the widows and the letter

I've hit some rough patches since Dave headed home.  Not all bad 24/7, but getting back into adjusting to life without E (without the major distractions of my brother's visit) hit me pretty hard at times.  Staying busy seems to be the way to persevere at this point and I need to force myself to do so....even if I'm just going through the motions.  I allowed myself a couple days of slugging on the couch but I was back at it the past couple days.  (Good thing too because the downtime illustrated my need to be careful with that).  Once I got off my butt, I played music with some friends, spent a ton of time productively plinking around on my own music, met a friend for coffee, had dinner with friends, lunch at Pixar with friends, and today Red and I went on a fairly long hike out at the coast.

Red comes in for a landing.

In a strange bit of happenstance, I'm fortunate to have some dear women in my life who have, tragically, lost their loved ones.  (That's a weird sentence but I hope you get my meaning).  It's been invaluable hearing their perspective on what I'm going through, what they went through, and how they kept moving forward.  Simply knowing that they know what it's like is incredibly comforting and helpful.  It seems so odd to acknowledge that in some respects things are going my way...to already have such a great support system...wow.  Anyway, one universal note from these dear ones is to stay busy.  So that's what I do.

Except when I don't.....like the other day, back during the recent slugfest:  I was having a particularly rough evening, just lost, puttering around the house with about 10 projects started but then abandoned.  (I've been having bad sleeping patterns after getting closer to normal while Dave was out here.  I stay up way too late, get up stupid early, and then fall asleep promptly whenever I sit down during the day.).  Anyway, I started clicking through our photos again when I realized that I hadn't touched Eileen's laptop computer since before she passed away.  It was a great score- I fired it up and found several photos that I had forgotten about, since they never got copied over to our main library.  It was so awesome to find more precious imagery, more memories documented.  Treasure.

As I looked around further, I found a letter that she left for me.  I don't know how I missed it before since we both used that laptop (although it was mainly hers).  I guess I was never in "investigative mode" and probably only focused on my own task at hand.  She knew I'd come across the letter eventually.  It's short...clear and succinct...classic E.  It wrecked me.  Hard to discover, hard to read, but incredible.  Eileen was incredible.

The file was created back in February...I guess that's when she could tell shit was bad and wrote me the letter.  It made me think about how much Eileen understood her situation even as I was barely comprehending, still thinking and hoping that things could/would go our way.  Heavy.  As close as we were, I never figured out how she was able to keep keeping on...how she kept such a great attitude.  Her pragmatism had so much to do with it- she wouldn't focus on things that weren't productive or able to be changed.  (Sometimes I wonder if she was part Vulcan).  Again, just incredible.

I'm proud to say that I finally did some cooking at home recently.  Last night I sauteed some whole wheat pasta with leeks, garlic and oil, some broiled brussels sprouts, broccoli and a few peas.  It was delish and I know Eileen would have approved.  She thought it was a crime that I only discovered my love for brussels sprouts (broiled only please) a couple years ago, at her urging.  I think it's a crime too...I can't get enough of 'em!   Speaking of food, I finally cleared out the garden. In the process I found that Eileen had planted carrots too, along with tomatoes, green beans, and cukes.  All the other crops were pretty far gone by now, but the carrots were a nice find....I didn't even realize they were there, hiding under the towering basil plants.

Before I send this post on its way, I wanted to mention:  Thank you again to everyone who has donated to UCSF in Eileen's memory.  I get a notice in the mail (without dollar amounts, btw) every time a donation is made and I've got quite a stack of those notices now.  It's a nice reminder of how many lives she touched, and I love knowing that the money is going to be used to directly fuck cancer.