Little Reminders

Sami has been gone now for just over three weeks. During that time, I’ve helped our youngest daughter move back to Idaho, watched our oldest daughter fly home to New Mexico, and gone back to work myself. I’ve also started working on settling Sami’s affairs - wrapping up her veterinary business, closing accounts, and talking with financial planners and life insurance companies. And I’m adjusting to being alone at home for the first time in 34 years. 

I’m finding that if I keep busy, I don’t have time to dwell on my sadness - work, and the work of keeping a household (which for me includes pets, chickens, mules, sheep, a vegetable garden, and landscaping), seems to take most of my waking hours. I try to exercise regularly - Mae the wonder dog (the only border collie left at home) and I try to walk at least a couple of miles most mornings - but I haven’t had much real down time. In some ways, I think I’m afraid to stop.

For me, the grieving process began with Sami’s glioblastoma diagnosis last February. Our research confirmed that glioblastoma was not a curable cancer. We hoped that a combination of chemotherapy and radiation treatments would stop the spread of the cancer in her brain for a time, but we both knew that it would eventually spread. And so we were sad from the outset.

The intense effort that preceded Sami’s passing early on the morning of August 13 - a period that I now realize started at the end of May when she was hospitalized at UCSF following her first gran mal seizure - required us to keep our grief at arm’s length. Dealing with multiple doctors, insurance providers, and at the end, hospice caregivers, seemed to occupy all of my time and most of my mental capacity. Similarly, the rush of activity immediately following her passing left little time for grieving. But I sense that this is starting to change, at least for me.

Initially, little reminders about Sami’s absence brought tears - seeing her toothbrush next to mine, or realizing that I couldn’t text her with updates about our trip to Idaho made me incredibly sad. These last few weekends, the small accommodations we made in our home to help keep her safe and comfortable (like the grab bars in the shower) made me cry. Coming home from work to an empty house has been hard - I find that I took for granted how important our inane, “how was your day” conversations were in helping me decompress and relax.

As I reflect on our nearly seven month journey with cancer, I also regret the times I was overly protective of Sami - trying to keep her safe. I regret being angry with her on the afternoon last spring when I found her rearranging the hay in the barn, or the times I chastised her for getting out of bed without our assistance. She was such an independent person during our entire life together - I’m certain she hated being dependent on me.

But I’ve also found myself in conversation with Sami during these last three weeks. Sometimes I simply tell her how much I miss her; other times, I find myself telling her what I’ve accomplished - mostly little things like remembering to clean the litter box, or making my bed every morning (things that she always did). Sometimes I joke with her - I tell her I’m finally going to clean out her Tupperware cupboard, or get rid of the ratty old clothesline in the backyard. And I relish the times that I see the resident red-tail hawk at the ranch where our sheep are grazing - I know Sami’s checking in on me.

That said, I’m beginning to see that at some point I will need to cease keeping myself so busy that I don’t have time to grieve. I will need some time to simply live with my sadness - to acknowledge how much I miss Sami; to acknowledge how hard the last seven months were. I know that I’ll miss her terribly when I visit the places we enjoyed together, but I also know that I will need to visit those places. I know that the holidays (which for me always began with her birthday on November 10) will be especially difficult. But just as we had to walk the path that glioblastoma laid before us, I’ll need to walk through (and with) my grief.