Saline Hornets! Round 2!

Our move to Saline is June 1.  On one hand I'm still a bit sad to leave Ann Arbor.  Even though Saline is only 15 minutes away it's not the same.  But as we've learned, life changes and you have to roll with it. The moving van is lined up, the utilities have been switched over, and today Todd and I took Grant and Gabby to tour their new schools.

Saline is a very different city than when I moved away. I have yet to decide if it's better or not. It's bigger -- that's for sure! What was the high school (where I went) is now the middle school. The new high school is this very large and fancy brick and glass building that is quite impressive. All the old elementary schools are closed and new ones have been built.  I went in today not knowing what to expect.

I.Was.Amazed.

We stopped at Heritage Elementary first.  Heritage houses all of Saline's 4th and 5th graders. The principal gave us the tour and introduced us to many teachers and staff members. Those who we met were very engaging and pulled Gabby right in.  The school itself is quite neat and has more of a middle school than elementary feel. Everyone assured us Gabby would fit right in.  We left her there for the afternoon so she could shadow the 4th grade class. (Side note: Trish had already arranged a play date for Gabby with her co-worker's daughter, Sofia.  Sofia was in the 4th grade class that Gabby shadowed today so she already has a friend there!)  In one of the classes we visited, Trish's nephew, Owen, saw Gabby and ran up to greet her with some friends.  It felt very welcoming and Gabby had big smiles.

After we left Gabby at Heritage, we drove over to the high school with Grant.  Can I just say wow!  I mean, a building doesn't necessarily indicate how good the academics are but I think Saline High School kills it on both accounts!  We met with Grant's counselor who gave us a tour and helped us start to arrange a class schedule for the fall.  We also stopped into the athletic office and got Grant started with the cross country application process.

Todd got so excited he even stopped into the school store and bought some Saline gear.

I have good memories from when I lived in Saline.  I was worried about the kids switching schools. I'm not saying it will be a perfect transition but after today I feel much better.  I'm really just a mom who wants her kids to be happy and not anxious.  I want them to enjoy school and feel safe and secure in all that they do and are.

I appreciate Ted, Todd, and Trish and our continued pact to raise the kids together.  It's been going really well lately and I think we all have a pretty bright future as a family. All the changes over the past three years are behind us. Although we will never forget our Willy and the grief is still raw, this move is our chance at a fresh start.

Oh, and a special shout out to Grant.  He made the decision to switch to Saline on his own.  We were not going to make him.  Todd and I both told him today that he was very brave to make that decision and that we were proud of him.

Please keep us in your thoughts as we embark on this new journey.

Saline or Bust? But what about Ann Arbor?

This is long and please bear with me. Sometimes I blog more to work my thoughts out than for the reader.

In the early days of our relationship, before Todd and I bought our house in Jackson, we rented an apartment in Ann Arbor.  I had been living in Ann Arbor for quite some time and loved it.  It's a fantastic college town, complete with all the chaos and fun that goes along with the academic machine. It's bright and vibrant and upwardly mobile. To me, there's always been a feeling of forward momentum in Ann Arbor.  Things are moving. The economy is flush. People come here from all over the world to learn.  I love the sites and sounds of other cultures and languages. Ever since my mother moved us there when I was 12 I was in love with it. 

But I was newly married and I wanted a house. Picket fence and all that...

However, our goal was always to try to sell the house and get back to Ann Arbor.  Then the economy tanked. Long story short, in 2013 Todd and I both landed jobs at the University of Michigan.  We finally had enough income to move back to Ann Arbor.  The VA short sold our house which helped and we found a beautiful rental in one of the best neighborhoods in Ann Arbor.  (For $650 more per month than our mortgage was I might add!)

The new house didn't have the mold problems our old house did and between that and putting Willy on hospice services, he thrived. Ann Arbor was a good move. We worked hard and got our family back to a healthier (in more ways than one) city. It was a good city to raise our kids in.  It was what I wanted for them. 

Then life happens. Todd and I got divorced and stayed in Ann Arbor in apartments next door to each other.  We had a firm commitment to be a "clan" together and raise the kids as a family even though we divorced. It's hard work and we don't always agree but we did it and are doing it.

Willy was one of the main reasons we wanted to make sure we lived geographically close. Along with Willy came a lot of supplies. Transferring him back and forth was complicated.  After he passed, Todd bought a house in Saline. We knew this 15 minute distance wouldn't hurt us and would be more possible since Willy was gone. (Yes, I hate writing that.) 

Although I have no desire to own a house - I've owned two and neither turned out to be the wonderful thing society tells you it is - I was happy for Todd.  He and Trish will have a good life there as will the kids. But this did leave Ted and I wondering what we should do. I certainly didn't want to stay in the apartments forever.  There are some issues with apartment living that I wasn't comfortable with and even though I love our particular place, the complex itself is becoming less than desirable at almost $1400 a month. It's just not worth that anymore to live in Ann Arbor. Renting a house could be anywhere from $2000 on up. I just don't love Ann Arbor THAT much. To me, it's irresponsible spending. 

I always said I didn't want to move back to Saline. I don't know if that's the teenager in me who couldn't wait to move OUT of Saline when I went to college the first time or what. I was adamant that we stayed in Ann Arbor. 

Sometimes you just have to admit you're licked. 

Ted and I found a beautiful, old, charming duplex right downtown Saline. I can see the house we lived in through the trees.  It's comfortable. It's charming. I have friends there. Saline schools are just as good, if not better than Ann Arbor's.  (They're both fantastic, there's no downside here.)

Henry Street, right downtown Saline, left side duplex

I did not want to move the kids from their schools. They are both doing well and Ann Arbor schools have been a stable situation for them.

But when making big picture decisions you have to consider the whole. Living in Saline, three miles from Todd and Trish, in my hometown - or at least what I consider my hometown - with a beautiful rental that is much less than our Ann Arbor apartment, is the best decision for us. 

We will be better able to continue on the path of raising the kids together, the four of us, making them feel confident, loved, and taken care of by four adults who love them very much. Divorce and remarriage is tricky when there are kids involved.  Can it be done in a healthy way? Can you show that although you love their father, it was not a healthy marriage? But that we can be really good friends and commit to each other to get along and work things out and take care of them? 

Yes. Absolutely. That is our commitment. This move to Saline is, in large part, because of the commitment that we made.  I'm thankful for my little clan. I'm especially thankful for Trish who is a wonderful second mom.  We are very different people and don't always agree but she takes care of the kids and I don't worry about them when they are there. 

I always think I should have a take away when I write a blog post. I don't know what the take away here should be except that I needed to work out on paper the thoughts in my head about this move. 

If no one except me gets anything out of this blog post then I've done okay. 

I really just love my kids and want to make a good life for them. That's it. 

Have a Coke and a Smile

It can't be easy being married to a grieving, pre-menopausal, emotional wife who also works full-time, is working on her MBA, and tends to worry about stuff in general. Lately, most days I feel like a hot mess. I know this has to do, at least to some extent, with the grief process. My insides feel all weird lately. And it manifests itself in bouts of crying, irreverent humor, and lots of eating. (Why is it that nothing, not even the death of my child, can take away my appetite?!?!)

But Ted manages to work an amazing amount of hours each week and still makes me laugh, takes care of things like finances and groceries, and, most of all, makes me feel loved and supported. We joke a lot, especially on social media, about our lives and the funny things that happen in our days.

My friends tease me that I'm spoiled. Yes, Ted spoils me. I spoil him too but in a different way. We both need different things. Our love languages are very different and for us, it works out very nicely.

In all seriousness, one of the things I love about Ted the most is that my thoughts matter to him. Things I think about and mull over and questions I have matter to him. It doesn't matter the topic. It's common for me to say something like, "I don't understand this," or "I feel weird right now." And his response is always something along the lines of, "Tell me. Let's talk about it." Another common Ted response is "What can I do?" And usually there's nothing to be done -- I just need to know he's there and hears me. Everyone needs to be seen and heard.

For the next few years we have financial obligations and bills to be paid off that require Ted working extra. He's happy that he is able (Read: has the energy) to go do what needs doing. Not once does he ever complain about being tired or having to work his third job of the day. He puts everything he can into all of his jobs, not just his "day" job. As a Coke Merchandiser (which is very different than his job as award winning Dr. Troxell, professor extraordinaire) he builds displays and refills shelves. Sometimes his displays are so perfect and pretty he will text me photos of them. He's proud of his work ethic no matter what job it is he's doing. THAT is sexy.

I've offered to put my MBA off and get a second job and he won't let me. He wants to see me succeed and be whatever it is that I want to be. (Cue Wind Beneath my Wings...) THAT is love.

I don't know what precipitated this blog post. Everyone knows I'm super grateful for him. It was just a weird morning. I am fairly nervous about this accounting project I have due tomorrow for school and then the cumulative final I have to take on Tuesday. Again he was all, "What can I do to help before I leave for work?" And the answer was cake. I need cake. Cake will help me get through this day. So off he went to buy cake supplies.

Neither of us are perfect. I'm not so naive as to try to pretend we've always done everything right and life is always a big, fat rose. I mean, he leaves the toilet seat up so there's that. And I have a list of faults too. (Since this is my blog I don't have to list them if I don't want to.) :-)

But sometimes I just have to shout out to my people. Today it's Ted's turn. 

Now, one more piece of cake and then back to homework. 

#allinadayswork

Grief Group Day

I attended my first "grief group" last Sunday. Can I just start out by saying I hate that term? Grief Group? I wish there were another name for it. I mean, sure, I can call it my Compassionate Friends group which is the actual name but what is it? It's a grief group.  It's a group to deal with grief. Grief Group. Meh. Weird combination of words.

Anyway, I was so nervous.  I had some time to waste so I went to get a coffee at the Whole Foods Cafe. I walked in and the first thing I saw was beer taps. OMG. They have a bar at Whole Foods. Who knew?  I didn't know this. Of course, I don't normally shop at Whole Foods.  I booted the coffee idea and instead opted for a Lager of the Lakes pint.  I figure it was legit.  You know, having a beer before my first grief group. It ended up being a good call.  It took the edge off.

The group met at the First Presbyterian Church downtown Ann Arbor.  It's a beautiful church and there was an orchestra group practicing.  I was early so I sat a bit and watched and listened.  It felt odd to be in a church pew.  I haven't been in a church in a while. In 2014 I went to mass a few times but I don't think I made it once in 2015. By choice. (Which is another blog post for a later date.) Anyway, it was comfortable.  I didn't have the church anxiety I thought I would have.  Then again, I had beer in my stomach.

Finally it was time to go up to the room the meeting was held in.  There were a few people already there and a few more ended up coming after me. Everything we talk about is confidential so while I can't share specifics, I can say it was a very diverse group.  There were people whose children died years ago.  There was another man whose daughter died one week after my Willy died.  I later found out her birthday is close to Willy's as well so I think he will be one of my good friends in the group.

What struck me is how many ways the children had died.  I'm used to living in a world where children have terminal illnesses and, to large extent, you know they will die at some point. It is kind of normal for me in the circles I move around in.  But as we went around the table telling our stories, I realized there was much more to the loss of a child than a terminal illness.  Some died in house fires. Some in car accidents. There were a couple others who had children with cancer.  There was an overdose.  All ages too.  Adult children, infant children, and everything in between.  And THIS was the reason I wanted a grief group that was all about parents losing children.  There is something different about a parent losing a child.  Different than losing a parent or a grandparent.

I don't mean to downplay the grief that comes from losing a parent or grandparent or other loved one. Please don't misunderstand.  But everything I've read about losing a child indicates there's a nuance that can't quite be described. We know it's against the natural order of things to lose a child. As a parent, your job is to protect your children, keep them safe. When you lose a child, you weren't able to do that.  (By no fault of your own.) You think of all the birthdays. You wonder what they would have become had they lived. You think about what they missed. They didn't have a chance at life like adults do.  Therein lies part of the nuance.

Willy had the cognition of about a 4-year old.  Face it. He wouldn't have grown up and got married. But he would have been my baby. My very large baby.  I would have taken care of him no matter how big he got. It didn't matter to me that he couldn't walk or talk.  I grieved that a long time ago. He was cuddly and sweet. And he didn't sass.

Truth is, as I wrote in a prior blog post, I thought I had already grieved him when he was diagnosed. I thought that the grief when he died would be mitigated. I was very wrong and that is a large part of what has hurt about this process.  I explained this to my group and they gave some very good advice that has helped.  I have a lot to learn about grief and I think the group will help me with that. And to be honest, it was refreshing to be with a group of people who didn't have terminal children. Anytime I can step away from my normal world and get a new perspective is welcomed.

Some people cried, some laughed, there were some jokes told that only bereaved parents could understand, and promises to get in touch with someone if grief became unbearable. Reach out.

After the group was over, I went and sat with my Great Aunt Madeline for a few hours.  She's on hospice at a nearby retirement community.  I've been close with her for a long time -- since we moved to Ann Arbor when I was 12. So although she's 99 years old and had a good life, it's still sad. Watching her struggle for words all while knowing she is nearing the end of her days here is tough. We had a good talk. I helped her change into her pajamas, gave her a foot rub, and got her some toast.  It felt good to be a caretaker again.

After I left Aunt Madeline's, I realized I hadn't eaten since breakfast.  And this was about 8:00 at night.  I drove straight to Little Ceasars, bought a Hot 'n Now pizza and some cheesy breadsticks and ate.  A lot. Took a bath and went to bed. I was completely emotionally drained.  But it felt good.

We all die. Whether you're an 11-year old boy who dies of a terminal brain disorder and complications thereof, or a 99-year old great grandma.  There's a grief process that is different for everyone in every situation.  I'm still figuring mine out.  But my new group will definitely be part of it.

Link to Compassionate Friends:
http://www.compassionatefriends.org/Find_Support/Chapters/Chapter_Locator.aspx

Link to the Ann Arbor chapter of Compassionate Friends:
http://tcfannarbormich.org/

Three Months Without Willy

Another anniversary of Willy's death passed last night at 12:40 a.m.  I went to bed with heavy thoughts of his last evening in my mind and it's only because I've been studying so hard that my brain allowed my body to fall asleep.

We made it past the night he died.  We made it past the viewing, funeral, and burial.  We made it through the holidays.  (Dark though they were....)  We made it through the new year. We made it past the first birthday which was Todd's. We had our normal Pickett/Hansen/Krause/Troxell Clan Family birthday gathering for Todd's 46th. Most of the thank you notes have gone out although there are still some in the stack that need to be finished.

For me, it's been a quest to bury myself under every project I can find. Leave no minute of the day available.  Go all day until I crash.  It's the evenings that I'm afraid of.  When the day is winding down and I'd like to relax and watch a show or read a book, well, that's when my mind starts doing the sad things. I know this isn't healthy and I have been trying (with some success) to slow down. I joined a grief group that starts in a couple weeks.  I've said no to a few projects. I realize I can't heal if I'm buried under projects.  The grief will wait for me and come at me with a vengeance if I try to push it back.

I've also been trying to spend more time with Grant and Gabby.  They missed out on so much over the years.  Grant and I had a mom/son date night a few weeks ago which I blogged about.  Ted took Grant out for a special dinner because he ended his semester with such good grades. I took Gabby to the beauty supply store and we played with the samples. I moved all of Willy's things out of Grant's bedroom and am starting to turn it into "Grant's" room now.

Yesterday Grant had an eye appointment and it was weirdly scheduled in the middle of his day so I let him skip the whole day. I decided heck with it and let Gabby skip too.  The three of us went out to breakfast, then to Grant's appointment, and then to the TeaHaus for afternoon tea and crumpets. Gabby has a friend at school who told her the tea there was delicious and she had been asking to go. We had a great time. We each had our own pot of tea and sat there just being together and not being rushed.

http://teahaus.com/

After tea, we went and did a little shopping in Kerrytown. It was nice just walking around downtown and not being in a hurry. I took them home and had to go back to work but we had a great morning and afternoon together.

I still don't quite know how our life without Willy looks.  Right now it's still too raw to get a good picture.  I think the kids are doing well.  They take comfort in knowing he is not battling lissencephaly anymore. And while I take comfort in that as well, I'm still the mother of a child who died in her arms too quickly before even a goodbye could be said.

Thanks to fantastic friends, family, co-workers, and the most awesome husband a woman could ask for, I feel well supported and well loved. I have a lot of happy moments and have begun to laugh a bit again. Sometimes I fake it because I don't want to be the downer. Sometimes I let it all out in bed or in the shower. But sometimes I really do laugh, and mean it.

But I do feel like I've aged 30 years in 3 months.  And the further in the past that Willy's death gets, the more anxious I am that I'm going to forget his smell and how he felt in my arms, the softness of his hair and skin.

The one thing I can say for sure is all the nausea I had the first couple months seems to have subsided.  The first real piece of empirical evidence that I am, in fact, healing.

Grief Isn't a Zero-Sum Game - #griefmath

While I can't speak for other parents with terminally ill children, my experience with Willy's death has been very different than I anticipated.  Acknowledging the fact that no two grief experiences are the same, I really thought that considering Willy's lissencephaly, the grieving process would be somehow mitigated.

I grieved when Willy was diagnosed in 2004.  It's so long ago that it's starting to get fuzzy but I recall having a few horrible nights in the hospital crying for what wasn't going to be and the excruciatingly difficult road ahead of us, all while knowing he probably wasn't going to live for more than two years.  I've blogged about this before; neither Todd nor myself turned the diagnosis into some long drawn out grief fest.  It was tough. More than tough. Especially the first few years.  But we jumped in with both feet.  Over time, Willy became so normal to us. The lifestyle and culture surrounding the special needs world became second, if not first nature. It seemed we had left the grief in the past and gone on to simply live.

We knew he'd pass early. We had many close calls. Two years ago we signed on with hospice services and drafted a Do Not Resuscitate order for Willy. It still seemed normal. Difficult and sad, sure, but normal.  Our normal. Willy's normal. The normal that was our life.

All these events, the diagnosis, the 11 years of decisions and care, the fights with the insurance companies, the hundreds of appointments and hospitalizations, to me they seemed like some sort of post-death grief mitigation.  I knew Willy's death would come.  Although I didn't focus on it, many times I'd think of what songs I might like played at his funeral and how it would be a celebration of life.

Let me just say Willy's death was not mitigated in any way, shape, or form, by the fact that we knew he was going to die early. And this has surprised me. The dark moments come often.  Details of the night he passed haunt me.  I try to stay crazy busy so as to avoid the nightmare. Grief waits though. It's always hanging around and shows up at the weirdest times.

After a wonderful weekend with friends, family, and fun activities, I hit the grief wall about 9:00 last night. It came in fast and furious and instantly changed the light mood of our evening together. Ted rolled with the change and immediately kicked into supportive partner mode. He let me talk awhile so he could get a bead on where my mind was, snuggled me tight, and then did what he does. Tried to help me make sense of it all.

Ted explained that it's simple math, really. It was easy to think I had already grieved Willy since I already dealt with his terminal diagnosis 11 years ago.  I had already come to terms with what he could or couldn't do, or would or wouldn't be.  But grief isn't a zero-sum equation.  That earlier grief was not a downpayment or a head start on the devastating loss I am feeling right now. Instead, it's cumulative. It just piles on.  The grief I am feeling now is being added to the grief from the diagnosis and the grief from the last 11 years.  Now, in addition to all of that, I have to face the loss the way anyone else would.  My child died in my arms.  There's no sense in which Willy's actual death is "better" or "easier" because I've already gone through these other griefs in the past.  There's no "at least" that takes away the sting or the sorrow.  There's nothing that could have prepared me for or mitigated what I am going through now.  One does not diminish or attenuate the other, but rather they compound and amplify each other.

Ted has said over and over that he'd do anything to be able to carry some of my grief.  Of course we all know that is impossible.  But with this explanation of what I am forever more going to call "grief math," he did, in fact, pick up some of the burden for me.  It makes sense and helps me understand a bit more about why this is harder than I thought it would be.

One of my fellow lissencephaly parents, Karen, lost her daughter Hannah years ago.  She's a bit ahead of me in this journey so her words of wisdom are much appreciated. She simply said this:

Grief + Grief = Overwhelming Grief

She also said this, "You think you will never get over it and you will never be the same again, and both are facts, but you do learn to live with it and it does soften."

Life Support

*This blog is written by Ted Troxell, husband to Dawn and step-father to Willy.*

When Dawn and I first began getting “serious” (whatever that means), she was worried about introducing me to life with Willy. I knew about this life, of course – Dawn and I had been friends a long time and I knew her story – but I hadn’t experienced it up close and personal. She was worried it would be too much, that I’d realize what such a life entailed and not want to be a part of it.

"Hey Ted!"

I reassured her that Willy was part of who she was, and that there was no calculus by which I could pick and choose which parts of her life, which of the various elements that comprised this person I’d fallen in love with, I was willing to sign on to. It was a package deal, and I would dive in with verve and gusto.

Teaching Willy when to fold 'em. 

So I did. I learned how to care for Willy. I learned what life was like in the special needs world. I learned not just the mechanics of care but also how that life changes people, how the jokes work, how the vagaries of everyday middle class problems are eclipsed by the grim reality of taking care of a terminally ill child with limited cognition and no motor skills.

Willy was a snuggly little guy...

I learned the drudgery but also the joy of caring for someone who had little to offer but general cuteness and coos and smiles, and even those seemed to be fading as he headed toward a twilight come too soon. There’s a certain clarity to that life: what we could and couldn’t do as a family was proscribed by our circumstances. Our days were organized around feedings and med schedules and who was getting him on or off the bus to school.

Trying to avoid formula spills from Willy's hands.  I'll show him! 

This is to say that I loved Willy the only way I knew how, by attending to those needs and taking my place in a constellation of caregivers who buoyed his life and made it possible. We are all, in a sense, on life support, eating and drinking and carrying on in order to keep on living, and Willy’s condition only brought this home more viscerally. The frailty of the human condition writ large in the body of a child.

Willy loved to sit up like a big guy. He'd often slide down or fall over so we had to secure him well.

Still, I didn’t have the same kind of history with Willy that his parents and the rest of his family did. Even some of the family’s friends and Willy’s long-time caregivers knew him longer and perhaps better than I did. I wasn’t there when he was born, or when he was first diagnosed. I didn’t live through the worst of it: the ambulance rides and extended hospital stays and prolonged battles with insurance companies to secure proper care.

One of the best Willy photos and memories.  I was playing guitar and he was loving it. I was able to get the best eye contact I ever got from him.

For this reason, combined with my personality type and my own mental health profile, my experience with grief is very different from Dawn’s. There’s a vicarious quality to it, a kind of empathic response to a sense of deep personal loss that isn’t really mine. I grieve for Dawn and Todd and the rest of the family, for those whose history with Willy is longer and more involved than mine and whose sadness is deeper than I can feel.

Again, hanging out on the couch with Willy holding my hand. 

Gabby came in our room the other night and Dawn wasn’t immediately awake but I was. “Ted,” Gabby asked, “are you sad that Willy died?” And of course I am, but in another sense I don’t, as the song from Spring Awakening goes, “do sadness.” I cry easily at movies but otherwise struggle with appropriate emotional responses. I sometime have to consciously make the connection between stimulus X and reaction Y, almost like there’s a Terminator-style internal menu that pops up and I have to choose.

With Willy in Washington, D.C. ready to do some lobbying.

In a way, this has been a blessing. Dawn is the strongest person I know, but she’s been leveled by loss and I’ve had to be strong on her behalf. “I’m so sad,” she’ll say, with air of surprise and self-judgment, and I remind her that it’s okay to be sad, that nobody but her expects her to not be sad. I mean, of course it sucks and I don’t want to see her in pain, but it’s also wholly appropriate. Dawn jokes about playing the “grieving mother card,” and it’s part schtick, but it’s also her struggling to give herself permission to grieve. Dawn’s inner Mean Girl can be a real bitch sometimes.

Taking Dawn to the gravesite on Christmas Day

I also notice how similar her experience with grief is to my experience with depression: how it comes in waves, how there’s an unexpectedly physical component to it that is hard to describe or explain, how it’s possible to be remarkably high-functioning and carry on normally while feeling dead inside and wondering if you’ll ever feel right again, how there’s a disconnect between what you might be able to intellectually recognize and what you’re feeling (or not feeling) on a more primal emotional level.

Depression and grief are both deeply personal experiences and n=2 is too small a sample size to indulge in generalities. On one hand, they are obviously related, and on the other hand the similarities might just be happenstance. But in a small way we’ve each been able to understand the other just a little better.

I felt like I lost Dawn for a while and had to wait for her to come back. She felt it too, and I reassured her I would be here. I am. Now we’re trying to figure out what life looks like in the aftermath. So much of the structure of our life leaned so hard on Willy’s care for so long that with that gone, we’re stumbling a little bit and trying to catch our stride.

It’s good; we’re not in a crisis. In fact, it’s more the disorientation of not constantly being in crisis. Dawn caught a nasty respiratory virus just after Willy died, and at one point we made a trip to the ER because she couldn’t breathe properly and was basically having a panic attack. The ER visit confirmed that it was just a virus and she wasn’t in any imminent danger (she’s still having trouble with her ear, though, so we’re getting that looked at), so we left the ER and got Pizza Hut. As one does.

Later, she said “I think part of me just feels like somebody needs to be sick, somebody needs some kind of emergency care. There’s a Willy-shaped hole in our lives that looks like crisis and I don’t know what to do without it.” That’s what we’re trying to sort out. Who are we, now that an important identity marker has been taken away? Supertramp gave us perhaps two of the most important questions of the postmodern age: “Where do we go from here?” and “Please tell me who I am.”

[Yes, the latter is technically a request and not, grammatically, a question. Don’t go there.]

We’re all on life support. This is one thing that Willy taught me. His life was different in degree but not kind. We all depend on a constellation of caregivers who come in many forms. Most of us are on some kind of medication (and/or self-medication – let’s be honest). We require medical care and often equipment. We eat, we drink, we carry on to keep on living, if for no other reason than life is so damn interesting. Who knows what happens next?

Let’s find out together.

Love is a package deal