As 2023 begins, I feel a desire to have closure for this Caring Bridge page.  So I have a final medical and emotional update on Bob’s cancer journey and my own healing journey.  

I followed up with Bob’s nurse, Matthew Lindsey, on the outcomes of the clinical trial Bob participated in after the tumor recurred (he entered the trial in December of 2019).  Matt told me the trial showed the drug, TG02, was found to be safe to take, and that   The FDA granted  orphan drug designation of TG02 (now called Zotiraciclib).   This will make it easier for the manufacturer to continue testing, and a phase II trial is in the works.  He also send me the paper about the trial and I learned that of the 50 people enrolled in the trial, just 7 were still alive in July 2020, which is when Bob entered hospice.  He was the last enrollee, so that’s not surprising, but it helps to understand the loss other families were experiencing in parallel to our own.  It is also gratifying to know we made a contribution to the (seemingly always modest) progress of brain tumor research.

We are looking forward to another NBTS Race for Hope, in May of 2023 (look for the Bloomfield Tumor Tamers page), and Bob’s nephew Pat and I are also planning to participate in a bicycle Race for Hope to raise brain tumor research funds.  Please email me if you’d like to know more about that.

Early December marked that two years had passed since Bob’s death.  I didn’t know it at the time, but I was in the midst of another round of letting go.  Starting in early November, I grieved hard, aware of the ocean of sorrow that seemed bottomless and endless.  I also picked up Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking,” which I had put down as too painful to read some months earlier.    I found the final chapters of the book describe the experience of grief so accurately – how the “unending absence” upends our previous belief that the earliest days will be the hardest. 

She also talks about the painful process of relinquishing the dead: “Let them become the photograph on the table.”  This has been an especially painful part of the process for me over the last two years.  Yet my round of grief started to resolve in mid-December, at the meditative Vespers service where I have often felt Bob’s spirit.  This time I instead felt the presence of my many friends in the room that night.  I was able to turn away from the unending absence, and take comfort in the present moment.  

I stayed over regularly at what is now Casey’s House through the summer, a handy way to reach Maryland ride starts while leaving Axle in the company of my nephew Michael.  We also cooked a family Thanksgiving this year, gathering for the first time in several years at the table Bob built.

The Caring Bridge staff helped me download a pdf of this site – it ran more than 600 pages, with all of your supportive comments.  Maybe there is a book in there, I’m waiting to see what moves me, and I have the piles of Bob’s poems and notes.  While I will stop updating this site, I will continue to occasionally add photos or remembrances or finished poems to Bob’s Forever Missed memorial page, most likely around his birthday in May or the anniversary of his death; your memories are also always welcome there – knowing other people miss him too is really helpful.  You can sign up for notifications at that site as well.

I have great gratitude for this site and all the support you have provided.  May we all have a peaceful and loving 2023.

Barbara