You know how in the opening scene of Forrest Gump, there is that white feather that floats over town, pausing and then picking up again on a wind (the one that eventually lands on Forrest’s shoe that he tucks in his book)? Inexplicably, I feel like that lately.
I have occasionally felt this lightness in hard times with Sam over the past two years. I feel that when things get so hard, all of my mass and foundation and roots disintegrate, and all that’s left of me is a feather or piece of tissue paper where one gust of wind could come and wisp me away. Not even a big gust, just any wind. I feel like if someone were to look just a little more deeply into my eyes or hold onto a hug a few seconds too long, it could somehow make me disappear. As I type, I can tell this makes zero sense. Luckily, I now have the opening score of Forrest Gump stuck in my head, so I hope that is a benefit of this analogy for you as well. Anyway. The past two weeks have been very hard. Scratch anytime I’ve said that before, because this is the real deal. In between hoisting Sam from the bed to the wheelchair to the couch (thank god he’s small) to the 10,000 other tasks related to caretaking that are trying, tedious, and kinda gross, you’d think I’d pick a metaphor for myself more like a bull or Wonder Woman or something (super modest, I know). But no, if I’m being honest, it’s a feather. How disappointing. I don’t think the stuff that keeps me busy is what’s hard. Tiring yes, but I can deal with tiring. Doing laundry for the 800th time in a week because of narcotics-induced incontinence isn’t hard. Making another apple pie at the end of a long, full day because it’s the only thing Sam eats reliably (YOLO) isn’t hard. Putting socks on his feet isn’t hard. And so on. Wondering if Sam will ever re-emerge from this sleepy narcotics-induced haze he’s in from his accident is hard. I don’t even care if we hike or bike again like we wanted to when we came up here. All I care about is that we can lay in bed under the covers and talk together. Maybe even laugh at something funny, just a little teeny bit. Wondering if those things will ever happen again is freaking HARD. Worse, when Sam accidentally knocks over the contents of his urinal onto the floor of our room again and I have to clean it up in the middle of the night: cleaning it up isn’t hard, but the fact that my stressed reaction to having to clean it up likely correlates to his will to live is HARD. The fact that if he perceives that taking care of him seems too hard on me, then maybe he will think life’s no longer worth living. That shit is hard. Maybe that disappearing feeling I mentioned is the outcome of equally genuinely wanting and desperately not wanting to do something with every fiber of your being at the same time. But I think we’re making it work. Sam’s getting by, and we are taking things day by day. We’re tweaking his pain meds, trying to find the balance between in pain and him being in an overly medicated, but pain-free stupor. Some hours of the day are alright, a few minutes are enjoyable, and the rest are pretty tough. Sometimes I feel like I’m mostly going through the motions. And on the hardest days, I’m floating through them in a wind while looking for meaning, connection, and learning to be OK with trying again tomorrow. At least we still have each other, even if mostly in presence alone. And when I don’t really have Sam due to the haze of narcotics, at least we have apple pie. *Note: I wrote this a few days ago, but didn't want to publish it because it is so hard to admit to struggling at something I'm technically capable of doing, especially when being given all the support in the world to do it. This week reached a breaking point when I threw my back out and realized that doing all of the physical tasks to take care of Sam were actually taking away from my ability to be emotionally present for him, which is way more important. Somehow, simultaneously, the scheduling and insurance approvals for home care were confirmed, and now all of a sudden we have a team consisting of two RNs, a social worker, a physical therapist, a non-medical home aid, an occupational therapist, and two probate lawyers coming to our house and tackling the many tasks I was trying to tackle alone. (Or tackle when it's not feasible or realistic to call someone over to help.) Over the past 24 hours they each looked at me and said some version of, "be the wife." It was the most freeing thing I've ever heard. They also recently began a new pain regimen for Sam that (fingers crossed) seems to have things looking up after two weeks of misery. ### *Note: I wrote this a few days ago, but didn't want to publish it because it is so hard to admit to struggling at something I'm technically capable of doing, especially when being given all the support in the world to do it. This week reached a breaking point when I threw my back out and realized that doing all of the physical tasks to take care of Sam were actually taking away from my ability to be emotionally present for him, which is way more important. Somehow, simultaneously, the scheduling and insurance approvals for home care were confirmed, and now all of a sudden we have a team consisting of two RNs, a social worker, a physical therapist, a non-medical home aid, an occupational therapist, and two probate lawyers coming to our house and tackling the many tasks I was trying to tackle alone. (Or tackle when it's not feasible or realistic to call someone over to help.) Over the past 24 hours they each looked at me and said some version of, "be the wife." It was the most freeing thing I've ever heard. They also recently began a new pain regimen for Sam that (fingers crossed) seems to have things looking up after two weeks of misery. Yesterday morning, Sam’s dad drove Birkie, Sam and I to O’hare at 3:45 a.m. from Madison to catch our early flight to Anchorage. The travels went smoothly, and we arrived to a beautiful, sunny morning in Alaska with some good friends there to pick us up, toss Birkie’s massive kennel in their truck and take us home. (HOME! Woooooo!) When we walked into our apartment, our friends had cleaned, stocked our fridge, bought dog food (and a dog food “vault” so Birkie doesn’t decide to eat it all at once again!) and decorated. There were all kinds of pictures with stories and letters. We were blown away. It was the best way to come home after being gone for so long. We’d have been happy walking in anyway, but that made it ten times sweeter.
We unpacked for a while, and then decided we needed to go enjoy the day. Sam grabbed his backcountry touring skis and I put on winter trail running shoes, knowing that I could probably walk at the same rate as his ski-shuffle. The trailhead at Glen Alps was so bright and sunny with bluebird skies – we watched two paragliders coming down off flattop with some kids who were in the parking lot, and then headed out. We made it about 50 yards down the trail when Sam hit a patch of ice and went down – hard. He made the worst noise in the world when he landed. I unstrapped his poles and skis from his boots and tried to help him up, but it was clear he was in a lot of pain. Together we got him standing, but walking simply wasn’t going to happen. He’s thrown his back out a number of times and his body is simply beat up from months and months of treatment and very little recovery. As we were figuring this out and trying to make a plan, a person came down the trail, who we learned was a pediatrician named John. We told him that Sam has leukemia and a thrown out back, and had just wiped out. He was writhing in pain, so John solicited the help of a couple other passersby to carry Sam off the trail and get him into our car. His leg was bleeding a lot, but the two bags of platelets they gave him back in Wisconsin for flying did their job, and his wound started clotting. I took him to the ER to get everything checked out just in case. They cleaned up the wound, gave him more platelets and took some x-rays. Unfortunately, the x-rays showed that part of his pelvis is fractured, explaining the pain. It took them a long time to get the pain under control last night - it was a very long night overall. We had to get over our disappointment of not being able to sleep in our own bed, which we’d been looking forward to, and try not to think about how this complicates Sam enjoying his time here going forward. We spent most of the night in the ER and eventually moved to a hospital room. I don’t think I have ever been as tired in my life as I was last night siting in that plastic ER chair. It was after midnight Alaska time, so 3 a.m. Wisconsin time, before he was assigned a room – I’d been awake for nearly 24 hours, but had barely slept the night before or on the plane. When we got to our hospital room, I passed out on another familiar cot, and luckily Sam slept too in his drug induced haze. This morning we are still here at the hospital waiting to hear the plan for how they’ll get the pain under control to get him home, whether he’ll need any operation, how long until he can bear weight on his hip, etc. I’m trying not to think of what he can’t do, and trying to focus on the fact that we’re finally back in Alaska together. When I get down about all this, Sam reminds me that things are ok. He’s amazing. In addition to Sam’s incredible ability to take it all in stride, I think about how we’re just a few miles from home now – closer than we’ve been in six months. I smile knowing two friends have Birkie and she’s probably happily cuddling with them on the couch. I’m filled with gratitude that our Anchorage friends are coordinating on going over to our house to clear a path in the ice for a wheelchair to get to the front door. I’m tired of needing so much taking care of, but so grateful that we have the help we need. It’s amazing. It sucks that this happened on our first day back, but it’s wonderful that yesterday, Sam got to do his favorite thing – ski in the mountains. A few months ago we worried he’d never get to, so I guess a few minutes is better than nothing. Anything else that tries to get us down can bring it, because I'm feeling feisty. Here’s to making the best of whatever comes next. Like a river, we all drift on time. With a current too forceful to fight, time carries us through life, our surroundings ever-changing. The oars can get us from one side of the river or the other, but there’s no going back upstream. How and who we choose to spend time with defines who we are as people and colorfully fills in the lines called life. Time is our most precious currency, and when I say “spend” time I mean it literally. Just like money, there is always an opportunity cost, a choice, for how we choose to allocate our time. I am so lucky to have so many amazing people in my life who have chosen to spend their time with me. So many, in fact, that I struggle with how to allocate my limited time and waning energy to show the people in my life what they mean to me. I ponder why so many people are given no time to say goodbye and then some, like me, are given so much time to say goodbye. Despite this blessing, I have realized I’ll never be able to see and show all of those I love how much they mean to me. So, if you’re wondering, yes, I do love you, and I’m so sorry I haven’t had the time or energy to reply to that text, email or phone call. I am also fortunate to have worked in jobs that brought so much value and allowed me to spend my time fighting for things I believe in (and having one hell of a time while doing it). Four years ago a good friend approached me and told me about a river in Alaska (the Chuitna) where a coal company proposed to strip mine through 14 miles of salmon stream 300 feet deep to send coal overseas. He needed someone to do communications for that campaign and a few others. Jenny and I struggled with the choice. Alaska holds our nation’s last untouched wilderness; it’s the last place where you can stand in rivers filled with wild salmon, it’s one of the only places in the world you can catch a 30 inch rainbow trout whose ancestors swam in that same river millennia ago. It’s one of the few wilderness areas in the world we can protect before we ruin it and have to restore it. Should we move to Alaska, leaving behind family, friends, colleagues and a state that we love? It wasn’t an easy decision, but ever since my Mum was diagnosed and successfully fought cancer, my motto has been “life’s too short” and I’ve always tried to make decisions based off of whether I would regret them on my death bed. Together, Jenny and I decided that even if things went terribly wrong, we would always wonder if we should have gone to Alaska if we didn’t do it. We packed up our bags and headed North. Behind choosing to tell Jenny how I really felt about her (another story for another time) this turned out to be the best decision of my life. For the last four years I have poured my heart and soul into the fight to save the Chuitna River, a small river off the road system that you can only fly into. I have been humbled and honored to have the local residents let me into their world, open their doors, feed me their food, and show me unequaled hospitality. Like so many environmental campaigns I have fought, it was the people, not the river itself, that drove me to work long into the night, spend countless hours on conference calls, take red eye flights to DC, and manically pace around the office coming up with crazy plans and distracting my co-workers.
While an innate stubbornness keeps me from my deathbed for now, I can assure you that I have never, nor will ever, regret a second I spent fighting for the people whose life depends on that river. However, I must admit that I had a rather significant emotional breakdown last week realizing I would never see the campaign to its conclusion. Just like not having the time to see all of the people I love in this life, I realized I would leave this world not knowing if the sliver of contribution I made in the fight to save the Chuitna would come to a successful end. The news came early this week in text message with a one-sentence document attached: “The partners at PacRim Coal, LP have decided to suspend permitting efforts on the Chuitna Coal Project.” Wait, is this an April Fools Joke? This can’t be real. After more than a decade, could we really have won? Was PacRim Coal really backing down? It took hours to set in. Once it did I cried tears of joy thinking about President Al Goozmer and the Native Village of Tyonek who have lived off the fish and game the river provides for generations, and whose culture is synonymous with the river. I thought about my adopted Alaskan Grandparents, Judy and Larry, who spent the last decade fighting to save the river where they taught their grandchildren to fish. Thinking about my good friend Terry, and the days we’d spend drinking coffee and chatting on the beach looking over Cook Inlet and the Kenai Mountains as we waited for fish to hit his net. About all of the nights Ronnie made me laugh until my stomach hurt while his wife Bobbi shook her head quietly at his side. I cried thinking about how, at least for now, the Chuitna and places like it will provide people like me the chance to revert to childhood. To splash around in a stream full of fish, to throw rocks at other rocks for hours, and to get away from the offices, infrastructure, and screens that make us all take ourselves too seriously I cried tears of sorrow, wishing I could be with all of the people I worked alongside who had dedicated so much of their time, so much of their life, to protecting this place. I reminisced about all of the amazing memories -- the moonlit, starry night a fox joined us on the log as we ate dinner at the mouth of the river. All of the days getting trapped upriver by tides only to come back to camp dehydrated, exhausted and happy. All of the nights spent at Judy and Larry’s homestead sitting around the table eating smoked salmon dip on Chicken-in-a-biscuit crackers and bullshitting for hours. All of the mornings spent in the office eating breakfast burritos, throwing darts and cracking jokes as we schemed and dreamed of ways we could protect that river. Time moves slower at the Chuitna River, it is dependent on tides, weather and bush plane pilots. It is a spiritual place where I never failed to find peace. It is a place I will die happy knowing I did something, however small, to protect. When this stubborn old body reaches the mouth of the river of time, I want my family and friends to divide my ashes, take me on adventures and set me free in places I loved in life or places I never got to see but would love. I figure why should the adventure end with life? And when you do, I hope someone will spread some of my ashes in the Chuitna River. And when you do, don’t forget to bring a fishing rod, a snack, some extra water, and a good friend, but feel free to leave your watch behind. ### Tick Tock, Tick Tock Goes the clock In the stillness of the night. My heart beats faster And I wonder “am I spending These precious seconds right?” Like the waning snowbanks In the spring sunshine I know My time here is not long. Does the ice on the lake Contemplate its end? Does it know that come winter It will be back once again? With the hushed breath Of a blonde beauty in my bed And the soft whimpers of dog Dreams below, these questions Fade and peace begins to flow. |
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