Dream New Dreams

by Jai Pausch

  Almost a year after I lost my engagement ring, I was cleaning out the purse I had used on our trip to the water park when, lo and behold, I discovered the ring in the center zipper compartment. How in the world it got there I will never know. I searched that purse right after I discovered the ring was missing. It is also not my habit to put jewelry in my purse when I leave a hotel room; I put it in the hotel room safe, with my watch and other valuables. In all the months I used that purse after the water park adventure, I never came across the ring. I was absolutely baffled but utterly euphoric to have it back. It resurfaced at a very interesting time in my life; I had decided to get back into the dating world. Maybe Randy returned the ring to me as a reminder of him and our relationship to help guide me as I searched my heart to see if it had healed enough to love again.

  To Date or Not to Date

  ONE OF THE MOST AWKWARD conversations I had with Randy as we prepared for his death dealt with the question of my remarrying. In his usual up-front manner, Randy counseled me on finding the right man and warned me to avoid the mistakes of my youth. He was so worried for me and for his children, who would be directly affected by whomever I chose to share my life with. I know I would have felt the same way if the shoe had been on the other foot and I had to trust Randy to find not only someone he loved and respected, but also someone who would be a great mother to my children. He also anticipated the public’s curiosity about how he felt about the matter of my moving on romantically after he died, and he addressed this in The Last Lecture. “Most of all, I want Jai to be happy in the years ahead. So if she finds happiness through remarriage, that will be great. If she finds happiness without remarrying, that will also be great.” He nicely worded this phrase so that I wouldn’t feel pressure to remarry, but I knew how he was hedging his bets.

  Before Randy died, he composed a short list of available men whom he trusted and recommended that I consider them for courtship and possibly for marriage. Some of the folks I’ve told this story to have reacted with indignation at how controlling Randy was in his attempt to reach beyond the grave to manipulate my life. I don’t see it that way at all. Instead, I see a man who loved me so much that he was able to put aside all jealousy at the thought of my being with someone else and think about my happiness and the well-being of our children. But I made him stop showing me the list, and I refused to talk about other men with him when he pressed the subject on me. I wasn’t in an emotional space to consider the romantic aspect of my future or the lack thereof.

  After Randy had passed away, I was visiting with some of our friends from church when my girlfriend told me about a conversation Randy had had with her and her husband. He asked our friends to keep a lookout for a nice guy for me when the time was right. Not only had Randy been keeping a list, but he had also enlisted some of our friends to take on the role of my personal matchmaker! Still, I wasn’t ready to take that step and I thanked her for being such a good friend.

  I remember talking to Dr. Reiss in the fall of 2008, admitting that I couldn’t imagine being romantic with anyone at that moment because I couldn’t entertain the thought of opening up my heart or risk getting hurt again. I was still overwhelmed with pain; my heart wasn’t up to the challenge of dating. My family watched over me and silently waited until I was ready to venture back into the world of romance, never pushing me to go where I wasn’t ready. Later on, I would learn how difficult it was for them as I mourned and remained alone night after night, month after month. I had a wound that would heal according to no specific time line.

  Randy’s mother and sister were supportive of me on the issue of moving on romantically, though I don’t believe Randy had asked them to assist me in this endeavor. Tammy, Randy’s sister, and Virginia, his mother, are reasonable and loving people who understood that I might want to find someone someday to love again. One weekend when Tammy was visiting us, after the children were in bed, she brought up the topic of dating with me. She reassured me that she did not have a problem with my dating and wanted me to feel comfortable talking with her about the subject. It was wonderful to me that she broached the subject—one I had felt too uncomfortable to mention. It also made me feel closer to Randy’s family, knowing that even difficult subjects such as dating and remarriage weren’t going to be land mines in our relationship.

  Oddly enough, the people who turned out to be the most vocal proponents for dating were my children, especially my oldest son, Dylan, who was seven at the time. I remember him talking to me about the subject one morning in the car after we had dropped off his siblings at preschool. He asked me if I would ever get remarried or if I had thought about the idea. I was completely caught off guard, not having had any dates or even talked about dating at this point. It must have been something he had given quite a bit of thought to, because he was prepared to have the discussion. So I tried to explain that Mommy wasn’t ready yet because her heart still hurt after losing Daddy. I added that it would be difficult for Mommy to meet people, given my lack of social opportunities, and that he should understand it would be a while before I ventured into the dating world. Then my precocious son offered some strategies to help his forty-two-year-old mom meet an eligible man. “Have you thought about a divorced man? Because he might be looking for a new family,” Dylan advised. Wow! Was I surprised by his reasoning and perception.

  Later on, in another conversation, Dylan told me he missed his father and really wanted another dad. He was looking to me to find him another father to fill the void Randy left. Nothing like a little pressure from your child! Nothing like raising the ante when the stakes were already so high!

  I told him how sorry I was that his father had died. I pointed out how lucky we were to have Uncle Bob, my brother, close by to come over and visit. And that many, many people loved us and helped us. These people didn’t replace Randy, Dylan’s father and best friend, but their presence was something we should appreciate. The truth is, I didn’t want to go out into the dating world with the objective of giving my children another father. I don’t think that’s right, and I don’t think it’s fair. Bringing another man into this family isn’t going to make our hurt go away or those feelings of missing Randy disappear. That was the real issue I wanted to address with Dylan—that it was OK to miss Randy, to miss having a dad, but he should not believe that substituting another person in Randy’s place would make everything better. It was such a tough lesson for so young a person to have to learn, but very important.

  By the summer of 2009, I was dealing much better with grief and life as a single parent. The knot in my chest had loosened, though not gone away completely. I felt comfortable with our daily routine. The kids were doing well and enjoying themselves. I loved watching them grow, sharing the day with them, and hatching new adventures. I also was developing a social network outside my immediate family. My friends and I would go out on occasion for dinner, to a movie, or to the theatre. Overall, I was feeling happy with my life. I wasn’t alone, but I was starting to feel lonely. I missed holding someone’s hand or snuggling while watching a movie. My heart was starting to thump again, and I was slowly becoming aware of its beating. It’s not as though I woke up one morning and said, “Gee, I’d like to have someone special in my life starting today.” Rather, it was a gradual awakening.

  By the fall of 2009, a little over a year after Randy’s death, I had given a few talks about my caregiving experience and about widowhood to a few health agencies and at a couple of pancreatic cancer fund-raisers. At each event, I would talk about Randy and our experiences together during his illness. But in talking about him and sharing my feelings about him with the audience, I felt I was conjuring his ghost, resurrecting him in such a way that I could feel him close to me again. It’s interesting that I couldn’t really talk about Randy or our experiences with our friends because it was too painful for everyone involved. Here in this public but also anonymous venue, it was not only OK for me to say his name and speak about the agonies cancer created in our lives, but th
e people attending these events wanted to know about them. They were eager to hear the details of our cancer journey, and I wanted to describe the pain cancer had caused for me, my husband, and our children. It was a cathartic, wonderful healing process. But as soon as the talk was over or I had left the fund-raiser, Randy’s ghost would dissipate, and the feeling that he was with me would evaporate as well. I would lose him all over again.

  And then loneliness would well up inside me. I didn’t have that special person anymore with whom to share life’s little joys. I loved Randy, I still do, but I decided I couldn’t be married to a ghost. I needed more. I was content with my life, had wonderful friends, a close family who was very supportive, and new ventures that challenged me intellectually. I could go on like this, and it would be fine. But I want more than fine.

  I decided I was ready to take another step forward in the direction of building my new life, but the decision presented me with a challenge: how to go about meeting someone. I met Randy when I was working. I had met the other men I’d dated, before marrying Randy, when I was a student taking classes. However, now I was neither in an office nor on a college campus. Bars were never my thing, so that option was out. It’s no surprise that I didn’t meet a guy playing women’s tennis or picking up children at preschool or at elementary school functions. Nor did I meet anyone at church. When I started feeling exasperated, I turned to my friends and family for help. This method had worked brilliantly when I was looking for a pediatrician for the kids, a general practitioner for myself, a painter for the house, and a dog for the family. Surely my friends would be able to suggest an acceptable single man who would work out just as well as my electrician. How naive of me to think it would be so simple to find someone my age who was eligible to go out for dinner.

  After a while, I got tired of hearing myself complain about the lack of progress in my romantic endeavors. The situation was becoming a real challenge and one I was determined to solve. I had to think out of the box and move to a less traditional dating method, since what I had been trying wasn’t successful. And so, like 20 million other Americans, I signed up with an online dating service to increase my chances of meeting someone single. Twenty-four hours after I had enrolled, my account showed a list of at least ten eligible bachelors in my area. I was surprised by how easy and quick it was to have a list of potential dates within such a short period of time. It made me feel I had options. Let me clarify that statement. It wasn’t that the online site provided me with a variety of men to choose from, but rather that it gave me the opportunity to meet single men or choose not to meet anyone. I wasn’t forced by circumstance to be single; I had a choice, and that was so empowering to me.

  Now that I actually had the chance to meet someone new, I had to make sure I was completely OK with moving on. In my heart, I knew I would always love Randy. In my mind, I recognized that our marriage vows released me from our bonds of matrimony when Randy died. Still, I had to wrestle a little bit with the feeling that I was cheating on my dead husband. My friends and counselor were there to listen to me and give me the support I needed to move forward with my life. They cautioned me to take things slowly, not to give my heart away too quickly, and most of all, just to have fun. So I took a deep breath and responded to the messages in my online dating account.

  Dating in the abstract sounds very exciting, but in reality, it’s difficult and painful. Rejection isn’t something anyone enjoys at any age or stage of life, but it’s part of dating. Of course, the upside is the surge of emotions one gets while getting to know someone new. It had been a long time since I had felt like this, and it was nice. Dating added a new and enriching dimension to my life, separate from my children and their lives and completely separate from my history with Randy—or so I thought.

  I was surprised to find that my name and my face were recognizable even though more than a year had gone by since The Last Lecture had been published and any news about me had been aired. My hair had grown longer, and I felt I looked very different from the pictures of me that had been posted on the Internet, used on television, or printed in the book. Sometimes in an attempt to be candid, I would be very up-front about who my late husband was. Some potential dates have googled my name and learned a lot about me from the Internet. Both scenarios, I realized, created an imbalance of information between myself and the person I was getting to know. They knew a lot about me—how I met my husband, the births of our children, and how my marriage ended. I, on the other hand, knew little about them and felt at a disadvantage. I had to rely only on these men telling me the truth about themselves and how and why they were no longer married. And the public perception of Randy as a perfect person, even though he had his flaws, can be very intimidating to some men. Sometimes people can’t help but see me as the professor’s widow, and it can be quite off-putting. Randy’s ghost seemed to haunt me when I was trying to move forward. I had to learn to handle these scenarios and get comfortable with who I was. Easier said than done.

  Another complicating factor in dating is having small children. Because of their vulnerability, I want to protect them from getting attached to someone who might not be in our lives long-term. When I first started dating, I told the children I was going out to dinner with a man. Instantly they jumped to the conclusion that my date and I were getting married and they would finally have another dad. I explained to them that dating was a long process of getting to know someone before you made the decision to spend your life with that person. I shared Randy’s mantra, “Marry in haste, repent at leisure,” which led to a great discussion about the important attributes of a relationship worthy of matrimony. It’s a great lesson for the children to learn and a silver lining to my widowhood. Logan gets very engaged in these discussions; he had developed an eye for the ladies at the tender age of five. I hope our discussions will help him make good choices when he gets to the point of going out with girls. My actions will also be an example for Chloe, which weighs on my mind as well. I want my daughter to see me with someone who treats me with love and kindness so that she will hold out for the same when she takes an interest in young men. How much easier it was to date when I was in college and worried only about how handsome a boy was!

  Furthermore, I’ve had to learn when to introduce a person I’m seeing to my children. I don’t want them to meet someone I’m not serious about or who isn’t serious about me and my family. I don’t want them to get emotionally attached to someone who might be around for only a few weeks. There’s also the time necessary for me to develop a relationship with someone separate from and outside the spectrum of my family circle, time to learn about each other and grow into our relationship. I’ve had difficulty creating opportunities for the person I’m dating to spend time my children because of my desire to protect my kids. I know it’s important for me to see how a man interacts with my children and vice versa. When I was talking about this very subject with Dylan, he came up with a metric of fifteen dates for me to use as a gauge for when it would be appropriate for me to bring somebody home to meet him and his siblings! I don’t know if that’s the best measuring stick, but I’m really glad I can talk with Dylan, Logan, and Chloe about this issue.

  Dating takes a lot of time and energy. When I last dated, I had only myself to think about. Now I have to balance time with a man I’m dating against time with my children, who are my first priority. When I first started to go out again, I immediately wanted to stop, for fear that it would detract from other projects and from raising my children. One of my greatest passions right now has been to continue Randy’s efforts to increase awareness and funding for pancreatic cancer research. I had always planned to volunteer in the cancer world in some way. I didn’t realize that my dream underestimated what was really possible.

  Giving Back—Pancreatic Cancer Advocate

  RANDY AND I OFTEN WENT to an oncology appointment expecting to be in the cancer facility for three hours, only to find ourselves still there after four, five, or six hours. There were man
y different reasons for the delays. Sometimes, the nurse would have to infuse the chemotherapy drugs at a slower rate so as not to overload Randy’s system. Sometimes he might need a shot to boost his white blood cell count. And sometimes the infusion area was so full of patients that there wasn’t a chair for him. We had to wait our turn, kind of like waiting for a table at a restaurant, except Randy and the other patients were guaranteed to get sick from whatever they were served.

  Most oncology departments recognize the fluid nature of chemotherapy appointments and keep a selection of drinks and snacks or vending machines available for their patients as they wait. There are also volunteers who come around the waiting rooms offering drinks and a sandwich to either the patient or caregiver. I can’t tell you how many times I had lunch courtesy of these kind souls. MD Anderson Center in Houston covers ten thousand acres and employs seventeen thousand people. When Randy was undergoing the clinical trial treatment there, we would often be very far from a cafeteria or vending machine. Luckily for us and the other twenty thousand patients receiving care there, volunteers go around to different departments and waiting rooms with the Jolly Trolley—a cart stocked with snacks and hot coffee, tea, or chocolate. I can still hear the sound of the trolley’s bell. That tinkling sound was welcomed by the hordes of us stuck in the bowels of the cancer center maze, where no sunlight penetrated and time was measured by the drips from the IV bag down the line. Cancer takes over more than just the body; it takes over one’s time, takes away control over one’s schedule, one’s day. The patient and caregiver are completely in cancer’s grip. The Jolly Trolley was more than a hot cup of coffee; it was a nice diversion from the reality of the moment served up with a friendly smile.

  After spending long days that added up to weeks inside the cancer bureaucracy, I knew I wanted to help other people who were going through similarly trying times. When routine was restored within our household after Randy had passed, I wanted to use some of my free time while the children were in school and preschool to be a volunteer who handed out drinks and sandwiches to those now sitting in those same waiting rooms where I had been sitting just a short while ago. I knew from firsthand experience the difference such a simple act could make in someone’s day. Rather than wallowing in my own self-pity, I would benefit from helping others. There’s an immediate reward in doing for others—the instant gratification of interacting with the person you are helping. It’s a much more personal experience than merely writing a check and putting it in the mail.