Hec, I’m so sorry that you didn’t have more time together in your beautiful home.

It's all so heartbreaking.

But that's not how I feel. I will take every painful moment of 2023 because it's the last year I had with Jacqueline. She won't be in any of 2024 or any year after that.

I understand that. You knew you had to treasure each moment you had to hold in your heart forever.

You knew you had to treasure each moment you had to hold in your heart forever.

I have a lot of fond memories of our trips down to LA. They were arduous and stressful, but we also managed to walk over to the WeHo dog park, and the Friends of the Library almost every time. And we started doing Fancy Brunch down there when she felt up to it. The French bakery with their lovely raspberry croissants.

Today's the anniversary of the day we stepped off our Healthy and Prosperous timeline, and went sideways into the Multiverse and found The Darkest Timeline.

A year ago today I took her to the ER with acute abdominal pain. I still can't believe how hard it was for us to even get out of the waiting room at the ER to get a CT scan (requiring an intervention from her Division Chief boss).

Or that she spent three nights in the ER hallway on a gurney under fluorescent lights surrounded by Fentanyl overdose cases.

Such a brightly lit nightmare.

I still remember the exact expressions of the two doctors who saw her CT scans and told us the news. Their faces were so grave and conveyed more than their words. In short: "You're fucked."

And the faces of Emmett and Matilda the next day when I told them the news. The shock and tears as they absorbed what I was saying.

Matilda later told me that they had speculated that Jacqueline might be pregnant. They weren't ready for the worst news. But who is.

I guess the other thing that's hard to articulate as a positive is that last year was an important part of our marriage. That we spent so much time together on her treatment and traveling together. Long conversations. Tending to her.

It deepened our relationship. Trust and tenderness and working together through hardest trials.

Over a 20 year marriage you will have your ups and downs, but there were no doubts about who we were to each other in 2023.

There were two or three times when we were at the Sofitel Hotel in Beverly Hills, after I'd scrambled to handle one hurdle or crisis when she'd say: "I love you so much."

And I knew she was telling me she was grateful for me handling the bullshit.

But when I think about it now there was another layer there. Of just speaking to that deepening bond that we were feeling in the midst of her cancer care.

When we'd gone through hard, stressful times in earlier years and were having a fight she'd invariably say, "I don't even know why you married me!"

When she was at home during hospice, after she was past most talking but still present I would go in to the bedroom to see her, relieving whomever was on duty.

I'd lean down to kiss her and I'd say, "I love you so much."

And she would sweetly lift her face up to be kissed, completely certain of our love and bond and commitment. She knew why I had married her.

I can appreciate that.

It's all so heartbreaking.

Suela, I am so sorry. How sad.

That's lovely, Hec. I'm so, I don't know, something, that you can see and articulate all those things

Matilda wrote about Jacqueline yesterday too.

She was inspired, in part, by talking to a fellow student at her school who had lost his father earlier this year and whose mother was going into surgery.

She posted this on Instagram:

today is one year since my moms diagnosis. it feels like a time check to remind me how little time we had with her or as i’ve been calling it “the beginning to the end”. this year has been filled with so much heartbreak, loss, reconnection, grief and growth. i am eternally grateful to the loved ones who stepped up to support my family and i during this unprecedented year, even if they are no longer a constant in our lives. truly, i will never be able to fully show my gratitude. 

I know i always talk about my mammas external beauty, but on the inside is where her insurmountable beauty shown through most. i will never meet someone with such intense wit, humor, kindness and love. she was the most caring, supportive, and wonderful woman that i was lucky enough to call my mom. 

I feel so lucky to the point that i can’t even begin to have the vocabulary to articulate it. she was extremely adept in the arts and had such a wildly vast and creative mind. not to mention, her fiery determination to do anything in her power to make a change in the world when it came to something she was passionate about. the life lessons and tools she unknowingly taught me are the things i will randomly notice and treasure for the rest of my life. 

if you know how this loss feels, you must know that i cannot romanticize the ineffable emptiness that you feel when you lose a parent. i am not going to say you are “so strong” for making it this far because we already knew that. i want to say that it’s okay to be “weak”, you don’t need to isolate yourself to be “strong”, letting your emotions flow is the bravest thing to do for yourself. 

just please understand, that no one can dictate how long it “should” take you to pick yourself back up. grief of a loved one is completely not linear and at times feels incomprehensible. it’s okay to smile and laugh and i promise it’s okay to not know how to feel. just try your best to take things day by day, every breath you take is a step in the right direction. regardless of where you are in your journey, if the holidays feel like they are looming over you, please know that you are not alone, just making it to them is a feat in and of itself.

Oh, Matilda. She is wise like mamma.