On October 14, 2012, at 2:36 p.m., Stacey left. Those are numbers I will always know without thinking.
We went to UC General on the morning of September 28, as she had been having trouble breathing, and with her asthma, we thought that’s what it was, and we’d get a new inhaler. She had trouble even walking from the cab, so I carried her inside. Paperwork was filled out, and at 10:40 a.m. that day, she was checked in. Not knowing then that only one of us would be going home.
The next morning, after some very large needles had been used the previous day to extract a lot of liquid from her back, we were told. Cancer. The air left the room. For the next 17 days, tests were done, and while we learned the cafeteria hours and the best vending machines and Chinese food on Wednesday, we never knew what kind. Or even simply where.
A good friend's mom worked at UCSF. When she heard about Stacey's passing, she asked if we had the death certificate. She said she could ask hypotheticals. When I sent it, she recognized the doctor's name. She could ask someone in that department... hypotheticals. Lymphoma. He said if she did this and then that, if it was this and then... he knew her story without knowing the case or Stacey.
The knowing didn’t help with the grief, but it did answer a question. We don’t ever get over grief; we learn to live with it. Grief is love looking for a place to go.
With this walk, it helps me live with it, gives grief a place to go. Grief is loves final form. It’s for them, how we honor them and keep them here.
Chris
Advocate
