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.

 

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.

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.

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. 

Perspectives

I’m not a professional herding dog trainer - not even close. But I have trained the last several border collies I’ve used in my sheep business, and I have worked at understanding livestock handling and behavior - especially with sheep. One of the things I’ve observed with starting a young dog on sheep is that at first, most of my dogs want to work much too closely to the sheep. As a result, the dog can only see a very small part of the flock. Part of my job as the trainer, then, is to help the dog back off - to help the dog realize that he or she has more control over the entire flock if they work from further away. In other words, with greater distance comes more perspective.

Distance can be physical or temporal - measured in space or time. The further back my dog can work and still exert control over the sheep, the more effective he’ll be. The further away I get from the traumatic events of 2023, the more I see them with clarity. I don’t know if I understand what happened any more definitively than I did 25 months ago, but I am able to think about some of these events in a new light.

Before delving into several of the ways my perspective has evolved, I should say that I’ve come to realize that one does not “graduate” from the grieving process. There is no “certificate of completion” - as I’ve written before, my relationship with grief continues to evolve. But grief is not something I’ll move past. Indeed, my grief is not something I want to move past. Moving forward with my grief seems to make more sense. And so I suspect my perspective on Sami’s illness and death will always be evolving.

Over these last two years, I’ve found that reading about grief and loss has mostly been beneficial. Of particular help have been A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis, No Death, No Fear by Thich Nhat Hanh, and most recently, This Ordinary Stardust by Alan Townsend.

Dr. Townsend is the Dean of the Franke College of Forestry and Conservation at the University of Montana. As I was blogging in real time about Sami’s glioblastoma diagnosis and treatment in the spring of 2023, he reached out to me to share that he had lost his wife Diana (who was also a scientist) to the same disease several years before. His book is an account of her illness and the aftermath of her passing. I won’t attempt to summarize his writing, but I highly recommend it.

The book came out last spring, and when I received my copy, I found that I wasn’t ready yet to read about someone else’s experience with losing a partner. About ten days ago, I finally picked it up - and I finished reading it one evening this week. In many ways, Alan and Diana’s experience was very similar to mine and Sami’s - and so I found much of it difficult to read. I found myself reliving our experience. I frequently found myself crying and putting the book down. But as I reflected on the book after I finished it Wednesday evening, I realized that Alan’s story helped me gain some important perspective on our own journey with brain cancer. I’m sure more revelations will come.

At some point between Sami’s first and second craniotomy in February 2023, she told me that if she decided she didn’t want any more treatment, I needed to let her make that decision. I agreed, but she also said something about taking her own life. Since she was a large animal veterinarian with access to powerful euthanasia drugs, I knew she had the ability to act on that idea. We secured the drugs (and I bought a gun safe to replace the locked cabinet where I stored my hunting rifles), but I found the thought of Sami ending her own life terribly upsetting at the time. Later, when she was in the hospital at UCSF, she said something to a nurse or a resident about these thoughts. That evening, we had to have an observer in the room with us all night, just in case. The next day, a therapist interviewed her and determined that she wasn’t going to act on the idea - she simply wanted some control over what was happening to her. Looking back now, I realize that Sami was fearless in the face of certain death (there is, after all, no cure for glioblastoma), but the process of dying - of losing her physical and intellectual capacity - was terrifying. I realize now that she wanted some say in how long she’d need to live with the tumors in her brain, and the debilitating symptoms they caused.

I also realize now that she began the process of dying when she had the first major seizure in late May 2023. A week after that seizure, we were in San Francisco, where her medical team determined she was having ongoing subclinical seizures - seizures we couldn’t see, but episodes that were further eroding her ability to walk and speak. Episodes that increased her brain fog. I suspect I knew at the time that her physical and mental toughness were masking the severity of her symptoms - that while we knew how sick she was, her medical team had no frame of reference. They couldn’t really comprehend what a badass she was - and that she knew better than anyone what was happening to her.

The last two weeks of her life, I think, represent the most difficult stretch of my life, too - at least so far. In many ways, the two weeks she spent in hospice care are still a blur - I can still remember specific images and experiences, but mostly I remember my own exhaustion. And my fear that Sami would linger - that I wouldn’t have enough stamina or fortitude to take care of her. In this regard, I am so grateful to our daughters for sharing these difficult days with me. After reading Alan’s book, I was able to see those last two weeks differently. Today, they don’t seem any less difficult, but I do think now that Sami wanted to live until her whole family could be with her (and knowing Sami, so we could be with each other once she’d left us). Wednesday evening, as I finished Alan’s book, I remembered the afternoon of August 10 or 11, when Sami and I were sitting side-by-side on her bed. By that time, both of our daughters were with us, as was Sami’s sister and my own sister and brother-in-law. I put my arm around her, and she rested her head on my shoulder - it was the last time we embraced each other. Early in the morning of August 13, 2023, she slipped away, in our bedroom, with all of us around her. I can’t bring myself to say it was beautiful, but today, I’m grateful that we were there for her. That we were there together. For each other.

Finally, in the winter after Sami passed, I participated in several virtual workshops associated with a social science research project I’d been collaborating on with a colleague from Idaho. One of the sheep producers who participated had young children, and we talked about the realities of livestock production. Like my daughters, her children had participated in the realities of ranch life. The fact that we raise animals for meat (which requires death) while caring deeply for the animals in our care. I couldn’t help it. I asked if she thought ranching gave us a different perspective on life (and death). She answered, “Yes. I think caring for our animals - knowing that their lives sustain ours - prepares our hearts for harder things.” As a veterinarian, Sami had sat with friends who had to make difficult end-of-life decisions. As a rancher, I’d had to make some of those decisions myself. Those decisions are never easy; but my direct participation in them helped prepare me for the biological and existential realities of what our family experienced.

During these last 25 months, gaining this perspective hasn’t been a linear process. I’ve tried some online group grief therapy, which hasn’t been terribly helpful. I’ve tried some one-on-one counseling (both in person and virtual) - some of which has been enormously beneficial, some of which was not. For me, I’m realizing, reading, quiet contemplation, and vulnerability (through my writing and through conversations with friends) have been the most helpful ways for me to understand my grief. I have also realized that there is no single path through grief - that while grief may be the most universal of human emotions, we each experience it - and cope with it - differently. Distance, at least for me, has provided perspective.

Before and After

Photo by Daniel Lee Brown

The first two weeks of August will forever be a week of anniversaries. Sami and I were married on an extremely hot day in Sonora on August 4, 1990 - as I recall, the thermometer on the bank in Sonora read 108F when we drove past it on our way to our reception at the Mother Lode Fairgrounds. And Sami passed away early in the morning of August 13, 2023. August 2025, two years after Sami died from glioblastoma, has been difficult. Last week, I realized that my life has been divided. Into “before” and “after.”

This year, in August, I’ve experienced moments of profound sadness. Our anniversary was a rough day for me. August 13 was hard, too - but I was busy getting ready to go to a conference, so I avoided some of the grief. The challenges of this particular August have been intensified by my ongoing care-giving responsibilities - this time for my parents. As I approach the last week of my least favorite month, I feel like I’ve been scattered. Unable to concentrate. Unproductive. I’m looking forward to September.

Last month, I listened to an audio book by Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, called No Death, No Fear.  He talks about how we all manifest ourselves in different ways, that we don’t really “leave” when we die - we just manifest differently. I’ve found this helpful. I’ve found that Sami still manifests herself in a variety of ways in my life. In the notes and recipes that are in my new kitchen. In the way that I look at problems. In the animals I care for. In my pride at the fact that I’ve made my bed, washed my clothes,... adulted… most days since she left me.

But I’m realizing that Sami also manifests herself in the physical world. I’ve written about the hawk that followed me on the walk I took on August 13, 2023, on the afternoon after Sami died. Red tailed hawks have always been significant for me, but the hawk that watched me walk on that saddest of days will make me forever associate red tailed hawks with Sami. As will my experiences since that day.

Since then, I’ve found several hawk feathers - don’t tell anyone, but I’ve collected them (which I suspect might be illegal). Both my daughters have had hawk feather tattoos - and I’ve had some ink applied too (a soaring hawk on my left shoulder, between my head and my heart). More significantly, red tail hawks have appeared at several important points in my life in the last 24 months.

In late June of last year, I was in escrow on a property in Mountain Ranch. I wasn’t terribly excited about it, but I was feeling pressure to find a place, since our home in Auburn was also in escrow. After giving a talk on vineyard grazing at Ironstone Vineyards, I met my realtor at a newly listed property between Mountain Ranch and Railroad Flat. I really liked it - the house was too big, but nice - and the property was perfect (a combination of grassland, conifers, and black oaks). But switching properties carried the risk of losing my deposit on the first property. I told my agent I needed to sleep on it.

That night, I dreamed about the second place - a place I’d only seen once. And I dreamed that I saw a red tailed hawk sitting on the gate post. I called my agent the next morning and told her I wanted to try to get out of the other escrow, and put an offer on the new place. The place where I’m living now. And I didn’t lose my deposit.

At some point in the last year, I had my last session with the grief therapist provided by hospice. I found these sessions helpful; this last session was difficult, because I finally felt like I needed to talk about some unresolved issues between Sami and I. I was sitting at the table in my new kitchen, looking out at the grassy hillside above my house. As I was struggling to talk about these difficulties, a red tailed hawk dropped out of the sky onto its next meal. I broke down.

Two weeks ago, I was talking to a new therapist, looking out the same window. We were talking about making time to reflect on what the impending anniversary of Sami’s death would be like - and about strategies for coping with my feelings about it. And another (maybe the same?) red tailed hawk dropped out of the sky.

My rational brain knows that I live in the midst of red tailed hawk habitat. That I’m likely to seek hawks where I live. But my emotional brain takes great comfort in seeing them. When I’m driving and I see a hawk perched on a power pole, I say, “Hi, Sami!” When I see a hawk catching an updraft, and soaring effortlessly, I think about what it must have felt like for Sami to leave her cancer-riddled body and fly. I find that these thoughts make me both happy and sad. Or maybe I’m trying to say, they make me think about before and after.

Duality

Monday, Sami and I would have been married for 35 years. I took vacation last week (mostly to work around my place, but also to see Steve Earle play in Tahoe with my sister and brother-in-law - which Sami would have loved!). I decided to take our anniversary off as well. I felt like I needed a day to myself.

After sleeping past 6am (which I never do!) I decided to wash Sami’s truck and our gooseneck horse trailer, both of which I’ve decided to sell. Cleaning the cab of Sami’s truck hit me pretty hard - I found an old pair of her reading glasses, and a pair of her sunglasses, in the center console. But I decided that I needed to be sad - I needed to spend a day simply remembering our life together. While I washed the truck, I listened to music that reminded me of Sami. I cried some, and cursed some, but got the truck clean enough to send photos to the auction company who’ll sell it for me. Then I started on the trailer.

Cleaning the gooseneck that we’d purchased nearly 20 years ago felt like the final end to my sheep business. An end to our mule-showing days. An end to taking the girls’ lambs and show equipment to the fair. In other words, Monday was a pretty sad day.

Tuesday, I awoke early to drive to the UC Blodgett Experimental Forest for two days of data collection. I’d intended to take my camp trailer (which meant I could also take my dogs), but my fancy new Toyota Tundra wasn’t communicating with my trailer brakes - so I left the trailer and the dogs home. And started off my day extremely discombobulated (to borrow a word that Sami liked to use). The work day ended up going well, but I found myself exhausted and ready for bed before 8 pm.

One of the lessons I seem to be learning in the more than 31 months since we discovered Sami had a brain tumor, is the concept of duality. That two (or more) seemingly contradictory things - or emotions - can be true at the same time.

Seeing Steve Earle with my sister and brother-in-law last week was amazing - I’ve listened to him since I was a freshman in college, and our trip to western Nevada was wonderful! But I was also sad that Sami wasn’t there with us. Watching Emma graduate from college in May was an incredibly proud moment - but also sad in Sami’s absence. Similarly, learning that Lara and her boyfriend Micah will be getting married next May is an equally joyous occasion. And knowing that Sami wished for these things to happen is bittersweet.

Today, driving back from Blodgett Forest, I realized that I was looking forward to being home in Mountain Ranch. I really love my new place - when I started looking to move last year, I wrote that I wanted a place with pine trees, grass, and a front porch - and I succeeded in finding that place! But I also miss Auburn - I miss the house where Sami and I raised our family. I miss the community that I was part of for 30 years. I wish Sami could see this place, but I know that I’d never have moved here if she hadn’t died.

Looking back on August 2023, I find that I’m still reliving the trauma of Sami’s brief time in hospice, and of her eventual death in the bedroom we’d shared for 33 years and nine days. Holding Sami’s hand that night of August 12 and early morning of August 13 was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. But I also feel a measure of - I don’t know - blessing? Pride? Honor? To have been present when she drew her last breath. As Jason Isbell writes, “I worked hard to the end of my shift.” Or at least it feels that way to me.

As I’ve written before, the phrase “move on” does not seem to describe the grieving process for me. I do feel like I’ve moved forward with my life - I’ve changed jobs, moved to a new community, found new friends. But I’ve also found that as I’ve moved forward, I’m better able to look passed the anxiety and trauma of Sami’s illness and passing. Sadness and happiness, in other words, can both be true. At the same time.

The Summer of 2023

Yesterday afternoon, I participated in a focus group organized by the UC San Francisco Neuro Oncology Caregiver Support team. Since Sami’s passing, I’ve wanted to find ways to help others who are going through the trauma that our family experienced in 2023. I hope I contributed to improving the support program. I wasn’t quite prepared, however, for reliving the summer of 2023.

Looking back, I realize that I began to grieve on that night in January 2023 when an emergency room doctor in Auburn told us Sami had a “mass” on her brain. We were scared, obviously, but I think I also began to grieve over the loss of what we expected our lives to be like. And I suspect Sami began to grieve over what she knew she might miss - growing old(er) together, certainly, but also watching Emma graduate from college. Watching both girls get married (at some point). Grandchildren (although I think I was more excited about this prospect than Sami!).

But looking back, the late spring and summer of 2023 were the most intense days of our journey; indeed, they were the most intense days of my life so far. As I read my journal entries and blog posts from that time, I realized that we were hopeful, anxious, and terrified. With the perspective of nearly two years, I now also realize that Sami had begun to die. That the seizures that she began to experience in mid May were signs that the two surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation treatments had failed to slow the growth (regrowth?) of her brain tumor.

Yesterday’s conversations forced me to relive the three weeks we spent in San Francisco in June 2023. I revisited the anxiety, anger, and frustration of looking for answers to what Sami was experiencing. And I relived the regrets I sometimes continue to experience - that we spent those weeks in a hospital, when we could have been home - or visiting the places we loved to go together. I relived the day earlier in the spring when we found Sami stacking hay in the barn in preparation for the next day’s feed delivery - after she’d had two brain surgeries. I was so mad. So was she - mad at me for making her stop doing something she enjoyed doing.

After the focus group, I immediately went back to work - meeting about a paper I’m coauthoring with a colleague and setting up my sawmill at a new location. Much like my approach during Sami’s illness and the immediate aftermath of her death, I threw myself back into activity - as a coping (or perhaps avoidance) strategy. But as happened during the summer of 2023 - and has happened in the 19-plus months since Sami passed - I eventually had to slow down last night. As I sat on my new deck with my dogs after finishing my work day, I realized I was sad and exhausted. The feeling of being emptied out entirely, which came frequently in the early days of my grief, returned with intensity. And yet despite my exhaustion, I found sleep to be difficult.

All of this was a reminder (again) that grief is not a linear “process” - that one does not “move on” from loss and trauma. In many ways, I do think I’ve moved forward (and I’ve certainly moved geographically), but the loss and trauma that we experienced in the summer of 2023 will always be with me. My grief, in times like this, will require that I simply sit with it. As someone told me early in my mourning process, Sami had to live through this experience once; I will live through it again and again - for the rest of my life. As I was reminded yesterday, grief will visit me for the rest of my life. To the extent that grief is also memory, I don’t find it quite as unwelcome as I did initially, but days like yesterday are still difficult. 

Two Years

Two years ago today, a Friday, I was likely at work in my office in Auburn. My calendar from January 6, 2023, says “Emma Home!” - she was midway through her sophomore year of college. Lara had been home; she’d left to return to New Mexico just before the end of December. I was looking forward to my upcoming sheep husbandry field day in mid January (it rained incredibly hard, but we still had a great turnout) and our driving trip to visit Lara in Las Cruces. As I sit in the kitchen of a new (to me) house on January 6, 2025, I can’t quite wrap my head around how much things have changed in just 24 months.

Several days ago, I tried to write down all of the significant events of the last two years. Sami’s illness and ultimate passing. My decision to sell most (and ultimately all) of our sheep - at least for now. My mom’s dementia diagnosis. Sami’s celebration of life. The decision to transfer to Calaveras County, where I’m doing the same job (UC Cooperative Extension Livestock and Natural Resources Advisor) in a different set of counties. Related to the change in jobs, the decision to sell our property in Auburn and buy a property in Mountain Ranch. The actual move (of all of our household goods and ranching equipment). Totaling my Toyota Tacoma on CA-20, and buying a new truck in late November and early December. Traveling to see our daughters in Idaho and New Mexico multiple times. Experiencing difficult first (and now second) anniversaries - of our wedding, of Sami’s birthday, of Sami’s passing.

I realized that the previous 24 months absolutely wore me out.

I write all of this not to seek sympathy, but to acknowledge what these last two years have been like. In January 2023, I was the extension livestock advisor for the county I’d lived in for 29 years. I was the county director, too, leading a staff of wonderful folks. I was a sheepman - Auburn’s own sheepherder, in lots of ways. And I was Sami’s husband (as I had been since August 4, 1990). Looking back from January 2025, I can’t quite fathom what life was like two years ago. I can’t really remember what I expected the rest of my life to be like.

Today, 24 months later, I’m none of these things. For the first time in 20 years, I will not have any lambing ewes this spring. I’m still an extension livestock advisor, but in a new set of counties. I’m nobody’s boss. I’m nobody’s life partner. 

I’m not sure where I belong. I’m not sure who I am. I’m not sure what (if anything) brings me joy at the moment. I’m lonely. I’m sad tonight. I wonder if moving (and leaving the community Sami and I were part of - part of building) was a mistake. I’m realizing that as I write this, my leg and back muscles are tense. I realize that anticipating something (like Christmas, or traveling to see my daughters) is much easier than the aftermath. Going on a trip to see them is far easier than coming home. Similarly, decorating my new place for Christmas was far easier than putting Christmas away.

I’m profoundly exhausted.

Some days, I can focus on the positive parts of my life. I’m the father of two incredibly strong young women, in whom I can see both Sami and myself. I have a wonderful sister and brother-in-law (and their adult kids) who have helped me navigate these last two years. I live in a beautiful place on a property that I own outright. I have a job I enjoy, and that I think I’m reasonably good at performing.

Over the last 24 months, I’ve done a fair bit of reading (and thinking - and writing!) about grief. Some describe grief as a stone that you carry in your pocket - and that as time goes on, and you get stronger, the stone feels lighter. But the stone is with you for the rest of your life. I’ve heard others describe grief as a box with a ball in it, and with a button that causes pain. When your grief is fresh, the ball is big, and so it rolls around and hits the pain button frequently. As time goes on, the box of your life gets bigger, and the ball of your grief shrinks - which means the pain button gets hit less frequently. But it still gets pressed.

Both of these descriptions feel reasonably close to my experience, so far. But I especially like Jimmy Buffet’s (yes, THAT Jimmy Buffet) take on grief. He writes:

”Grief is like the wake behind a boat. It starts out as a huge wave that follows close behind you and is big enough to swamp and drown you if you suddenly stop moving forward. But if you do keep moving, the big wake will eventually dissipate.”

Building on that imagery, grief (at least at this stage) feels like a day at the beach (hear me out)! When Sami first passed, the surf felt incredibly rough - like I would be sucked under the waves if I quit moving. As time went on, over the last two years, I began to feel like the surf had calmed. But the sneaker waves keep coming. Unexpected grief is difficult, and this weekend’s grief felt like I might be pulled away from the shore. Unsettling, to say the least. And probably why I’ve had difficult slowing down - I keep moving, which is both helpful and exhausting.

I’ve never been much for New Year’s Resolutions, but I do use the changing of one year’s calendar to the next to take stock. To think about things I’ve done and things I’d like to do. To think about what I’d like to do better. I guess this year is no different. I feel like I can be better about work-life balance. I hope that the change in jobs will help - but I’m still the guy who says “yes” far too often. I know that I’m the kind of person who seeks (and hopefully builds) community - I hope that I settle into my new one. I also know that working with my hands (whether with sheep, or with my new sawmill) brings me comfort and peace. And maybe - hopefully - joy.

Finally, a word of gratitude. I’ve been told that my vulnerability in writing about these last two years has been helpful. I hope that it has; even more, I am grateful to those of you who have reached out. Grief, as I’ve written before, requires community - even if that community is virtual. Thank you for being part of my community. And my grief.