Day 3

Tuesday 12/4/18

It seems incredible it has only been 2½ days since Marian stopped breathing. I’ve accomplished just a ton of stuff in that time, busy busy busy. But first, a few words about

Grief

It just comes on at unpredictable times, then passes off. Something reminds me of our life together — as when, yesterday morning, I passed the local ice-cream store and suddenly remembered she always ordered mocha almond fudge flavor — or it will be nothing at all, just a sudden uprush of pity and regret. And the eyes prickle, the throat constricts, the voice, if I’m talking, becomes thick and broken. A deep breath, a shake of the shoulders, and it passes off.

So these little fugues, every couple of hours or so, are the metronome to my days. But in between them, today I was

Making Arrangements

Walked to the Y on Ross Road, did my little round of exercises, walked back in plenty of time to strip the bed and put the linens in the washer. Then drove to San Jose, to the office of the Neptune Society, where Maria led me through reading and signing all the papers that have to be read and signed in order to get somebody cremated and scattered at sea, all proper and legal.

There’s a decision to be made: do I want to see the ashes scattered off the Marin coast near Angel Island? If so, I have to reserved a spot on a sailing of their “family” boat for $495. Or I can just let it happen anonymously on their standard scattering cruise where nobody witnesses the operation. That service is included in the fees we paid back in 1997 (Marian’s signature on the contract, from back before her handwriting deteriorated…)

I’m on the fence about this. Do I want the finality of this little ceremony? Marian is gone; the ashes won’t be her in any sense. I’ll consult with her sister, see if she wants in.

Housekeeping

On return, Suli, our cleaning lady for many years, had arrived, and had already guessed from the rearranged furniture what had happened since her last visit two weeks ago. But we shared a bit of a cry. “Oh, I hoped I would see her one more time,” she said.

After Suli had finished and left, I sorted the rest of the laundry and got that going. And put the sheets back on the bed. And called a two of Marian’s insurance companies. Oddly, the drug benefit company said they would be informed by Medicare, and would process the termination then. The other, AARP medicare supplement, didn’t say that, and processed the change at once. Whatever.

Finally I reverted Marian’s phone, an iPhone 6s, to factory default and then installed Uber and Lyft apps on it with new accounts. The plan is for Marian’s sister Jean to use that. She’s not had a smart-phone; and I’ve offered to let her use this one, while keeping it on my T-Mobile family plan. It would probably cost me money to go back to a single line plan anyway.

Still plenty of time then, for

Entertainment

About 4 weeks ago, while I was sitting in the audience at the Pear Theater waiting for the play to start, I checked my email (as one does) and saw one from the Fox Theater in Redwood city announcing a concert by Jake Shimabukuro. Knowing he sells out quick, I managed to get two good seats before the lights went down in the theater. A week or so later it was clear that Marian’s strength had declined such that she wouldn’t be able to attend using her walker, but the theater assured me she could come in the wheelchair.

Well, that didn’t come to pass, and yesterday I contacted our friend Wally and asked if he’d like to come. I left early in order to get a quick supper at the Five Guys burgers next door to the Fox, which was fortunate since traffic was a mess. I know how traffic is, on a rainy evening at 6pm; yet it always comes as a surprise. Anyway I did manage a quick bite, met Wally, and attended the concert.

Jake is truly a master and for this tour he has teamed with two other virtuosi, Dave Preston on guitar and Nolan Verner on bass. Still, I thought the concert was a little bit long and repetitive. The absolute best moments where when Jake stood alone and played a standard, acoustic ukulele. His ability to pull sophisticated, complex counterpoint out of that tiny instrument is amazing.

So home to fold the last load of laundry — including Marian’s three favorite tops; another grief spasm — and write a blog post.

Day 1 – de-invalid-izing

Sunday, 12/2/18

In the morning, in the hours waiting for the hospice nurse to come and “pronounce” Marian dead, and the further hours waiting for the mortuary crew, I hung out in the kitchen, notifying people. I wrote the final journal entry on Marian’s cancer blog. Posting that automatically informed the many people who’d registered to it.

Then I went through my Google contacts list, then got her laptop and went through her contacts, cross-referencing and making a list of everyone we knew who hadn’t registered to the blog. I wrote up an email based on the journal entry and BCC’d that to those 20-odd names. And I made a few phone calls to close relatives.

But with the removal of the body, and nothing more to do, I moved around the rooms, and it felt — stuffy. Over the months of increasing illness we’d accumulated a thick layer of “invalid stuff”. A walker. A commode (horrible thing, she hated using it even more than I hated emptying it). A wheelchair. An oxygen machine. Elder diapers (“insurance pants”, we called them). And medicines everywhere, in the bathroom cabinet, in the bed table, in the kitchen.

I opened every window in the house and turned the HVAC fan to “circ”. Then I  rounded up every bit of invalid stuff and corralled it in one room. Anything that might have value for someone else, I stacked in an island in the guest room, but a lot of stuff that didn’t, went into the trash. Illness and feebleness and stinks — out!

I collected all her meds, 30-40 pill bottles and tubes and boxes. They made a fat bundle in a plastic grocery bag; I’ll take them to the clinic to deposit in their medicine discard bin. (And now I just remembered there’s another little cache to get.) Eventually I was shivering (the air coming in the windows was about 60F) but the place felt cleaner.

Transition begins

Monday, 12/3/18

As noted, this is a blog about the experiences of an older man, newly widowed, adjusting to life as a bachelor at age — shall I be coy? Naw. Age 76. A healthy 76; after all, I ran my usual 4K jogging route this morning without stopping.

Just a day ago

Let’s get real. As I write it was just over 24 hours ago that the extremely polite men from the mortuary contracted by the Neptune Society carefully and respectfully wrapped Marian’s body and wheeled it out of the house where we’d lived together for 45 years. She loved this house and more than once said she wouldn’t leave it alive, and like most things she said, she was right.

Her end was not at all unexpected; she and I were in no kind of denial about her diagnosis, or the reason she was being cared for by hospice nurses, not regular doctors, or the steady deterioration in her strength.

I’ve had several months to think about and pre-plan my transition to codger-hood — since her diagnosis in April, really, and more intensely since the oncologist said “there’s nothing more to do” back in September. I’ve got quite a list of policy decisions and possible actions to take during this transition — a transition I expect will take more than a year, or might never end.

One of the early decisions was, “blog it”, and I set up this blog weeks ago. (I was delighted to find that “codgerville.net” was available.) No, I didn’t tell Marian I’d done it. We did talk about my future as a bachelor, and she had several very sound suggestions. But it seemed a little presumptuous to take actual steps.

In hindsight, an amazing amount of stuff has gotten done in that 24 hours. On the principle of not making a blog page too long, I think I’ll break off here.

Costs of keeping the car vs. using Lyft

One of the things I’m considering, as I approach codger-dom, is whether I want to keep the 2012 Prius PHV, upgrade it, or dispense with car ownership entirely and rely on occasional rentals plus lots of Lyfts. (I generally prefer Lyft to Uber, although I use both.) Hence I was immediately interested in an article in the SJ Merc today (1 Dec) entitled “Why owning a car is still cheaper than hailing a ride.”

It was a couple of years ago that I first ran through some back-of-the-envelope numbers on this. A relative was getting where he shouldn’t drive and I wanted to urge him to give it up in favor of ride-hailing.

Start by adding up all the costs of owning a car for a year. Most of us could do a quite accurate job of this: the insurance ($1500 for me — and that’s with a good driver discount), the maintenance (with the Prius, another $2000 which includes an allowance for a new set of tires every 3 years, and paying for a carwash every month or so), the license and the fuel. Well, can’t be arsed to get up and get those numbers. Let’s just take the AAA average for 10K miles in a small sedan. As cited in the article, that’s $5800.

My typical Lyft bill is pretty close to the average cited in the Merc article, $13. I think I could come in lower if I always took Lyft’s carpool option, but let’s go with that number.

$5800/$13 = 446 Lyfts per year. That’s more than one Lyft per day. Would that be enough? Um… probably not. Because if you take a Lyft to go somewhere, you also need a Lyft to get back. Just about every use of Lyft implies two trips, out and back. Go to the museum for a docent round in the morning, and out to a movie at night: four Lyfts. Supposing I average three Lyfts a day (2 some days, 4 other days), that’s 365*3*13=$14,235. Hello!

So it looks as if my best option is to keep the Prius with its high reliability, low maintenance, and excellent fuel economy, for as long as I can safely drive (a decade at least, barring strokes etc.). In Prius forums people routinely talk about going over 150K miles, and mine is just at 50K now. In other words, it should outlast my driving years. If I get to a point where I prefer not to drive at night, I can take Lyfts for evening trips; or if I don’t want to drive (say) up to SF for a concert, I can take CalTrain plus Lyft. Those rides would be extra expenses (any reduction in fuel/maintenance costs would be small compared to the Lyft charge) but I can afford them.

Maybe I’ll give the Prius some love, get the paint chips on the bumper fixed, some other appearance upgrade. But not do what I’ve been tempted to do, buy a new Honda Insight, Chevy Volt, or Prius Prime. A new car would change the numbers significantly. If I want to drive a new car, I can rent one.