Category Archives: Our Plan B Life

Our Plan B Life

Home for a Rest

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In the months after Brock died, when I was busy packing up our stuff to move to Invermere, I wondered if I was missing my opportunity to grieve. I was worried that I would reach Invermere and settle in here to our new (Plan B) life, and be so busy finding us a house and making friends and re-creating Isaac’s active lifestyle that I would just move on to the post-Brock chapter of our life, without ever properly working through the trauma and sadness of losing him.

Instead, I am relieved to find that the numbness I’ve felt since September 21 is finally thawing.

I think I can finally be sad because I’m no longer trying to put on a brave face for the people around me. In Duncan, I was mourning along with Brock’s friends and family, as well as his childhood teachers, fellow volunteers, once-colleagues, farm customers, etc. I can’t help myself — I’ve always needed to “silver-line” other people’s negative emotions, for some reason (I think I just made up a new verb, but that’s the best word I can think of). And so when someone expressed sympathy for me I would (usually) automatically try to comfort them or downplay my own grief.

Many people here in small-town Invermere know about Brock’s death, and have given me their hugs and condolences, but they didn’t know Brock. I can just be sad and accept their sympathy without feeling the need to comfort them.

I’m also finally in a situation where I don’t have to be strong for Isaac. He happily spends entire days away from me, with my sister and mom. I don’t have to be “on” all the time for him.

I read an essay in The Walrus the other day, written by a man (Paul Adams) who lost his wife to cancer four years after her diagnosis. They’d accepted it was terminal, too. He wrote this articulate bit:

“We all come to cancer with the emotional, psychological, and spiritual resources we have, and we use them up. We use them all up.”

I think my friend Maeve was right: I am exhausted. I gave everything I had these past few years. My head has felt full of cotton for months. I remember being a “high-functioning” (as Ryan would say) person, able to multi-task and tackle errands efficiently. I hope that I will be that clear-headed again someday. But these days I am barely a safe driver. In Invermere I have the excuse of being out-of-practice driving on snow and ice, and usually relinquish the wheel of my car to whomever else I’m traveling with. But it’s not just the big horn sheep and black ice that make me unsafe. I can’t maintain focus. I often awake from little “black out” moments of distraction.

I am learning that grief is like sailing through an ocean of icebergs. It isn’t one single thought or memory that makes me sad. There are dozens of things to grieve. I relive Brock’s last four days, including the moment when he stopped breathing and died. I remember our conversations, how funny and unexpected he could be. I mourn the loss of our farm, and Brock’s energy. I think about the future we wanted and should have had. Brock should be here teaching Isaac to skate and ski. Brock should be binge-watching season 2 of The Crown with me until 1am.

It’s bizarre that I’m finally able to be sad here, when otherwise I feel so at home, and happy to be back in the East Kootenays.

There is a bereavement support group in Invermere and I’ve signed up for the next session, which should start at the end of January. A family friend, who lost his wife this year, is halfway through the last session and he says there is a workbook. I love that there’s a workbook. Because it’s work, and because we humans are all so essentially the same, and because a workbook has a start and an end, with steps to follow, and that seems healthier than just sitting around with other grieving people, talking about how sad we are, with no path forward.

A 2053 Perspective

A mental exercise that intrigues me these days … I wonder how Isaac will tell the story of his life when he’s an adult. Say, 40 years old. “My dad died of cancer, and then we moved to Invermere, and my mom …”

What did I do next? Did I make good choices? Were we financially okay? Did we stay cuddle-close or drift apart as he approached his teen years? Was I a good role model and support to Isaac for dealing with his dad’s death? What will he remember, and what will scar him?

It’s mind-bending to see our present reality through that big-picture lens. It’s weird to be the “widowed, single mom” in someone else’s life story.

Our Plan B Life, Terminal Cancer, Day by Day

Choosing a Future

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Earlier this year, at my request, Brock helped me plan out my and Isaac’s post-Brock future.

When I first brought up the subject, he resisted, because he always thought the dead should have no say in what the living do. The only instructions/exceptions he’d offered around his death were that he wanted to donate his eyes (and his organs, until cancer disqualified him), and give his body to UBC’s medical program, and that he didn’t want any religion at his funeral. Also, he asked that the food served at the memorial reception not be too good, after I’d said we could hire a chef friend to cater it, because Brock didn’t want to miss out on a gourmet feast.

Anyhoo.

It wasn’t that I wanted to think about a post-Brock future. Every time my brain veered out of happy denial and started to grasp that Brock would die, I would lose it emotionally.

But I also suspected that, if I didn’t have something positive to look forward to post-Brock, I would be stuck in a blackhole of grief.

Also, Stoic philosophy advises imagining worst case scenarios briefly, both because it helps prepare you for that potential and because it then makes you more appreciative of your present.

So one day I gave myself 30 minutes to imagine a future without Brock. It was very hard to do, because (obviously) I didn’t want that future.

I made a list of what made me happy, and what I wanted my future self to be doing. I wanted:

  • more outdoor physical activity for me and Isaac, like hiking and snowboarding/skiing.
  • to travel, specifically in the form of long walks (like Hadrian’s Wall and the Camino de Santiago, Newfoundland’s T’Railway and PEI’s Confederation Trail). I would need some reliable child care to be able to do these trips without Isaac, until he was old enough to come with me.
  • more crafts (I was jealous of my Mom’s crafty get-togethers, especially around the holidays).
  • to get to know my sister Evy better. We haven’t lived in the same town since 1999, and I suspected I’d like adult-Evy a lot.
  • to spend more time with my parents, doing crafts with Mom and outdoor activities with my Dad.

I made my list, and got excited. I liked this future. But … most of these goals meant moving back to my hometown of Invermere, in the East Kootenays of British Columbia. That was a Major Life Decision, and it felt wrong to make a Major Life Decision without Brock’s input.

So Brock and I discussed my post-Brock life. He liked the idea of Isaac growing up in an athletic, physically active community like Invermere. (This is a town that has “snow days,” when people aren’t expected to go to work because it’s understood that everyone will be at the ski hill.) Brock had no problem with the idea of our moving: he pointed out that we’d moved to Duncan to farm, and the farm was no longer a factor. We’d often talked about moving to California, or Chicago, or “franchising” our farm model across Canada and moving around to start up farming operations.

Once we had a plan, I was able to relax and enjoy our day-to-day moments together. I think Brock liked knowing we had a plan too. In his final month, he spent a lot of time studying money management strategies so that we would have a financial plan in place as well. He offered everything as “it’s up to you, but here’s one option …”

Brock died September 20, a week after Isaac began his second year of preschool.

The usual advice in grief books is not to make any Major Life Decisions for a year after a spouse dies. Because Brock and I had already made our plan, together, the only decision I had to make was when we would implement it. I decided to delay our move until December: Isaac will be able to finish his next two rounds of swimming lessons, and can end his martial arts, gymnastics and preschool at the Christmas break. I want to keep Isaac’s lifestyle status quo for a bit longer: losing his dad is enough trauma.

When I tell people about our moving, some have been disconcerted. I don’t think it occurred to them that Brock’s death would mean me and Isaac relocating. It’s a second loss, after suffering the terrible first loss of Brock to cancer. And it’s an intentional loss: I’m choosing to leave our community, whereas no one chose for Brock to die.

But I think our moving just emphasizes how devastating it is to me and Isaac to lose Brock. Isaac lost his daddy. Instead of growing old beside the man I love, I’m a widow at the ridiculously young age of 37. The future Brock and I wanted and worked toward has been annihilated.

Isaac and I can’t have the future we wanted, but we have a very nice Plan B ahead of us. I’m grateful it’s a Plan B I was able to make with Brock.