Hello Friends and Family!

As we head into 2024, I want to thank all of you for your support since Jeff's death. I wish I was able to reach out to every one of you personally, but I'm still not there yet. Please know that all of your gifts, cards, text messages, and hugs have been gratefully received! In lieu of more personal holiday cards, I thought I'd provide a quick update on how Miles and I are doing. 

Miles is an amazing young man. He finished high school with honors and started college at Central Washington University in September. He just finished his fall quarter and is eager to return for winter quarter. Ellensburg has provided him with a small community where he feels a sense of belonging, thank goodness. He is looking at a dual major in secondary education and history. He also found a grief group on campus that gives him some peer support (he did this on his own, I might add). While I'm sure there will be grief bumps in the road ahead, he is continuing to carve out a life for himself and is enjoying living away from home. Yay!

I spent the spring trying to grasp what medically happened to Jeff. With his diagnosis last January being late stage and terminal, there wasn't a lot of medical communication about what to expect and what was going on inside his body. For better or worse, I have always needed the medical explanations regarding his health to aid in my emotional recovery. While Jeff had coronary artery issues leading to 3 heart attacks over the last 10 years, Jeff never liked to hear the medical details so I was the information gatherer. This time, everything moved too fast for me to keep up. After his death, I was finally given access to his medical records and nursing notes. The speed of his demise was due to the secondary cancer in his peritoneum (peritoneal carcinomatosis). He also had metastatic lesions to his liver and possibly his lungs. Given the late-stage pancreatic cancer diagnosis and his very brief care at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, further testing was not done.

Miles and I spent the summer in family therapy (once again at Miles's request). Miles's emotional intelligence amazes me! We also used the time to get him ready for college and pull ourselves together a bit. I'm happy to say that the therapy and Miles's time away from home has helped us settle into an easier relationship. We both have big tempers (in a small house) and had to learn how to communicate without Jeff, our mediator. 

After spending the fall getting used to being alone at home with the dog and some intensive individual therapy, I am getting used to my new life where everything is "a girl job." Home repair continues to be my nemesis, but I'm learning and also relying on a great landscape crew my sister hooked me up with. I've always needed a good challenge, so this alone is keeping me on my toes. I am also trying to get up to speed on the California almond and pistachio business Jeff had shares in. I am grateful those shares are transferring to me until Miles is a bit older. The business is feast or famine, and we're in the famine portion now with an incredible tax burden that he is too young to handle. My mantra has become "I can do hard things... alone." 

Finally, I have kept the promise I made to myself to not seek employment for the year following Jeff's death. This is the longest I've been unemployed since I was 16, and it is quite isolating. I have always worked hard but was afraid to bury my grief with work. While I do not expect the grief to disappear, I needed the boulder in my stomach to ease up before continuing this journey called life. I will spend the next few months in a small local grief workshop that seems like a fitting end to this first year. Oddly enough, it starts mid January and ends the day before the one-year anniversary of Jeff's death, shadowing the timeline of Jeff's last few months. It is a fitting end to this first year post Jeff.

This should wrap up Jeff's CaringBridge journal. I hope to spend the next few years finding meaningful part-time employment, spreading Jeff's ashes in special places, bathing in happy memories, watching Miles find his way, and surrounded by my cherished friends and family. I hope you feel the love I'm reaching out to you with. I wouldn't be standing upright without it.

Love,

Michelle