Swamped

I won’t lie - these last several weeks have been difficult for me. Maybe as difficult as any stretch in the last couple of years.  I’ve been sad. I’ve been lonely. My family and friends would probably say I’ve been grumpy. Part of the difficulty, I know, is that this stretch of time has been an anniversary of sorts - three years ago, we were living through Sami’s first symptoms and eventual diagnosis of glioblastoma. The memories of those weeks come flooding back to me. Part of it, too, has been returning to some of the things I used to enjoy - like teaching new shepherds about lambing. And part of it, I suspect, has just been the normal cycle of grief. I like the analogy of grief as a series of waves. They’ve been smaller waves until recently, but in these last two weeks, I feel like my boat has been swamped.

Part of my loneliness and grief, I think, stem from the recognition that I don’t really have anyone to confide in or to vent to when work - or life - are difficult. And part of it, if I’m honest, is envy - envy of those around me who do have a partner to whom they can confide. As I write this, I realize that there are people in my life who would be more than willing to let me rant and rave. But for some reason, I don’t feel comfortable doing that. And I miss Sami - not sure if it’s cause or effect.

When I can detach myself from these emotions, I’m intrigued by the cycles I seem to experience. The holidays were wonderful - the best Christmas since I’ve been alone. I’ve always found January to be a let-down month, and I suspect that this feeling is intensified now that I’m by myself. I also know that doing the things that I used to do in January (like go to the American Sheep Industry conference) feel different now. I think about returning from Fort Worth to Las Cruces in 2023 - and about the wonderful visit we had with Lara and Micah. And about the trip home (with Sami’s first symptoms). And about the fact that just a week after that conference, Sami had her first brain surgery.

Just 11 days ago, I was invited to give a talk about grazing management during the Nevada Farmers Forum in Reno. For the first time, I talked about the reason that I don’t currently have sheep in a workshop setting - I briefly talked about Sami’s illness and my move to Calaveras County. I still don’t know whether it was the right thing to do, but I’m increasingly feeling like I need to incorporate my personal life experience into my professional work. Losing Sami, and caring for her in the process of her dying, is a profoundly defining moment in my life. I guess I feel like in addition to being a scientist, a sheepherder, and a father, I’m also a widower. And a caregiver. And maybe it’s appropriate to share all of those things. I don’t know.

I do know that the lack of companionship when I return home from meetings - or just from a normal work day - seems especially difficult at the moment. The silence - in the morning when I wake up, and in the evening when I make dinner and go to bed - seems profound. Oppressive, even. And I suspect that I seem either needy or aloof to my friends.

As I’ve withdrawn, I feel as though I’ve become self-focused - narcissistic might be another way to put it. My social life has largely revolved around work - I haven’t engaged with my neighbors or my community, and often, I don’t engage with colleagues outside of work. I want to, but I also know that my professional life requires me to be “on” - and so my “off” time is mostly at home. Sometimes I feel like it should be the opposite - maybe I need to withdraw at work so I can be engaged at home.

Three years after Sami was diagnosed, I’m realizing that my grief will always be with me. I’m realizing that sometimes it will be beneath the surface - but sometimes it will be the only thing I can think about. Some days I’m floating. Some days, I’m swamped.

PTDS

During the fall of 2013, I went to work part-time for a large-scale sheep outfit in Rio Vista, California. We’d had a germinating rain in late September, but the grass got a false start - we didn’t have any more rain until November, as I recall. After Thanksgiving, we had a cold snap in Rio Vista (I woke up one morning in my trailer without hot water or a working furnace) and a bit of snow in Auburn. And then it quit raining until late January. We fed most of our year’s supply of alfalfa hay to the sheep while they were lambing in October and November.

When I took the job, I was able to bring my own 200 +/- ewes to Rio Vista as well. Even with the rain we finally received in January 2014, feed was scarce - and so I decided that we needed to sell some of our sheep to conserve grass for the operation’s ewes. Sorting through our sheep - and deciding which ones were going to go to the auction in Escalon - was probably the most difficult agricultural decision I’ve ever had to make. And as the drought persisted, I came to a mutual agreement with the ranch I was working for. They’d had to sell sheep, too - and we all decided that they couldn’t afford to keep me employed. In mid-February 2014, I hauled our remaining flock back to Placer County - just before we started lambing. From that point forward, our sheep operation remained a part-time enterprise. And I began to work full time for the University of California.

By the following winter, I was working as the herdsman at the UC Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Center in Browns Valley. We still had our sheep, but the drought persisted. That winter, I spent much of my time moving cattle around the research ranch, chasing grass. That summer, I hauled water to the cows so that we could utilize forage in pastures that had feed but lacked stock water.

These experiences stayed with me - much of my master’s degree research focused on how California ranchers responded to our 1000-year drought. As a cooperative extension advisor since 2017, much of my program has focused on helping ranchers prepare for, respond to, and recover from drought. But this winter, I’ve confirmed that I have a condition called “Post-traumatic Drought Syndrome,” or PTDS.

The symptoms of PTDS include anxiety during extended winter dry periods. As I write this, we haven’t had any precipitation in Mountain Ranch in more than three weeks. While I know we often get dry spells like this during the winter months, the lack of rain in our 2-week forecast makes me increasingly nervous. This week, I drove to Reno and confirmed that we don’t have much snowpack in the high country, either.

I remember reading about some research from Australia during our big drought that reported Aussie farmers often kept multiple weather apps on their phones. During dry stretches, they’d check each app until they found one with a more favorable forecast. I find that I do the same thing. At the moment, all of my apps don’t show any moisture for the next 10 days. On day 11, they show a chance of rain, but that chance is always at least 11 days out.

Currently, I only have four sheep - two breeding ewes and two lambs that I’ll harvest next week. I am planning to purchase a handful of feeder lambs and goats (probably a total of 20) in March to help manage the fire danger on my property. PTDS - and the potential for summer/fall wildfire - has changed the way I look at raising sheep. For the foreseeable future, I’ll buy feeder animals in the spring, and sell them when I run out of grass. I won’t keep many sheep year-round.

I know we’ll get more rain, and I know the grass will grow. I also know that I no longer rely on these things for even a portion of my livelihood. But having managed through the Big Dry of 2012-2016, I find that I’m feel the mental and physical manifestations of anxiety. I still suffer from PTDS.

Enough

I have lived in rural or semi-rural parts of California for most of my 58+ years. I’ve been privileged to live in some beautiful places and in some wonderful communities. I’ve also been privileged to have been born white and male.

Privilege is an interesting concept - and I know that some of my friends would dismiss the notion that being a white male has provided me (or them) with any advantage. But I think it’s impossible to know what hasn’t happened to me because of my gender or the color of my skin. Which is why empathy is so important. And which is why I find the current social and political conditions in the United States so troubling.

On my walk this morning, I remembered the 2020 song by Tyler Childers, “Long, Violent History.” The lyrics, written after the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, could equally apply to the violence playing out in the streets of Minneapolis (and other U.S. cities) this weekend.

It's the worst that it's been since the last time it happened

It's happening again right in front of our eyes

There's updated footage, wild speculation

Tall tales and hearsay and absolute lies

Been passed off as factual when actually, the actual

Causes they're awkwardly blockin' the way

Keeping us all from enjoyin' our evening

Shoving it's roots through the screens in our face

Now, what would you get if you heard my opinion

Conjecturin' on matters that I ain't never dreamed

In all my born days as a white boy from Hickman

Based on the way that the world's been to mе

It's called me belligеrent, it's took me for ignorant

But it ain't never once made me scared just to be

Could you imagine just constantly worryin'

Kickin' and fightin', beggin' to breathe

How many boys could they haul off this mountain

Shoot full of holes, cuffed, and laid in the streets

'Til we come in to town in a stark ravin' anger

Looking for answers and armed to the teeth

30 aught sixes, papaw's old pistol

How many, you reckon, would it be, four or five?

Oh, would that be the start of a long, violent history

Of tuckin' our tails as we try to abide?

Oh, would that be the start of a long, violent history

Of tuckin' our tails as we try to abide?

For me, Childer’s video liner notes about the song (and his fans’ reaction to it) is equally eloquent - and important. You can view it here.

Over the past several years, I have felt homeless politically. The modern Republican Party has never felt like a comfortable fit for me; lately, neither has the modern Democratic Party. Over the last three presidential elections, I’ve voted for what seemed to be the least bad option. I should note here that I’ve never voted for Donald Trump.

Yesterday, I watched the events in Minneapolis with horror . I should say up front that I strongly disagree with the federal government’s tactics around detaining illegal immigrants, which seem designed to instill as much fear and inhumanity as possible. I see echoes of the Roosevelt administration’s internment of Japanese Americans during World War 2, with extra helpings of violence and cruelty.

The shooting deaths of Renee Good and now Alex Pretti - US citizens who were exercising rights guaranteed by our Constitution - cross a dangerous line for me. Somehow, the current administration has decided that dehumanizing citizens who disagree with its policies and tactics is what the majority of us want.

I have seen videos of both shootings, and have drawn my own conclusions. I understand that others may see the same footage and come to a different perspective. What concerns me most, however, is that the administration does not seem interested in an independent investigation of either death. It’s enough, it seems, that these individuals were protesting the administration’s policies. In other words, they got what they deserved.

Disagreements have always been part of our political discourse. Through most of our history, we’ve settled these disagreements in the voting booth - and just as importantly, in my mind, through conversations with our neighbors. We seem to have lost our way at present - or at least our current leaders have lost their way. I believe in due process and the rule of law - for all people, regardless of their heritage, their skin color, their gender - or their immigration status.

And so as I come back to the idea of my privilege, I do know that writing these words at the picnic table by my fire pit does not carry the same risk that others are facing in protesting the administration’s policies. I probably risk losing some friendships, but I can live with that. I’ve had enough - I need to speak out.

 

On Empathy, Anxiety, and Being Alone

Last night as I was winding down from a long day, my phone scrolled through some photographic memories from the last 5-6 years. One of the photos was from the American Sheep Industry conference in Fort Worth, Texas - taken on January 18, 2023. As I looked at the photo, I realized that just 10 days later, Sami would have the first of two brain surgeries. I was struck by how quickly our world changed during those 10 days.

This morning, my sister called to tell me that my brother-in-law’s friend and coworker had been having difficulty finishing his sentences (similar to Sami’s early symptoms). He’d had an MRI yesterday, and was in surgery for a brain tumor this morning. The anxiety we felt on that January evening three years ago came flooding back.

But as I sat with my thoughts, I also felt deep empathy for this man and his family - people whom I’ve never met. Nobody’s path through this is exactly the same, but having now experienced losing a partner to glioblastoma, I have at least some sense of how his wife must be feeling this morning. Even with friends and family around, there is a sense of having to face this awful thing alone.

For me, the loneliness returns when I learn of other people going through this trauma. My immediate inclination after talking to my sister this morning was that I needed to share this awful news, and how I was reliving our experiences, with someone. But there’s really no one to share it with. I thought of texting our daughters, but I didn’t want to make them relive the winter and spring of 2023. I thought of telling a close friend, but I didn’t know how to begin. “Hey, a guy I don’t know has a brain tumor, and it’s really upsetting me,” doesn’t seem to be something I am comfortable sharing with anyone. Not because my friends aren’t empathetic; I simply don’t feel close enough to anyone this morning to lay the burden of my anxiety and sadness on them.

I’ve been feeling melancholy for the last week or so. Part of this, I know, is the normal post-holiday letdown I feel every year. January, I think, has always been my least favorite month. Part of it, though, is also a longing for my old life. Last weekend, I helped with a lambing school at UC’s sheep research facility in Hopland. I had a great time, but looking at the slides of our sheep, of our pastures near Auburn, made me miss those times. The time before Sami got cancer. The time before I moved to a new house. The time before I was alone.

1000 Days

Around the time I turned 50, I remarked to my brother-in-law (who is slightly older than me) that I thought I’d know more by the time I was that old. He laughed and said, “I just didn’t realize how much I’d forget!” Now that I’m well into my extremely late 50’s (I’ll be 59 in April), I occasionally have the feeling that I’ve figured some things out. But mostly I just keep blundering through - figuring out life as I go. Burley Coulter, my favorite character from Wendell Berry’s novels, puts it this way: “I never learned anything until I had to.”

Just over 1,000 days ago, Sami began struggling with speech. She apparently had several seizures, as well. Nearly 900 days ago, she passed away. One of the things I’ve had to learn in the last 1,000+ days (and that I find I must continue to learn) is how to carry on with day-to-day life in spite of my grief over losing my partner of 33 years. And just as I woke up one day and realized I was well past middle age, I woke up this weekend and realized that nearly three years have passed since Sami’s glioblastoma symptoms first manifested.

My grief began on that evening in the emergency room in late January 2023 when the doctor came in and told us that the CT scan he’d ordered showed a small mass on the front of Sami’s brain. The next day, after her first craniotomy, we (or at least I) had a glimmer of hope - we’d acted quickly, and Sami’s surgeon was confident that he’d removed the tumor. When she ended up back in the hospital two weeks later, and we learned from another neurosurgeon that the tumor had - what, regrown, not been entirely removed, we’ll never know - our grief and our anxiety returned.

Over the last three years, I’ve realized that the “stages” of grief inaccurately portray grieving as a linear process. According to this “model” one must experience denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance, before moving “on.” But I’ve also learned that Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who famously described these elements of grieving, was not convinced that they were stages. My experience suggests that grief is a cycle - I’ve moved in and out of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance since that day in late January 2023. I suspect I will for the rest of my life. And while I hope to move forward, I doubt I’ll ever move on from grieving for Sami and for what our old age might have been together.

I’ve also realized over the last year or so that Sami was also grieving throughout her brief illness. At one point, she told me she thought she’d outlive me (she said it laughingly, but she was serious). In some ways, I think, the cancer in her brain progressed so quickly that she didn’t have time to go through all of the “cycles” of grief. She certainly seemed to experience denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. Who could possibly experience acceptance of something like that?

Last weekend, I finished The Place of Tides, the latest book by James Rebanks (who, coincidentally is a sheep farmer. Like Wendell Berry. Like me). He writes, “There is no end to learning…. I had imagined that there was a moment when you felt wise, that you had learnt it all…. We are all just children. We never know enough, not even the half of it.” I’ve long felt this way about learning and experience; I now wonder if grief is the same. That once we’ve grieved for the loss of someone, we’ll always feel that grief. It will change as our lives change, as we have new experiences. But we’ll never know enough not to grieve. At least that's how it feels to me.

Over these last three years, the pain of losing Sami has (mostly) become easier to bear. In that autumn after Sami passed, I heard someone describe the pain of grieving as a box with a large ball in it. The box also has a button that causes pain. Early in the grieving process, the ball is quite big, and it frequently hits the pain button. As time goes on, the ball of your loss remains just as big, but the box of your life grows - and so the ball hits the pain button less frequently. That seems to be true for me.

Last weekend, I was sad and lonely (as I often am after having a wonderful time with our daughters). For the first time since Sami died, I didn’t feel withdrawn on Christmas, which felt good. On the other hand, we went through some of Sami’s belongings - sorting what we wanted to keep, what we wanted to donate, and what we needed to dispose of. That affected me more than I expected. Going through her things brought back the sense that we were robbed of the opportunity to grow old(er) together - and so I guess I was angry, as well as sad and lonely. Sometimes the cycles of grief seem to overlap.

Early on in my grieving, I felt as though most of the people around me knew what our family had just experienced. Like my grief (and the reason behind it) was obvious. As time flows on, I meet new people who have no idea of my backstory. Sometimes I wish there was a “grief shirt” I could wear so I wouldn’t feel compelled to awkwardly tell a new acquaintance, “hey, my wife died recently.” Perhaps the Jewish tradition of rending one’s clothes when a loved one dies acknowledges our need for others to see our grief.

Today, 1,000+ days into this season of my life, I find that I often feel an odd combination of wanting people to know what happened but struggling to bring it up in conversation. Obviously, I write about it frequently (too frequently, perhaps, but I find sharing my written thoughts therapeutic). But last summer I decided not to attend my 40th high school reunion, simply because I didn’t want to tell the same story about why I was there alone over and over again.

I’ve come to think that when your partner dies, something dies in you, as well - and your grief feels doubled. I guess this is true when anyone close to you dies, but it seems especially true when it’s a life partner. And grieving, I think, is partly a process of rebirth. Of discovering who you are going forward, while honoring who you were before. 

Starting Over

I’m enough of a weather/nature nerd that I’ve kept a weather diary since 2001. The green hard-bound journal, with a page for each day of the year, sits on my nightstand, along with a min/max thermometer. Every evening, I jot down the high and low temperatures for the day, record any precipitation we received in the last 24 hours, and note sky conditions and any remarkable happenings in the natural world (when the first lilac blooms, for example, or when the tree frogs start to sing). I filled up my first journal in 2022, starting a new one three years ago. And on January 1 of each year, I flip all the way back to the front of the journal. I start over.

As I flipped back to the first page in my journal last week, I realized that the pages later in January would begin to document our family’s journey three years ago. In some ways, the anxiety we felt when Sami first experienced the symptoms of glioblastoma is still palpably with me. In other ways, I can’t believe how much has changed in my life since those days in early 2023.

While rangelands have been a common thread in my professional life, changing jobs has been the norm. I’ve worked on rangeland and livestock policy issues (with the California Cattlemen’s Association), rangeland conservation (starting the California Rangeland Trust and working with the Nevada County Land Trust), rangeland economics (as a coordinator for the High Sierra Resource Conservation and Development Council), and finally, rangeland science and management (in various positions with UC Cooperative Extension and UC Davis). I’ve even managed my own livestock on rangeland (first with a handful of cows, later with my own commercial sheep operation). Despite this continuous focus on rangelands, though, I seem to reinvent myself every 5-7 years.

My love of working outside and working with my hands has also evolved throughout my adult life. Last week, while the girls and I were going through boxes of things I’d moved from Auburn, I found the plaque I received in high school for a Bank of America award in applied arts. As I recall, my shop teachers nominated me for the award, which involved making a presentation about why applied arts (like woodworking or welding, for example) were every bit as much an artistic expression as fine arts. Early in our marriage, I was a woodworker, building furniture for our home and as gifts. Eventually, raising livestock (as a hobby at first, later as a business) became my opportunity to work with my hands and be outside. Now, operating my portable sawmill and building things from the lumber give me a chance to work outdoors and an outlet for my physical creativity.

Turning the pages of my weather diary back to January 1 last week made me realize that grieving the loss of a partner is, in a way, like starting over. Despite all of the new beginnings in my professional life, my personal life was marked by the 33 years I was married to Sami, and the 30 years we lived in Placer County. While I went from being the assistant vice president of the California Cattlemen’s Association to becoming the UC Cooperative Extension livestock and natural resources advisor for Placer, Nevada, Sutter, and Yuba Counties over the course of those 33 years, I was always Sami’s husband. I spent more than half of my life in that role. That one constant changed on August 13, 2023.

Since I became a widower nearly 30 months ago, lots of other things have changed in my life. I sold our home in Auburn and purchased another in the tiny Calaveras County town of Mountain Ranch. I transferred to a new job (I’m still a UCCE livestock and natural resources advisor, but I serve a different set of counties, including the one where I was raised). I’ve sold virtually all of my sheep. I’ve purchased a portable sawmill and learned to use it. I’ve tried to learn to live alone.

Over the last week, I’ve been reading The Place of Tides by shepherd/writer James Rebanks (a gift from my daughter, Lara). He says, “[I was] nearly fifty - when you wonder whether you have lived as well as you might, when you have to decide whether to stick or twist, carry on and accept your life, or strike out and make a change before it is too late.”

I realized this week that I’d begun thinking about the next phase even before Sami got sick. In early 2023, I’d agreed to buy out my sheep partner, who was moving to Texas. But with the realization that neither of our daughters were likely to move back to California, I’d also started considering a different side gig (something other than sheep) that would allow us to travel to see the girls more frequently. Sami and I had talked about using the proceeds from selling most of the sheep to buy a sawmill. But we hadn’t come to a decision.

All of which brings me back to this day three years ago. Had you told me on January 7, 2023, that three years later I’d be living in a different house, by myself, doing a new job, I’d have said you were crazy. One of the hardest lessons in Sami’s illness and passing has been the realization that I didn’t know what lay ahead of us on that January day three years ago - and that there’s no way for me to know what lies ahead of me tomorrow. But maybe I’m learning that I have a chance to start over every day. 

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.