One particular part of their chat caught my attention like no other conversation in the last year and a half as Joan related that a common friend was about to undergo chemotherapy for breast cancer. After sharing the sad moment, Nancy responded, “I’d be happy to talk to her if you think it would help. I could tell her what it was like when I had leukemia.”
I almost ran off the road. In my rearview mirror, Joan nodded her head while giving me a wink when she saw me looking at her with raised eyebrows and a surprised but totally pleased look on my face. At long last, my bride was ready to put her illness behind her once and for all.
Nancy is not alone. Our whole family looks forward to an even more ordinary life. But we won’t ever forget the many kindnesses of so many during our long and difficult ordeal.
So at a time that I have designated Christmas for us—I’ll be thinking of you often.
Summary: I declared Christmas for our family this year on another landmark day. And I am thrilled to declare that Nancy continues her path toward normalcy.
All our love,
Winnie
Transplant + Two
October 20, 10:11 p.m.
Dear Friends and Family,
Do you remember this?
“If Nancy makes it two years beyond her transplant, have a party. A BIG PARTY.”
I do—as clear today as when it was said nearly a year ago.
Nancy’s transplant doctor made this statement in response to my question, “When can we feel comfortable Nancy has beaten her disease?”
Actually, I doubt you remember my October 27 update on her one-year transplant “birthday.” In fact, I doubt you distinctly remember many of my past updates, since it has been over six months since I last communicated with you. As with many of you, I went silent once Nancy “got well” for a purpose. I hoped to save my final update to invite you to the BIG PARTY.
As a matter of fact, Nancy’s two-year post-transplant anniversary is next week—October 27. I had planned to use this final communiqué as the invitation to the BIG PARTY where we would offer our heartfelt thanks to everyone who helped these past few years. Instead, Nancy will be in Georgia, visiting her family and friends. So I won’t even be at the small party that will be occurring several thousand miles away. (I guess somebody has to work.) Nonetheless I hope, like me, that you’ll take a moment to smile or a make toast (or both) at the thought of Nancy reaching the noteworthy two-year mark. And I hope you know that both she and I will be thinking of you because we are forever grateful. Two years is a very long time, and you have been with us the entire way.
So, what is life like now that we have reached our final milestone?
It is still early in the evening, but Nancy sits beside me, already in dreamland. A gentle grin is splashed across her lips. It has been like this hundreds of times during our thirty years together. Me, in the dimming light, looking past her through the tiny oval window, trying to decipher what images I can make out of clouds that too swiftly pass by us. I often wonder what images are playing in her mind’s theatre as she peacefully sleeps on my shoulder. But this time is more noteworthy than any of the previous occasions.
Yes, we’ve reached our cruising altitude of 39,000 feet.
Yes, the seatbelt sign has gone off, and I feel just a touch safer.
Yes, I savor the freedom of feeling no phones or distractions.
We are finally airborne and I delight in the anticipation of being “on our way.”
Instead of laughing quietly to myself at how quickly Nancy has fallen asleep, I am overwhelmed with emotion and fight my likely tears. Two years and five months ago, it was beyond my wildest dreams that Nancy would ever again be healthy enough to travel—actually, that she would even still be with me.
So where did Nancy choose for her first big trip after her battle with death?
Chicago.
Chicago, you say?
I know Chicago has famous deep-dish pizza and an adored (though highly unsuccessful) baseball team, but Nancy doesn’t even like baseball. Worse yet, Chicago’s basketball team robbed our Utah Jazz of an NBA Championship not once, but twice.
So why then are we not heading to an exotic Caribbean beach or a mysterious African safari?
“Dad, guess what? I’m moving to Chicago. You know how I’m an English geek and how I love to read. I found an editing program at the University of Chicago that accepts college graduates and only takes one year to get a master’s degree. What do you think?”
“I think it’s great,” I whisper into the telephone. I don’t tell Jayna that there are tears in my eyes and that they are not from sadness. Though I will miss you my dear Jayna, I am so happy you feel good enough about your mother’s health to move forward. You donated two years of your life to assist me with Mom. But then again, you are like her. How can I thank you? The words are silent, in my head.
Much has taken place in the two months since my conversation took place with Jayna. She is already living in her own apartment in Lincoln Park (Chicago), working as a search analyst at a Google company, and poised to start her night classes. And today, Jayna is preparing for her first visit from her mother and me. Significantly, the trip to Chicago will be our first trip together since Nancy’s illness. (Today is also filled with joy because Jayna, like her mom, is finally recovering.)
Although my life has emerged from a pitch-black dark cave into almost blinding sunshine, there is still an occasional cloud. A few weeks ago, Nancy was enjoying the mundane, taking her car in for an oil change. For her, every trip is still an adventure, every small detail still an extra opportunity for an encounter. She and Jaret had dropped off the car and headed to a nearby shopping area on foot. They were distracted by a distinctive sports car, and while discussing its color and examining its shape, Nancy tripped and fell.
The result?
Forty minutes later, Nancy was in our office getting two broken fingers splinted. Selflessly, Jaret took me aside. “Dad, will Mom’s broken fingers cause graft-versus-host disease?”
During Nancy’s illness Jaret was often the forgotten one. Not verbal like his sister, during the really tough times when I only left the hospital for my work shifts, my face-to-face interactions with my son were few. He was in college finishing his last year and not often at home. Although he did spend several “hospital” nights with Nancy along the way, he wasn’t in the regular rotation with Jayna and me. Still it was clear he had the same worries, the same ups and downs, and now, the same scars. When Nancy sneezes, isn’t as hungry as usual, looks tired, or, in this case, falls, Jaret (like Jayna and me) immediately become concerned and think the worst.
In reality, it will be a very long time before the despair, concern, and grief of our past nightmares totally subside. But we are making positive, albeit slow, progress.
“No, Jaret. Breaking a bone should have no effect on Mom’s immune system. Normal people break bones all the time and they heal quickly.”
Jaret, his finest smile easing the tightness from his brow, replies, “I didn’t think so, Dad. I just wanted to be sure.”
Summary: Nancy recovery’s is going well. It has been nearly two years since Nancy’s transplant and the news continues to be favorable.
With love,
Winnie
Castles by the Sea
October 31, 2:34 a.m.
Dear Friends and Family,
Nancy took another airplane trip this past summer after being told she could travel and be around people. The destination was Marblehead, Massachusetts, for the wedding of Stefanie Freeman, the daughter of her good friend Lyn. We’ve known Stefanie since birth. Nancy was allowed to attend this joyous event, her goal for the entire last year, because she now has an immune system that should protect her from normal germs. The experience exceeded all our expectations. She visited with old friends, drank and ate the best of Boston, and danced as much (or more) than even the youngest of the wedding guests. The next day, I returned to Utah for work while Nancy stayed an extra
day with our friends John and Cheryl Jermyn.
John asked Nancy what she wanted to do, and in Nancy’s low-key, never-a-burden style, she replied, “Maybe we could go to the ocean.” In less than thirty minutes, Nancy was retrieving bucket after bucket of sand and mud to help John’s kids, Cole and Jaclyn, construct a sand castle. When the moat surrounding their intricate multilevel castle was completed, John dashed into the ocean to wash off the sand. Unfortunately, he found the water only slightly warmer than the Arctic Ocean, so he quickly retreated. Nancy, on the other hand, slowly waded in. First, up to her ankles, then up to her waist, and finally up to her neck. She floated and splashed and even fully submerged her hair-covered head. For nearly an hour, she frolicked like a three-year-old in a wading pool. Later, finally dry and sitting on her towel at the water’s edge, she gazed at the horizon, the expression on her face almost as far away.
Nancy grew up spending entire days at the beaches of Georgia and Florida, and her fondest childhood memories are intertwined with sand and sea. She turned to John, and though I was not there, John didn’t have to describe the look on her face when he recounted what she softly told him: “I never thought I’d get to do this again.” John became as choked up then as I am now as I share Nancy’s proclamation with each of you, my dear friends.
The truth is that Nancy has experienced imminently facing one’s mortality and then getting a second chance. In reality, her journey hasn’t made her more loving, more caring, or more wonderful than before. But she is more aware.
And me?
I am almost speechless.
How do I describe where we are today?
Glorious and magnificent are probably close depictions, with a splash of humbleness for Nancy having made me more aware, too.
Have I changed?
My friend Fred says I press the “easy” button more often than in the past because I don’t sweat the small stuff as I once did. But as I sit here and reflect, I realize my biggest change is how I feel. Good, caring people still exist in this world. And Nancy and I have heard from and met more than our fair share of these people during her extended illness.
We thank you once again for your many kind thoughts, words, and actions. We are forever in your collective debt for helping to get us through the hard times.
Summary: Nancy is “out of the woods” and leukemia-free.
With all our love and all our thankfulness—always,
Winnie
Conclusion
For me, Yellowstone National Park is like no other place on earth. It is where Nancy walked into my life. It is where Nancy and I lived for two full summers during the early years of our relationship. It is the place where our children developed their love for nature. The park is where Nancy and I learned to hike and backpack. We learned, as we explored its countless trails, about flowers and trees and the interrelatedness of an ecosystem. And, most important, Yellowstone is not only where we fell in love with the outdoors and where we came to love solitude but also where we fell deeply in love.
In many ways, we grew up in Yellowstone. As Nancy and I became the people that we are today, so too did we grow and evolve. We grew together. First, as a young man and woman, then as a fledgling couple, and then, not so many years later, as husband and wife. For these reasons, Nancy and I decided to celebrate the five-year anniversary of her cancer-free recovery in the familiar, intensely meaningful, and comfortable surroundings of the park. We wanted to return to our roots. Our homecoming was a natural and very personal way for us to return to where our lives together began so many years ago.
Even today, I remember our triumphant return as if it were only yesterday. All I have to do is close my eyes and wave after wave of images, sights and sounds, and corresponding emotions take me back in time. Like the rhythmic and relentless beating of a drum, I am almost overwhelmed by the vividness and immediacy of these memories. I close my eyes and instantly I can once again see Nancy reading every word on the front and back covers of the familiar maps, edges worn from repeated unfolding and refolding, before carefully opening the map of Yellowstone fully on her lap.
“Same old map, Winnie,” she declares. “Nothing’s changed.”
“What’s your fancy?” I inquire while dropping my right arm from the steering wheel and brushing Nancy’s left cheek with the back of my hand. A quick glance reveals a crescendo of sentiment across Nancy’s face.
“I want our first stop to be Black Sand Basin.”
Black Sand Basin, a name derived from the coarse, black gravel covering much of the area that had its origin in Obsidian volcanic glass, is a small part of the massive Upper Geyser Basin best known for the Old Faithful Geyser. Located on the opposite side of the major road leading into the Old Faithful Geyser Basin Area, it is usually not crowded with people like most geyser basins. Even better, the parking lot is most often empty.
About fifteen years into our thirty-year-plus marriage, Nancy declared the basin her favorite area in the park. At the time, it was close to our living quarters and a great place to take the kids when they were young. Not only did it contain a wide range of thermal features, it had benches for relaxing in relative privacy. As an added benefit, the scenery and atmosphere encourages reflection and contemplation. For Nancy, it has always been a hidden jewel.
After parking the car and proceeding on the boardwalk along Iron Spring Creek, we feel the wind in our faces and smell the not-unexpected sulfur odor of a geyser basin. “Funny,” Nancy says as she grabs my hand, “I can remember being repulsed by that fragrance the first year. Now it smells almost good to me.”
I look at Nancy and sense the enveloping warmth of her presence. She glows from head to toe.
“This is so amazing, Winnie. I thought of this moment so often when I was in the hospital. It was dreamlike then. I doubted I would return.”
I am stunned by Nancy’s admission. (But I am not prepared to admit that there were pain-filled days and sleepless nights when I thought we would not return together either.)
“Look!” she points out. “Right on cue.”
Cliff Geyser, on the opposite edge of the creek, begins erupting as it does every few minutes all day long. After a strong eruption, about twenty feet high, the spray, like the sulfur smell, drifts our way in a mist that cools our faces. Nancy places a wet sulfuric kiss on my cheek and squeezes my hand.
As we stroll further, we observe dense steam rising from Sunset Lake. A massive thermal feature about sixty yards long and fifty yards wide, the lake’s light-blue color is ringed with yellow and orange from the algae growing along its edges. During most of our prior visits, all we could see was the steam. Not today, because the same strong gust of wind that almost blew my Mountain Trails Foundation baseball cap off my head carries the steam away from the lake’s surface, revealing the whole lake. Nancy revels at our good fortune with the giggle that I so dearly love, and then she tugs on my hand to let me know it is time to go.
At twenty-eight feet by fifty-five feet, Opalescent Pool is long and skinny. It is cooler than Black Sand Basin because its water is the runoff from the adjacent Spouter Geyser. Its opaque, medium-blue center is surrounded by deep brown on its periphery, revealing the bacteria that grow at the cooler temperature. What makes Opalescent Pool so extraordinary isn’t the pool itself but rather the trees in and around it. When the pool first formed, the hot chemicals in the water killed the lodgepole pines. Over time, the repeated rising and falling water from the geyser that feeds the pool deposited white silica to the depth of several feet at the base of each of the trees. In case I had forgotten, Nancy reminds me, “I just love those bobby sock–looking trees.”
Our next stop is Rainbow Pool, appropriately named because the entire rounded perimeter flashes and flaunts the colors of a bright rainbow. At one hundred feet across, its sky-blue middle is as clear as glass, and when I look into its depth, I can’t see the bottom. The gentle surface bubbles remind me that it is a very warm pool and to not get too close to the boardwalk’s th
reshold. Nancy squeezes my hand again and murmurs, “Isn’t it incredibly beautiful?” I know how she feels. And before we move on, she whispers in my ear, “It is soooo good to be back.”
At the end of the boardwalk is a bench overlooking the dark-green pool designated by the park service as Emerald Pool. Though only a bit larger than a backyard swimming pool, it is one of the park’s most well-known hot springs because its brilliant green color is different from the other pools in Yellowstone that sport varying shades of blue in their hearts. The green of Emerald Pool is even more distinctive because it is ringed by pale blue and bright orange.
Nancy and I sit on the bench at the edge of Emerald Pool, and after a minute, she lightly rests her head on my shoulder. In the distance, a red-tailed hawk circles high above the trees on the fringe of the thermal area. I sit silently and am totally fulfilled. Finally we are far, far away from the frightening nightmare of Nancy’s illness.
Before I can ask Nancy about where we should go next, she lifts her head and engages me with eyes as blue as Rainbow Pool. She pulls off her left shoe and slips off her sock like she did in January over five years ago. Extending her leg beyond the ground-level boardwalk, she ever so lightly touches her big toe to a lonely clump of grass that somehow has managed to survive even though it is completely surrounded by the black sands only a few feet away from the blistering pool. Nancy puts an index finger to her lips cautioning me not to speak.
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