And Then One Day You Find Ten Years Have Got Behind You

Entry 1 

Goals, Planning, And Dark At The End Of The Tunnel

When I was in my mid-20s, I lived a mile or so away from my friend Shaun, who was 21. We met when I was a counselor at Camp Waskowitz MDA camp and he a camper.  MD stands for muscular dystrophy. Shaun had Duchenne's, a particularly virulent genetic disorder that kills all the muscles in your body, slowly, starting generally around the age of 2. 99.9999 percent of people with Duchenne's don't make 20.  I could go into the science of the disease, but suffice it to say, it is a fucker.

Time Flies

Anyway, one day, Shaun calls me up and asks me to come over.  He said he needed to talk to me. We were friends, not close friends, but bonded after spending more than a decade together with others at camp.  I hopped in my truck and headed over.  When I got there, his parents were gone, or just leaving. I don't remember. Given that he couldn't move any part of his body save his fingers and his head, they must have been there when I arrived.  Nevertheless, only Shaun and I were present when we had the talk.  

Shaun told me that he was going to die soon.  I told him not to be ridiculous.  He wasn't sick, outside his muscular dystrophy.  He ignored me.  He didn't argue. With a faraway look in his eyes, he began listing people from camp he wanted me to call that day to thank for being his friend. I listened, thinking this was just some weird depression, and agreed to do as he asked.  I spent a couple hours with him until his parents returned, and left.  I went home and didn't make the calls.

Three hours later, Shaun's mom calls me to tell me he is dead. His heart had given out. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I could barely speak. How did he know?  After getting the news, I picked up the phone and started calling  the people he had asked me to reach out to, as I had promised.

Entry 2

Life Is What Happens When You're Busy Making Other Plans

So, all of our plans are awry.  We can't even make tentative plans.  The end is rushing at us like the sidewalk rushes a man who jumps from the Empire State Building, too fast to contemplate. There will be a hard stop at some point, for all of us.  

Jenny wants to die in a home she owns.  For some time I have been opposed, for obvious and well enumerated reasons. I have now relented, for reasons both complex and personal.  One great thing about looking for houses, it provides Jenny with hope for a future.  It has buoyed her spirits, as much as they can be buoyed when saddled with this scourge.  Its a hard row to hoe.  I have filled our nights with searching for homes.  I took care of all of the financing, finding a realtor, submitting the documents. But we are racing against time in a bubbly market. Every day, in every way, we are nearing a finishing line.  But, unlike Shaun, we don't know when that will be.  Actuarial tables and actual statistics don't help the individual.  It's a mystery.  

Hope is a hard thing to maintain. These days Jenny's pain is escalating so much that managing the pain with opiates is harder and harder.  Depression is constant.  "I don't want to die," the mantra she begins when she wakes, and repeats as she is laying in bed to go to sleep.  She has shifted from saying to me during the day that "I am going to beat this," to alternating between, "I have got to beat this, Geoff," and "I am going to die."  

Despite everything, I wish I could trade with her.  I hate watching the person I love suffer all of the indignities of illness.  And the future portends ever worsening illness.

She is brave. She has begun to go bald in public.  I swell with pride at her fortitude, despite everything, this is the Jenny I fell in love with so long ago.  She rocks the bald look despite feeling self-conscious, despite the reaction of realtors, shoppers, dog walkers and baristas. 

She is also scared shitless, as am I.  But we soldier on.  As I lay on the sectional trying to sleep in the night, I realize that at some point it will be just like starting over, except alone.  I am not good at alone.  I am scared shitless. 

Entry 2

"`You might just as well say,' added the March Hare, `that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!'"

           -from  Chapter VII of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol

Jenny misses our home we sold almost 10 years ago, after I went down to California.  The people who bought the home, according to friends, have never lived in it.  They did purchase the home next door, where they currently live.  It was to be the great remodel.  From what we've seen when we drive by it, is horrendous.  Also, our old neighbor said they ripped the kitchen out and never finished it.  

It is what it is. Jenny has never gotten over selling it.  I wasn't sad, given there was no heat on the second floor of the house, a fact we only learned in the fall of the year we bought it.  New homeowners.  .   .  It also had rats in the basement. The house was not affixed to the foundation in an area identified as especially susceptible to damage from an earthquake, the area largely resting on gravel under all that mud and concrete.  Still, its where we raised our children when they were young, and where we had put down serious roots.  So, I understand her nostalgia.  Her dream is to repurchase the home.  

I reached out to the owner today.  He was very gracious.  He declined selling it, although he said he would happily take us in and show what they have done.  He also offered to buy us dinner at the Whistle Stop Ale House.  I told him that he was very gracious.  I didn't tell him that touring the house would likely drive Jenny over the edge.  I fear they tore out the built-ins, took out the lead glass
transoms, etc.  I offered to talk to Jenny and get back to him.  

Meanwhile, this is the most bubbilicious market in the fastest growing city, with the most business investment in the country.  We are flat-out fucked, despite an incredible amount of savings and our ridiculously high combined income.  Every home we view, no matter how decrepit, the realtor assures us will go for between 6 and 16 percent more than asking, if an offer is made.  So far, he has been correct.  Those few homes that aren't selling in a week, well, no one in their right mind would buy such a home.  

How crazy is this market? Perhaps like me, it is as mad as a hatter. We looked at a home abutting Rainier Beach High School yesterday, listed for 785, and it will likely go for 925. Someone explain this madness to me. 

Entry 3

As my journal approaches 2000 views, I want to thank you all for following along.  This private journal is only viewable by those of you I have shared this with, and it makes me feel better knowing you are reading this.  I don't know why.  Thank you, again.