I am not totally sure where this shot was taken, but it came from Dad & Mom’s 1995 road trip. This was a time when they were getting excited about kayaking, and these coastal explorations were probably a prelude to purchasing the house in Nova Scotia.
Merck Forest to this day still holds a deep emotional connection for me. It is a place that is completely synonymous in my memory with our family at that time in our lives together, and which in so many ways reflects mom and dad’s values and beliefs about what was important in life. It conjures up feelings of adventure and excitement, and calm easy-free days where you felt like you knew your place in the world. It was a retreat, where we could connect with nature and with each other without distraction; a place where we always had lots to do but absolutely nothing to worry about. Merck was a special place for us, and still is.
Chris places the year of our first trip to Merck as 1977 and that may be right. At least it sounds reasonable because I don’t clearly remember ever not going during those years. I don’t exactly remember when we stopped either. What I can say with confidence is that this was by far our most frequent and consistent family vacation. We went pretty much every summer, did pretty much the same things each time, and it never really got old.
It was not an easy vacation in terms of preparation. Only now as a parent of two myself do I realize how much effort it must have taken mom and dad to get us in position for this trip each year. But they had it down. Mom was most certainly the organizer and planner. I’m not sure the trip could ever have gotten off the ground without her many, very detailed lists/itineraries and unstoppable drive to get things done. She always enjoyed a good organizational challenge to tackle and she was extraordinarily good at it. But dad had a large role to play as well–sometimes just as sherpa and chief fire maker–but on a deeper level also as an unknowing spiritual leader and driver for the perennial nature of the trip. I think he felt at home at Merck and free to be who he was and what he wanted. In the end, after all the effort, it was a quiet and solitary trip and that suited him.
This was a legitimate trip into the woods. No phones, no electricity, no bathroom, no running water. Everything we needed had to be packed in on our backs, a little more than a mile up the hill to our campsite. Most of the time we would stay in a campground called Spruce, which in the early years had a lean-to structure that was later closed in to make a cabin. It kept us dry on rainy days and it had a wood burning stove, but otherwise it was pretty bare. I remember vividly the unnerving scamper of critters around the cabin at night, and the hammock we would hang from a beam in the middle to keep our food safe from unwanted scavenging. We would keep our perishable items in a cistern maybe 20 or 30 yards up the hill from the cabin, which had continuously running cold spring water. We would hand carry water from the cistern to the cabin in water carriers, which we would hang from a nail on the side of the cabin for drinking, washing hands, and doing dishes. Occasionally we would fill our Sun Shower bag and lay it on the grass during the day to collect heat from the sun for a civilized shower…but it never worked that well and often we wouldn’t bother.
More frequently, our baths were swims at Birch Pond. It was maybe a mile walk at most down a hill from the cabin and we went most days that the sun shined, making it one of my fondest memories of going to Merck. In the earlier years there was a cool rope swing from a large tree at the side of the pond, where we climbed, swung, and released ourselves out over the water many times. There was always a dock at the head of the pond as well, where we could run and jump into the water. The many retrievers we had over the years loved going to Birch, running from the dock and bounding into the water to retrieve a stick we had thrown for them, procured from one of the trees by the pond or on the walk down. The little dogs, and I can remember Jenny in particular, would yap at the side of the pond…and eventually get thrown in from the dock by me, Chris, or mom. Incidentally, I never remember dad doing it, which is amuses me–this sort of foolery was not so much his style. Their little paws would fire away high out of the water as if they were trying to climb out, but eventually they would right themselves and cruise into shore.
The dogs were an important part of our family over the years and Merck was a vacation for them as well. We had as many as four dogs with us on our trips, which was quite a trick considering everything that needed to be packed into the car. But we made it work. Sometime very early on mom sewed a backpack for the bigger dogs so that they could pack in their own food. It looked kind of like saddle bags strapped under their waste and around their chest. Mom was of course very good at engineering and creating things of all kinds, and I think she she mostly enjoyed the fact that she was able to create this ingenious solution, more so than it actually helped relieve the packing burden. I’m sure she also felt good knowing that her four-legged family members pitched in and did their part.
We made fires, every night, which was a job primarily covered by dad–there were pine trees near the cabin, with loads of small dry branches, which we would collect as kindling to start the fire. Dad had a saw he would carry in for the slightly bigger stuff, and their was typically a stack of wood by the cabin as well. When the fire got going, we would find sticks for s’mores and sit around together waiting for the stars to come out. When the night was clear, the stars were incredible. That sense of awe and wonderment of the universe, central to my personal spirituality (and in many ways very different from my parents’), I believe first traces back to those nights out by the fire staring up at the fog of stars in the pitch black night sky.
Occasionally we would would hike out for the day and drive into Manchester, VT. This was mostly driven by my mom. She loved going to Adams woodworkers and the various outlet stores in the area for whatever hot sale she could find. Not surprisingly, she also took a liking (as did we) to a little sweet shop called Mother Myrick’s, which had really great ice cream sundaes. On some of those outings we would also head to Bromley mountain to ride the alpine slide. I loved that…and would always try to rally for it. One year as we got older (and taller), Chris skinned his pointy knees and that was pretty much the end of it.
More than anything, the annual trip was about us being together, and it was quiet. Yes, we loved the adventure of it and the connection with nature–the rewarding feeling from a hard days work packing in and setting up. But I think what my parents loved most was the simple, undivided time where we could be together. I appreciate that much more now than I ever did then. They would usually schedule it toward the end of the summer as a last respite before the busy school year started. We played cards, read, whittled, made walking sticks, went on hikes, went swimming, played frisbee in the field, played with our dogs, and just hung out together. The Spruce Cabin sat alone looking out over a glorious alpine field surrounded by hillsides which would echo back at us when we called. And there was nobody and nothing for miles around, literally. We could go days without seeing a sole. It was complete silence. Just us, together.
There’s nothing fair about what happened to mom–first losing her soul mate over the course of a week, and then just four years later being diagnosed with late stage cancer. She easily could have given up and I know at times she struggled with the injustice of it. But mom was a fighter and she never wallowed. She was one of the strongest and most determined people you’ll ever meet. She was a doer, she made things happen–organized, ingenious, and highly effective. And she deployed those strengths to their fullest measure during the last 6 years of her life. I’m incredibly proud of her and thankful for that time she gave us. It was difficult for her, living with the constant specter of the end in our midst, but it also gave us an opportunity for a very long good-bye and we took every bit of it. Through her courage she gave us an incredible gift that we will carry with us forever.
From the time mom was first diagnosed with cancer until we last said good bye to her that fall morning in 2014, we visited with her no less than 20 times and never for less than a full week. Over the holidays we would go to Vermont, and a few summers we went to Canada, but more often than not it was mom who made the solo trip across country to California. She underwent a harrowing treatment schedule during those years, but she never let it stop her.
We always tried to make an adventure of it–whether it be a trip to San Diego, to wine country in Santa Yves or Paso Robles, a helicopter ride to Catalina Island, an adventure in Costa Rica, visiting our friend Beth in Carlsbad, or even just trips to the beach and new restaurants in Ventura and Santa Barbara, she was always game. During those years we had great times, with lots of laughs and love. She watched Riley and Jack grow up and built a wonderful friendship with Mary. We wanted more–but those times were priceless and we have few regrets.
In April 2014, we made a family trip to Costa Rica. We all knew that it could be our last family trip together, but we didn’t focus on it. We went to the beach every morning and to the pool. She went boogie boarding. One of the last days of our trip we went on an “adventure tour” into the mountains. Mom road horseback up a mountain and then zip lined between tree stands hundreds of feet off the ground across spans many hundreds of meters wide. She went down a quarter-mile water slide, bathed in natural hot springs, and volcanic mud. It would be just six months before her death–ever brave and determined to take life head on.
I’ll never forget the morning in Vermont we last said good bye to her. After more than a week between the hospital and getting mom home, Mary and I decided we needed to get the kids back to California. It was a really hard decision, but it made sense at the time. Our flight was very early in the morning so I said goodbye to mom the night before. But when we woke up at 4am, mom was awake too. She had been up all night to make sure she could say good bye to us. The cancer had taken its toll on her liver and she was not totally lucid all week, but you could tell she was pouring everything she had into being present at that moment. She was smiling and talking to us. She made sure to engage Jack and Riley each individually to tell them how much she loved them. I know it took everything she had. She passed away the next day. I’m so thankful to her for that. She knew it was her final good bye, and she wanted to make it a good one–one last act of determination from an incredibly strong, brave woman. True to her character, mom left nothing on the table.
Today is the first anniversary of Mom’s death from cancer. She lived a reasonably long and very full life, but it is still hard to accept that she is gone, especially as a result of a rare and incurable cancer. Life is not fair, because only allowing Mom seventy-one years of life seems like not enough.
In many ways we were very lucky. Mom was diagnosed with cancer in 2009, and initially was told by some of her doctors that she should not hope to live more than a year. Over the next five-plus years she endured a lot of tough treatments but also enjoyed a lot of good times. She continued to go to Nova Scotia each summer, and we all got to join her in a lot of wonderful adventures. When Dad died we had almost no warning; in a matter of days he was no longer present, and in a matter of weeks he was no longer alive. But with Mom’s illness we knew that we had only years left in her life, a very tough reality that also allowed us to appreciate our remaining time with her.
Mom stayed healthy and strong until nearly the end. She drove herself home from Nova Scotia in the early Fall of 2014, and it wasn’t until October that I got the fateful call from her: they wanted to keep her at Dartmouth-Hitchcock because she was beginning to experience serious symptoms of her rapidly-spreading cancer. That short phone call was pretty much the last fully-lucid conversation I had with Mom, although we enjoyed several weeks with her in the hospital and in hospice.
When liver metastases are what kills you, you go pretty gently. Almost mercifully your body’s ability to cleanse toxins from your bloodstream declines, leaving you in a mental fog that slowly thickens. Mom slipped into a state of being less aware of what was befalling her, and I think that was for the best. But before she became completely confused, she had her moments of lucidity. And the one that I will always remember with most love and sadness occurred when she was visited by a palliative care doctor in the hospital.
Mom was never much for emptying her soul: she could be very emotional, but she was not particularly fond of opening up… especially to strangers. So it was a bit awkward as this very kind and gentle palliative care doctor sat with Mom, asking her important — and emotional — end-of-life questions. Central to these questions was did Mom have any regrets that she wanted to address before she died?
In my eyes, Mom had very little to regret in her life. She worked incredibly hard, and became a veritable force of nature, both as the motivating presence of our family and as a talented educator. She had a lot of adventures when she was young, and then with Dad, and then with the family they created, and then on her own after Dad died. Throughout she lived life on her own terms and was a really steadfast, reliable person to all whom she loved. She let no one down, and had nothing to regret.
Mom struggled to answer the palliative doctor’s question. None of her regrets required palliation. But she did have regrets.
“I guess my biggest regret is what I will miss. I would like to be at my granddaughter’s high school graduation, but I know that I won’t be around for that.”
Mom’s honest and clear regret cut right through me, and tears dripped down my face. Although Mom probably did not need the emotional facet of palliative care, I was thankful to that doctor for eliciting this feeling from Mom. For me it was important to face this very sad and very difficult reality: Mom would not be around to see where the family she created would end up.
The tragedy producing Mom’s regret has two mercilessly brutal sides. It is not just tragic that Mom will not get to see what happens to her sons and to her grandchildren. It is equally sad that her grandchildren will not get to experience her — and all of her powers — as they grow up. Eric and I miss Mom dearly, but we carry within us the values and aptitudes that her love and presence as a parent provided. It is tough to swallow that our kids will not have the chance to learn what we have learned from their Grandmother.
This loss inspires a big aspiration of this site: not to replace what having known Robert and Susan would have provided to our kids, but to at least give our kids a rich sense of who their grandparents were.
So, on the first anniversary of Mom’s death, I am most sad for my three kids.
For Gaia, who was lucky enough to get to know her grandmother quite well, but also was just blossoming into a young woman when she lost her Grandma Sue.
For Quinn, who got to experience his grandmother’s adoration and attention, even though he will have no memory of those times.
And for Thea, who only got to meet her grandmother once and under the worst of circumstances.
My three babies, I am so sad that your grandmother was taken from you too soon, but I am going to try to do my best to teach you everything that she taught me, and to tell you about who she was.
