1/9 On grief and life choices. 3 1/2 years ago my son Elijah was diagnosed with DIPG, the deadliest childhood cancer. I was divorced and living in CT at the time, and he was in Wash DC, w/ mom and sister. I immediately moved down to take care of him until he died in April 2017.
2/9 I’ve been living in DC ever since. I told myself when Elijah got sick that I would never again prioritize work over my kids. I had spent years chasing academic brass rings, missing lots of time with the son I will never get to see you grow up.
3/9 I can’t get that time back, but I’ve chosen to spend my present and future with my daughter differently. The choice was easy, but it isn’t without cost. I’ve spent the last 3 1/2 years living 350 miles from work, where I will need to start commuting to in a few weeks.
4/9 I live in a city where friends are scattered, and where I have no daily interaction with my colleagues. It is often isolating. I feel guilt for a lot of things I’ve done over the last 3 1/2 years. These days it’s for not being a good colleague, mentor to my grad students.
5/9 The trauma of slowly watching my son die has rewired my brain. I live with depression, anxiety, and grief. My concentration and productivity are still shot; writing is a huge struggle (tough when trying to finish a long overdue book). Adjusting to this is deeply humbling.
6/9 I have found some comfort in works such as Sara Brach’s Radical Acceptance and other writers who have helped me to see the virtue of letting go of my past life, my past self, and being ok with a slower, less productive, hopefully more balanced way of living.
7/9 I try and look at all of this as a gift - time with my little girl that I might not have appreciated otherwise, and some gratitude and humility about the limits of ambition. Academic life is such a grind, and we are taught that striving is the goal. It is not for me anymore.
8/9 I don’t write this out of self-pity. I’ve already wallowed in plenty of it, and others have it harder. More out of appreciation that even the right decisions in life can be hard, and that a reordering of priorities via trauma and grief is a bitter fruit.
9/9 we spend so much of our lives as - our public lives anyways - defining ourselves vocationally, through publications, accolades, recognition. I realize now how fleeting and trivial these seem (to me, at least), when I’d gladly trade it all for another hour with my son.
