Logan Clare: An Origin Story

You were born in the midst of a May snowstorm, but that’s hardly the most remarkable thing about your birth story. Bringing you into this world took years of planning, hoping, and dreaming. The road to your arrival includes a tragic love story, the emergence and destruction of a superhero, a high tech scientific laboratory, a pandemic, and a myriad of plot twists worthy of a full length feature film (or perhaps even a trilogy).

For years your Father and I talked about having children. We tried, in the way many young couples do, but were somehow unsuccessful in growing our family beyond the two of us (and the menagerie of pets we’d acquired). At one point we were successful in conceiving the child who would have been your older sibling, but they were gone from the portrait we were painting for our future almost as quickly as they had first appeared. While we were still grappling with that loss, life suddenly threw us one of the most cruel and complex curveballs we could ever imagine.

At some point in your life, when you encounter difficulty, someone may say something like – “look, it’s not brain surgery!” While their point may be to belittle the extent of your struggle with a flippant retort, the remark they are making is rooted in the fact that brain surgery is really freaking hard. And it doesn’t matter if you’re the actual brain surgeon (although yes, their role is exceptionally difficult), the patient, or one of the people who has to sit by and wait to find out how successful the operation was… brain surgery is, indeed, really freaking hard. And your Dad had three of them in under a week’s time.

The first operation was largely successful, as 80% of the tumor invading his brain was ultimately removed. The second, also a success, as the massive hemorrhage created during the first procedure was repaired. And the third, also successful, as the neurosurgeon was able to relieve the swelling that developed in the days following the first two efforts. But as your Dad began to wake up, it was clear he was no longer himself. The series of operations had changed the very fiber of his existence.

Now I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself, but your Dad, who had previously been just a “normal guy” (normal to others, anyways, I always thought he was pretty exceptional), had emerged from brain surgery as an actual, honest-to-goodness superhero. Some of his doctors brushed it off as a drug and surgery driven delusion, but I saw it with my own eyes. No tall buildings were lept in a single bound, but marathons were conquered and, with the drive and determination your Dad displayed, I think he could have taken on a building if that’s what he’d put his mind to.

For 28 months, your Dad fought everything that was thrown at him. He knew that the cancer was unbeatable, but that didn’t stop him from fighting. All the while, we continued to dream about growing our family… we continued to dream about you. As the cancer (along with the medicine he was taking to fight the cancer) threatened to destroy that dream, he did what any good superhero would do. He found a way to outsmart the villain. He called in super friends (in our case a fertility doctor and her team of scientists) so that when the time was right, you could come to be. A lot of parents worry about the day when their child will come to them and ask “where do babies come from?” My only concern about that day is that I won’t be able to accurately explain the science behind the miracle that is you!

Your Dad desperately wanted to meet you (and, maybe he did — you’ll have to tell me when you’re older). Together we imagined the person you would grow up to be. We talked about all of the fun adventures we’d have as a family. Whose eyes you’d have (they’re mine). Whose smile you’d have (it’s his). It breaks my heart to know that you will never have a photo of the two of you together. It hurts that you won’t get to squeeze him or wind your tiny fingers in to his beard and tug at it as you fall asleep in his arms. And I’m sorry that you’ll never get to hear him tell you any of the Dad jokes he’d been practicing for years. While there are so many things he won’t be here to give you, he wanted to make sure that you did have something special that was just from him: Your name.

I didn’t know if we were expecting a daughter or a son until the moment the doctor placed you in my arms. But your Dad had told me two years prior that our daughter would need a good strong name… Logan, just like The Wolverine. I told him that I would need to meet you first to know if the name fit. Not just any little girl can be named Logan, so I had to make sure that was really your name. It’s a superhero’s name after all. And I needed to make sure that you exhibited the same super strength as your Dad.

The world will forever talk about the year 2020 as a year of chaos and struggle. The history books will talk of a pandemic that swept the globe and a wave of civil unrest that swept through our nation. They’ll talk about how the economy collapsed as millions lost jobs. Baseball was shut down until July. Restaurants, theaters and public places were closed and boarded up, and families were forced to distance themselves from one another (also – murder hornets were briefly a thing). But, in the midst of all of this chaos… there was you.

You were born in the middle of a May snowstorm. I delivered you without a partner because your Dad had died, and the threat of a killer virus made it too dangerous to bring in a pinch hitter. I had a broken leg, which contributed to the complexity of your arrival. You were six weeks early and weighed less than 5 pounds. The nurses described you as feisty. There was no denying your super strength from the moment you came screaming into this world. You are a mix of the best parts of both of us. You are strong. You are super. You are Logan.

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I’m Ready to Love Again

I was 23 when I met the man who would become my husband. A few months after we started dating, a close friend of mine asked me if I thought he was “The One.” I had no concept, at the time, of who I wanted to be as an individual person let alone how to work another human being into that equation. I thought about it a bit and I said the only thing that made sense to my still developing, young adult brain… “I don’t know if he’s ‘the one,’ but what I do know is that he is someone I want him to be in my life for a very long time.” Four years later I said “I do” when asked if I would love him for as long as we both shall live, idealistically converting “a very long time” into forever, and thereby declaring him “the one.” But just six years after that I watched him take his last breath, in that moment realizing that we wouldn’t get forever or even “a very long time” (although as a 23 year old I may have considered a decade to be just that), and if he was “the one” his departure meant I could be living without love by my side for an actual “very long time.”

They say that to have loved and lost is better than to have never loved at all. And while I’ve come to believe that may be partially true, the full truth is that losing a love is so cripplingly painful that avoiding it all together often seems like it may have been the better choice to begin with. While you are grateful for the time spent in love and the memories you made, the reality is that each of those memories has become colored by the loss you eventually experienced. An entire epoch of your life now defined by the tragic way it ended.

And these losses are not just limited to experiences with death. Anyone who has been through a difficult breakup knows that feeling of despair as you grapple with the major changes in your life that come with saying goodbye to a relationship. You were two, and now you’re just you, and it’s scary and confusing and just plain hard. Food tastes different. Songs you once loved now make you cry or scream or roll your eyes. And every plan you made for a future together has now been erased and you alone have to discern what comes next.

Likewise, losing love is not limited to just partner loss. My husband was in a sense “the one,” even if he was only the one for an unfairly short time in my life. But I have a mom who is also “the one” and only one of those I’ll get. My sister is the “the one” and only one of those I’ve ever had, and although my dad actually has six sisters I’m sure he’d say they are each individually “the one” in their own unique way. My brother, my father, each of my grandparents, family members and friends have been “the one” version of that individual that I will get in my life. Those that I have already lost have proven themselves irreplaceable, and as I inevitably say goodbye to others through the twists and turns that life brings my way I’ll have to grapple with the devastation that comes from saying goodbye to the love I have shared with each.

The impact of losing my husband instantly made me want to shut out the possibility of any new love from my life. His manner of death made the grief exceptionally hard as for more than a year we were practically joined at the hip as the cancer gradually took away his eyes, his legs, and his ability to form complete sentences. Everywhere we went we walked in lockstep with my left arm around his waist and our right hands clasped together. I could guide him away from something that was not within his field of vision using only gentle touches, a perfectly understood code that we developed seemingly overnight without any conversation or coordination. And without fail I could somehow read his mind and complete his sentences when the words weren’t there for him. The cruelty of the disease required us to become more than just partners. He needed me and I needed him as this supporting spouse role gave me a sense of purpose like I’d never felt before.

I have never experienced any greater love than to be trusted to care for someone in their most vulnerable moments, and yet the agony of getting to that point is something I’d never wish to experience again. How could I possibly let myself get close to someone else knowing that it could lead to this same type of pain? But gradually over the last year the incredible weight of this loss has become bearable. It’s still there. It hasn’t gone away or even lessened. But there are little rays of sunshine poking through the clouds hanging over the decade of life we lived together. I smile when I think about him and my still frequent tears are now, more often than not, ones of joy rather than despair. And in spite of the potential for pain, I’m confident that I’m ready to love again.

Now you may think that what comes next is an announcement that I met someone, and that I’m crazy head over heels in love with them, and that I think they may just be “the one.” And, that’s partially true. I have fallen in love with someone, but I haven’t actually met them yet. If all goes well, I will be meeting them on or around June 10th.

This isn’t how Travis and I imagined welcoming our first child into the world, but nothing about my life for the last 3 or 4 years is in any way how I imagined it would be. We started a pre-chemo family planning process not long after his initial diagnosis in hopes that he would somehow beat a seemingly unbeatable cancer, or at least be here long enough to meet his children. Watching and feeling this child grow over the past five months has been an incredible experience. I can’t wait to meet them and shower them with all of the love that I am so ready to give. I can’t wait to hold them in my arms and tell them that they are truly, and without a shadow of a doubt, The One.

Read my next post for answers to many of the questions you may have after reading this post: https://staringintothesun.home.blog/2020/02/08/all-of-the-questions-you-wanted-to-ask/

She’s not Megan

My dog recently suffered a loss. It was the kind of a loss that I know a little something about. The loss of a partner. The loss of the one you used to “do life” with. The loss of a best friend.

image1 (2) — Megan & Duncan, December 2008

Duncan first met the love of his life in 2008, about an hour after Travis and I adopted him from a shelter in Ohio. Megan, my parent’s black lab/golden retriever/who the hell really knows mix was about three at the time, and just aching for some canine companionship. And Duncan, an abandoned puppy who never knew his mother was in desperate need of some maternal guidance. Their eyes locked, their tails wagged in unison, and in that moment they both discovered exactly what had been missing from their lives. Each other.

While Duncan would go on to spend most of his life in New York, and Megan lived out all 14 of her years as an Ohio resident, the pair spent a significant amount of time together. My parents, who regularly traveled the I-90 corridor en route to visit my sister in the greater Boston area, would drop Megan off for days or sometimes even weeks at a time. She’d settle in to our menagerie with ease, somehow even co-existing peacefully with our cats in spite of her overtly murderous nature. Likewise, when we were scheduled for extensive travel, we’d make arrangements for my parents to care for Duncan. When we’d split them up after a long, or even a short visit both would spend the subsequent days pouting before eventually returning to their individual routines.

When Travis was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 2016 my parent’s asked if there was anything they could do. “Can you come get Duncan?” I asked, knowing that dealing with the impending chaos would be easier without worrying about our dog, and knowing that they’d be at our door step as fast as their Hyundai could carry them. Duncan would remain with them throughout much of the 28 months of Travis’ illness. Even during the periods where Travis enjoyed relatively good health it was nearly impossible to juggle constant medical appointments two hours away and properly care for a dog (especially one as spoiled as Dunc). He missed us, that was apparent each time he visited, but living with Megan was hardly a consolation prize, as he flourished with her by his side.

As the end of Travis’ life neared I let both of my parents know that I was going to need Duncan to help me get through the immediate aftermath of losing my husband. I worried a bit that he wouldn’t come willingly, that he’d spent too much time bonding with Megan (not to mention bonding with my Dad’s running schedule, and my mom’s endless supply of dog snacks) to leave and return to a life with me and the cats. Much to my surprise and delight, he immediately fell into my routine (or lack there of). It may have had something to do with the fact that in those early days after Travis died I walked, a lot. I didn’t know what else to do so I just wandered. I’d grab Duncan’s leash and we’d just go. My step-counting app would read 6 miles, and I’d have no idea how it got there. Duncan was far from reluctant in helping me through this particular manifestation of grief that I was experiencing, he likewise had no trouble assisting me through the long naps that followed the long hikes. We were a good team.

Unfortunately, Megan didn’t fare so well. My parents reported that she didn’t want to take walks or really even leave the house. She was approaching 14 years old and with the large quantity of lumps distributed throughout her entire body she seemed, at that point, to be more cancer than dog. They feared her end was nigh and asked if they could bring her for a visit. Her visit would end up lasting the better part of three months as she suddenly perked up once Duncan was back in her life.

Her vision and hearing seemed to be significantly impaired, which explained her hesitance to take walks without Duncan by her side. He displayed an incredible amount of empathy and patience for his companion as she slowed down. Our six mile days ended as Megan couldn’t quite keep up with that pace. Duncan didn’t seem to mind slowing down for her, adopting her schedule, and giving way to her needs. The dog who regularly stares me down at 6:00am, demanding that we walk now (right now!), was instead patiently waiting for Megan’s aching joints to wake up each morning, as shorter mid-day adventures became our new routine.

I was perfectly equipped to handle this sort of doggy-home-hospice situation, having just been through it with my own human companion. I was working mostly from home making me available to walk Meg whenever she was awake enough to go. I was occupying a house with which Megan was familiar, having spent the majority of her life there. And I was dealing with significant grief that included feeling a lack of purpose having spent the better part of three years providing care for a man who was no longer in need of anything from me.

Each day Megan seemed a bit slower, and a little less capable. But she was eating, drinking, playing and smiling so it seemed best to just let her live her life rather than providing any intervention. And then, on a warm Sunday evening in June, Duncan watched helplessly as the love of his life suddenly lost the ability to stand up on her own. Just hours before they’d hiked a solid two miles and danced in a river together, and now this. He stared at me, his eyes begging me to do something to fix her and make it better, while somehow knowing that there was nothing that could be done. He said goodbye in the same room where they’d first met nearly 11 years prior, and stood by quietly as my dad and I helped her into the back end of my Subaru for her last ride.

Duncan’s grief seemed to manifest itself in much the same way that mine had a few months prior, with a need to wander. We’d find a trail to hike and he’d insist on taking every side trail we encountered until the miles began to rack up. It was 7 miles that first day, 6 the next, we’d hit 8 on Wednesday that week. We’d get home from a walk, he’d nap for a few hours and then begin asking for another walk. How could I say no? Each time my parents visited he looked for Megan hoping she’d get out of their car. Instinctively he knew she wouldn’t be there, but he still looked, just in case.

A few weeks back a dog did emerge from their car. You see, while the options for finding reliable human companionship after you lose your life partner are few and far between (and sometimes creepy and terrifying), there are shelters and rescue organizations that can help you find new four-legged friends pretty quickly. They’re just there, waiting, wagging and wanting your love. And while they can never replace what we’ve lost, they seem to need us as much as we need them.

Ms. Halle Berry, my parent’s recently adopted awkward, gangly, chocolate lab/who the hell really knows mix, immediately locked eyes with Duncan and embraced him as the mentor she’d been waiting her whole short life to meet. Duncan’s greeting was less than enthusiastic, but not entirely unfriendly, and he’s even allowed himself to enjoy her company on occasion during their brief time together. He’s approached his relationship with this new recruit, in a manner similar to most of his other dog encounters. Duncan can be friends with other dogs on Duncan’s terms and when it’s convenient or desirable for Duncan. It’s often confusing for the other dog especially those for whom Duncan assigns the status of “outside friends,” which is exactly what it sounds like. Duncan’s “outside friends” are dogs that he will only play with outside, immediately ignoring and shunning them as soon as they step inside a building.

Halle is a wonderful companion and has started to fill in small pieces of the Megan-sized holes that were left in my parent’s hearts. She seems bound and determined to make Duncan fall in love with her, courting his affections in every way she can think including punching him, dropping toys on his head while he sleeps, chewing on his face, and body slamming him as she runs full force across the yard. Mostly he ignores her, occasionally acquiescing to her advances with something that resembles friendship. Unfortunately for Halle there’s just not much she can do to change Duncan’s opinion of her (although less face biting might help some). In Duncan’s mind there really are only two dogs who have existed in this world aside from himself – Megan, and everyone else. And thus she suffers from the same fatal flaw as every dog he’s ever met. She’s not Megan.

Staring into the Sun – One Month a Widow

I’m ok. Taking it one day at a time. Some days are better than others.

If you’ve spoken to me in the past month you’ve probably heard these responses to your questions about my general health and well being. If you haven’t spoken to me please rest assured that – I’m ok, taking it one day at a time, and that some days are better than others. Also, don’t feel bad if you haven’t spoken to me because I’m not much for talking at the moment – mostly because people keep asking me how I’m doing and I’m sick of saying that I’m ok and taking it one day at a time because some days are better than others.

I’d like it if we could be as blunt with each other as Mike the Verizon guy and I were when I finally had the energy to have my husband’s line disconnected after three weeks of paying for a service that he was decidedly no longer using.

Mike: Will your husband be keeping 
the line and activating service
with us or another company?
Julie: No, he's dead. 
Mike: Ok. Understood.

But, that wouldn’t be polite. Social convention dictates how our conversation should go. You ask me how I’m doing and I respond with one of the aforementioned platitudes that falls somewhere between the oft spoke – I’m good, great or well (there’s no way you’d buy that anyways) – and saying anything that would result in you asking more questions about how I’m actually doing.

The reality is that I’m not really ok. I am taking things slowly but it’s more like one minute at a time, and although some days are indeed better than others, most days during this past month have been pretty terrible. Losing my husband was the most painful, traumatic, horrifically terrifying experience I have ever had, and being forced to rebuild my life from the scraps of what once was, just plain sucks.

With 28 months to prepare for this moment you would think I would have been more prepared, especially since a grade 4 brain cancer diagnosis does not carry with it much hope. Even with the most aggressive course of treatment available we were told to expect no more than another year together, so the fact that he lived for two years and some change was somewhat miraculous. But still, we hoped. We hoped he’d be the odd one for whom all of the treatments worked. We hoped he’d be part of the mere 10% who live 5 years past diagnosis. We hoped he’d be the one who gave others hope spending the rest of his long life inspiring them by standing up and saying “look, I made it and you can too!”

We balanced our hope with reality because we understood that the odds were not in our favor. We talked about dying and funerals, what he would want his legacy to be, and discussed me moving on without him. But we couldn’t linger in those moments for too long. We had to keep hope firmly in our sights while giving only an occasional glance to reality. Staring at reality was like staring into the sun – a blindingly painful reminder of what was to come.

A month after his death and glancing at reality is no longer an option. While hope still exists it has now been banished to the periphery, and exists in a form that no longer matches the life I once knew. Glancing at this new version of hope hurts almost as much as staring at reality. And so I find myself just constantly staring into the sun.

But… I’m ok. Taking it one day at a time. Some days are better than others.