - I don’t think she would be feeling the familial pull that I am feeling in moving closer to my childhood home.

Sometimes, I’m not sure what will cause me to shift from one “stage” to another - I might hear a song that reminds of Sami (or that reminds me of some point in her brief illness). I might see a photograph on social media or on my phone. I might be reminded of the things I took for granted (like being able to ask Sami for veterinary advice). I might do something by myself that we usually did together (or that Sami did on her own). Some of these things make me sad; others make me feel like I might be getting a handle on life (in a very small way).

As an example, on Sunday morning, I hauled our mules to a friend’s place in anticipation of my move to Calaveras County (where I’ll need to do some set-up to be ready for them). Mules can be peculiar; Sami’s mule, Boomer, especially so. He’s 22 years old - and I can probably count the times I’ve been able to touch him, let alone catch and halter him, on one hand in those 22 years. He is definitely a one-person mule. My mule, Frisbee, had not been in a trailer since the spring of 2021; Boomer had not been loaded since before Sami got sick - and even then, loading him was a two person job, even for Sami! I lost sleep on Saturday night worrying about whether I could get the mules caught, loaded, and hauled to Lincoln. But with a small bribe (of grain), and some thought given to loading order (Frisbee first), the entire morning went far more smoothly than I expected. In less than 30 minutes, we were ready to roll.

These are the brief moments that make me think, “maybe I’ll be okay.” I think Sami would have doubted my abilities (maybe not, but she’d have given me a hard time about it!) - I thought about how she acted around the mules and tried to channel her energy (and calmness). I found myself wishing I could have told her how it went (and knowing, if it’s possible, that she knew - that she was watching the entire time). Perhaps one of the stages should be “confidence” - confidence that we can do things we couldn’t do before our loss.

In the ten months that Sami’s been gone, I have been so grateful to talk to others who have experienced similar losses. To know that their path, like mine, hasn’t been linear. To know that they still wake up some days with an overwhelming sense of sadness. To know, also, that they continue to put one foot in front of the other.

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!

Small Reminders

I continue to find that some days seem to pass with just a generalized sense that life has changed - that Sami is gone. Some days, like these last few, seem to bring sharper (if small) reminders of her absence.

Early yesterday afternoon, I presented our UC Cooperative Extension annual report to the Placer County Board of Supervisors. Since I’ll be transferring to another office this fall, and since UC will be hiring a new administrative county director this year, this was the last time I’ll perform this task. Jim Holmes, the longest serving supervisor, and a friend of more than 15 years, thanked me for my service to the community. In many ways, my presentation felt like the end of an era - the end of my day-to-day role as a member of the Placer County agricultural community.

On my way back to the office, I stopped at the feed store to pick up a booster vaccine for my new puppy. Greg Kimler, the owner, made sure I was getting the right booster, and we talked about Ky’s rabies vaccination. A woman was at the register next to me, and Greg said, “She could do it!” She laughed and said she didn’t have any rabies vaccine with her. After I paid, I introduced myself and asked what kind of veterinary medicine she practiced (turns out, she was a large animal veterinarian here in Auburn). When she heard my name, she realized I’d been married to Sami, and she told me that her practice had taken over a number of Sami’s clients. She added, “Sami’s clients really loved her - they tell us that all the time.”

Yesterday’s third small reminder came as I checked in for an eye doctor appointment. The receptionist asked, “Can we still release your medical information to your wife, Sami?” I said, “No, she passed away last year.” After the obligatory “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she asked, “Is there someone else I should add to your record?” I couldn’t think of anyone, which made me feel very alone.

Some memories, though, are happy. Last night, as I was taking care of the livestock (all of the sheep are home this week for shearing), I recalled the day last April when my UCCE colleagues organized a “workshop” on fire tools and brush burning in our back pasture. We talked about chainsaw safety and pile burning, and were able to clean up an old gray pine that PG&E had dropped and left. But what I remembered last night was that Sami spent the entire day with us. I went back and looked at the photos in my phone - Sami wore her broad-brimmed hat and one of my old sweatshirts, and stayed with us through the day. I realized it was the last full day she spent outside - shortly after that day, she completed her chemotherapy and radiation, and less than 6 weeks later, she went into the hospital after experiencing ongoing seizures. Last night, I realized how much that day outside meant to both of us - to be outside on the little patch of land where we raised our family, with our friends around us. The trauma of the ensuing months had blocked that happy memory.

Today, again, I missed Sami the veterinarian. My old dog, Mae, has been snoring and snuffling a great deal. This evening, I took her to the veterinarian, and discovered a lump on her neck. I feared the worst; fortunately, she had a relatively simple salivary gland cyst, which the doctor drained. But I realized that Sami would have noticed Mae’s symptoms much sooner than I did. And she would have treated Mae herself, most likely. Tonight, I wonder what else I’m missing.

I took last week off from work, and mostly did whatever I felt like doing when I awoke each morning. I did some woodworking projects with lumber I’d milled. I did yard work and planted some of my garden. I moved sheep and enjoyed my new puppy. I camped and hiked on my birthday. I read books that my daughters gave me for my birthday. And I thought about Sami and the nature of my grief. The pause in my “go-go-go” attitude about work was helpful, I think - I’m not any less sad, but I found that I was able to think more deeply about what we experienced, about our loss. The “firsts” are expectedly difficult - the first Christmas without Sami, the first birthday on my own - bring my grief to the surface. But time also seems to be helping me remember the bright spots that happened even in the midst of Sami’s illness. The trip we took to Truckee to see last year’s record snowpack. The walk we took when we both needed to sneak into the brush to go to the bathroom (which we teased each other about). The week that we spent remodeling our front porch and planting flowers in front of the house. These good times disappeared from my memory while we were dealing with crisis after crisis last summer. I’m glad they’re coming back.

Overcommitted and Apologetic

Throughout my adult life, I have had the bad habit of overcommitting myself. I am a people-pleaser by nature, and I like to feel needed, so I have difficulty saying no. On occasion, I’ll commit to doing more in a day (or a week) than is physically, mentally, or emotionally possible, and end up either overwhelming myself or letting my friends and colleagues down (usually both). In the eight months since Sami’s passing, my tendency to overcommit has intensified; this week, I finally hit a wall.

Over the last month or two, as I’ve realized time moves me further away from the events of Sami’s illness and passing, I’ve found myself interacting with people who are not aware of my grief (which is entirely natural). I’ve also realized that while I’m still working through what happened last year, others have moved forward (as is natural). But the result of these realizations has been an urge to talk about what happened to us, to tell the uninformed, “hey, my wife died from a horrible disease just eight months ago - it was really awful.” This is not a great conversation starter, to say the least. The rational side of my brain reminds me that this was a personal experience, that perfect strangers have no way of knowing that I’m still grieving (and reliving the experience). The emotional side of my brain wonders, “how can they act so normally?!” I also know that my friends are concerned and willing to talk - I’m just not sure I’m ready to unload everything that happened quite yet (or that I ever will be).

Because of this, several weeks ago I decided to write a chronology of my experience, from late January 2023, when we first realized Sami’s symptoms, through August 13, when Sami passed. I decided to write it without consulting my notes, my journal entries, or my blog posts from that stretch of time - I wanted to see what I remembered now. I found the process helpful, for the most part. I felt like I was able to tell the story of what happened (even if no one else will ever read this account). I found that my memory is an interesting thing - I would often have to loop back chronologically when I remembered some detail from earlier in the narrative. I also found that there were things I didn’t entirely process as they were happening last year. And finally, I realized that while I was fortunate to be able to take time off from work to care for Sami, I jumped right back into work in late August. I didn’t really take time off for myself.

This week, I realized that since Sami’s first surgery 62 weeks ago, I have organized workshops or given prepared talks every ten days (on average) (41 times since late January 2023). Until very recently, I haven’t said no to any invitations to speak or help out with someone else’s workshop. I’ve also committed to helping with a number of events and other activities.

Today, this feels like I’ve been pushing a heavy load (of work and commitment) uphill since August.  If the load goes away, I feel like my “forward” momentum will cause me to fall. If it goes away, I’ll be forced to reflect on how difficult last year was. I’m realizing (slowly, for sure) that I need to just do that (writing the chronology was part of that reflection). I need to take a breath and grieve. I need to let the external load go, even if only for a short while.

As an aside, some of the reading I’ve done recently has caused me to think about what grief is. After his wife passed, C.S. Lewis wrote that he had come to think about bereavement as simply another natural (and very necessary) stage in his relationship with his wife (along with courtship and marriage). I want to spend some time with that thought. I also want to spend some time with the idea that my grief includes both sorrow for what I don’t have any more (Sami’s companionship and partnership, to name a few) and sorrow for what Sami went through. I’m grieving that my daughters won’t be able to talk to their mother again. Sometimes my grief feels very selfish. Sometimes I find that I can no longer see Sami’s face or hear her voice clearly in my imagination - I hope that those memories will return as I move forward with this reflection.

Going away, for work or for fun, is also more complicated than it used to be. Much of this complication has to do with my animals - Sami was always the one who arranged for the mules, dogs, and chickens to be fed when we left town; I was responsible for the sheep (and until last year, I always had a business partner who could take care of them while I was gone). I’ve been very fortunate to have help with all of this since August, but I still struggle with leaving the animals in someone else’s care (or to be more accurate, I struggle with asking for help).

And so I come (finally) to my reason for writing this. I know that my tendency to overcommit is stressful for me; I also realize my failure to live up to my commitments is stressful for my friends and colleagues. I hate being a flake; ironically, one way to avoid being a flake is to say “no” in the first place! Intellectually, I know that others are understanding when I need to say no (probably more so now than ever); emotionally, I also know that saying no feels like I’m letting them down. In reality, I’m learning that saying “no” now is better than saying yes and then being unable to fulfill my commitments. To those of you I’ve let down, I apologize - thank you for understanding.

Next week, I’ll turn 57. I’ve decided to take the week off from work and simply be at home (mostly). I want to do some woodworking and to chip away at the clean up I’ll need to do to sell our place. I want to hang out with my dogs (plural - I’m also going to pick up a puppy next week!). I want to read and cook and do yard work. I want to simply “be” for a week - with no schedule and no place to be. I know that some down time will be beneficial for my immediate well-being; I hope it will also help me to recalibrate my approach to work (and life in general). I’ve made commitments for workshops and research over the summer; I’ve also decided that I want to be camped near the ocean in early August to celebrate our 34th anniversary. I want to see Lara and Emma. And I’ll be moving to a new job and a new home next fall. Consequently, I will also be saying no more often (and I will probably need help remembering this). Thank you for understanding!