THIS STORY WOULD not exist without my husband, Richard, for he gave me the privilege of creating us on the page. Nor would I be the woman I am without his undying love. He was a collaborator, writing impressions of his experiences and reading every version of this work (usually with tears in his eyes). He was my patron and my inspiration, providing physical and emotional sustenance for our entire family. We did this together.
Whenever people asked how the revision process was going, I told them I was working with my “dream” editor, Tony Perez of Tin House Books. Ours was a collaborative endeavor that included my longed-for literary conversation and his ability to gently persuade me to deepen difficult scenes. I remain in awe of his ability to refine my sentences and to win me over to the serial comma. That the world still has room for literary icons like Tin House gives me hope for the future of books.
Anne Horowitz is a detail-driven copy editor who made me more thoughtful of my word choices and vastly improved my sentences. I’m so thankful for her influence on this text.
Waverly Fitzgerald was an early editor of this book, and she has become a friend whose rigor and advice I value enormously. I can’t thank her enough for leading me in the right direction.
Priscilla Long has been my mentor for the past six years. Without her input on discipline, grammar, sentences—all the ways she encourages virtuoso writing in her classes and in her book, The Writer’s Portable Mentor—I couldn’t have done the hard work.
Researcher Renee Bellinger contributed her expertise to the Notes section. We are fellow caregivers of spouses with PMP, and her loving attention extended beyond source- and fact-checking to real compassion and understanding of what it means to live with a rare cancer.
Of course, very little of this would have happened without the faith of Victoria Skurnick of Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency. Victoria helped me see this work as a book about relationship, and educated me about the publishing world, and I’m so happy for her guidance, and the fine work of Lindsey Edgecomb too.
Nanci McCloskey and Meg Cassidy of Tin House’s marketing team helped me get this book to its readers, and their thoughtful consideration of its themes helped me give opportunities for others, especially those wounded by cancer, brain injury, and PTSD, to have their stories heard. Thank you.
I have so much gratitude for the early readers of this book, for their encouragement, evaluation, and support. Thank you Sheila Belanger, Jack Saturday, Carole Harmon, and Anne Douglas. Warren Etheredge did the equivalent of treading water endlessly while waiting for me to jump from a very high cliff. And Laurie Wagner of Wild Writing held my hand when I was skittish about including all of me in this book. Oh my God, I thank you forever for your friendship.
The women in my writing groups were fearless and thorough in helping me tell an honest story. Debra Carlson and I shared our thoughts about writing, children, relationships, and wishes for over a decade, and I appreciate her compassion for the roller coaster that was this book coming into existence. Lisa Whipple asks the kinds of direct questions you want from a writing colleague and a wisecracking friend, and her terrific editing improved many scenes. The writers of the Advanced Short Forms Seminar offered the kind of grace, warmth, and critique essential to my development. Likewise Melissa Layer, June Blue Spruce, Angela Mercy, Nan Macy, and Katie Nelson were advocates in a writing group that kept me company during years of writing.
Excerpts from this memoir have appeared in various literary magazines. Brevity’s “Ceiling or Sky? Female Nonfictions after the VIDA Count” brought my work to the attention of people who wouldn’t have found me otherwise, including George E. Miller of The Prentice Hall Reader. Thanks to Dinty Moore, Dr. Miller, and guest editors Barrie Jean Borich, Susanne Antonetta, and Joy Castro. Your support was instrumental in helping me launch a career.
I’d also like to extend my gratitude to Bret Lott, who selected an early excerpt from this story for the Southern Review. Your letter gave me the strength to continue when the writing felt like a madness.
Fish Publishing honored an excerpt from this book in its international memoir competition, judged by David Shields, and I’m happy for the recognition at a time when the form of the book was changing.
I’m lucky to live in a city in which essayists and memoirists specialize in some of the same territory covered in this book. Suzanne Morrison spent hours talking through ideas and sharing her relationship to the personal story form. Likewise, Claire Dederer, Nicole Hardy, and Brian McGuigan lent their time and expertise.
Seattle’s writing community luckily includes the magnificent Hugo House, which funds a writer-in-residence. Ryan Boudinot saw an early essay and told me he thought I could make this a book. Peter Mountford introduced me to Tin House and ensured that I had what I needed to negotiate a changing publishing world. I love his books; even more so his generous nature that extends to the writing community everywhere. We’re lucky to have him in Seattle.
For Artist Trust, which gave me a grant to complete the early stage of this work, much appreciation. It gave me time from the day job to get the momentum going.
For a writer, Seattle is the luckiest place to live because its public library makes available research assistants twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. All the researchers at Ask a Librarian (who prefer not to be named), I appreciate your resources.
I’m indebted to everyone who has supported my work: the audiences at Cheap Beer & Prose, readers of my essays, and you, reader, who have completed this work through your engagement.
The writing here began in a journal that I scrawled in at the hospital, to try to make sense of what was happening. In the decade that followed, so many people provided emotional and material support to us, offering everything from the comfort of their homes to their research acumen. For a few years, we counted on the generosity of friends, family, and strangers. To you who kept us fed, sheltered, healthy, and sane, our deep gratitude.
To all the doctors—and in twelve years there’s been a number of you—and to the skilled nurses, therapists, healers, and health-care workers who supported us in the surgeries and treatments, thank you. To the surgeon we can’t name for legal reasons, thank you for Richard’s life. We’d like to especially acknowledge Dr. Lechuga of the Neurobehavioral Clinic and Dr. Mary Pepping, since retired from the University of Washington Medical Center’s Brain Injury Rehabilitation Program. Without their patience, education, and expertise in rehab medicine, Richard wouldn’t have had a chance to be useful, and we wouldn’t have understood our situation. Healers Deena Metzger and Valerie Wolf were pivotal for support and understanding in the early stages of the brain injury. Included in this group are Chris Nace and his family, who became our friends as they helped us argue a hospital’s error through a challenging legal process, which hopefully changed policies for future patients. Thanks for your wisdom.
Thank you to cancer survivors, people with TBI, PTSD, and those enduring challenges with memory, and their families. Many of you inspired us along the way, and we’re so grateful for your care.
Sometimes you don’t know where to go, and you count on the ones you’ve known forever to make a way. My childhood friend Wendy Richardson never turned away from us; she introduced us to Suzi Bliss, who gave us a place to live and a way for me to make a meaningful contribution. Poet Maya Stein introduced me to her father, David, who offered us an ancient water mill in France, a place so magical that our time there was transcendent in experience and in memory. Lifelong friends the Harmon Hutchings family, Carole, Julia, and Sebastian, provided their apartment for two retreats in the mountains, where I was able to find the solitude I needed to confront some challenging self-reflections. We couldn’t have flourished without such wise allies and friends.
After I moved to Seattle, I made friends with Trey Gunn, and once a week, usually with barbecue, we talked in my kitchen about creativity, art, and trying to make money. He’s the best kind of friend, who supported this work by making me braver.
Pamela Grace has the kind of wit and depth that help you cut through your own nonsense. She’s been a confidante, a writing colleague, and someone who reminded me that I have no reputation to manage. I can’t thank her enough for helping me develop the tools to create an enduring relationship.
Judith Laxer is a gardener of the spirit, the kind of friend who tracked me when my husband couldn’t. She read manuscripts, asked great questions, and listened to rants and tears when called upon. I adore her.
Our families were there for us in some dark days in and out of the hospital. My father died during the writing of this book, but he was proud of the essays published along the way and encouraged me to keep going. Thanks to my mother, our siblings Christie, Shelley, Joe, Russ, Robyn, and our entire extended clan.
Our children were shaped by these years and, being artists themselves, have asked the kinds of questions that helped us understand our story in fresh ways. Joshua and Dylan, it’s our joy to spend this wondrous, wild era with you.