Rewiring

Grief doesn’t just bring pain — it transforms perception. I want to be an active participant in the ways that grief is changing how I am wired.

Grief causes feelings that are deeply contradictory to how I am wired. It literally changes neural pathways, and what I am noticing is how it forces new, uncomfortable ways of thinking that defy the optimistic, pragmatic, harmony-seeking person I’ve always been.

Grief doesn’t just bring pain — it transforms perception. I’ve written about my grief as I’ve experienced it emotionally and physically, as waves that crash and recede. Grief is rewiring me in quiet ways — reshaping identity and instinct. And I’m only just beginning to have the capacity to examine.

John and Raffa exactly a year ago, November 18, 2024

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During the time between January 2024 and June 2025, while we lived with John’s diagnosis, we lived for the future — never anticipating nor wanting to believe that John would become a statistic of this disease. Quite the opposite: our natural optimism had us believing we just needed to take small steps with John’s care and treatment, to keep kicking that can down the road.

In marketing terms, John was an Innovator — energized by technology and always among the first to adopt it, even ahead of early adopters. He brought this mindset to his work in Product Management, which is why he was so animated by the possibilities of AI and its role in his process. And he even applied this mindset to his determination in facing cancer and to have his future.

We didn’t imagine John would necessarily be cured, at least not before meeting Dr. Williams at the Williams Cancer Institute, but we believed at the very least we could buy him increments of time — six months, a year, maybe two years at a time. With so many promising immunotherapies and new research emerging, we were counting on the pace of progress to carry John further into his future. John was doing all the research to learn about those possibilities. And when he no longer could, I took over that research.

We shared firm optimism. For lack of a better phrase, we are both glass-half-full people. That optimism wasn’t just a personality trait; it was our practiced worldview. It shaped how we approached challenges, decisions, and even uncertainty. That optimism — especially John’s, in the face of what he endured — propelled us. And it was a gift.

But grief has disrupted that wiring. Grief is inherently pessimistic. Honoring knowing and loving John invites gratitude. But grief also compels me to focus on the negative — the loss. It insists on the wrongness of losing him. Grief inherently focuses on who was lost and all that was lost along with him. And this turning toward the hurt and devastation goes against how my mind ordinarily operates — seeking optimism.

Grief is stronger. I cannot avoid, nor do I want to avoid, being pulled into the depths of the hurt — I am willingly facing it.

The three of us just before my and John’s flight to Mexico on June 2, 2025. It took so much just to get him to the executive terminal that day. John and I did our best to smile optimistically. I felt like I was focused (on getting John to Mexico) but also avoidant (at just how dire things were). I can clearly see his discomfort and unease on sweet Raffa’s face in all the photos that were taken this day.

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I never subscribed to the ‘good old days’ way of thinking — the notion that looking back, things were somehow better. I have lived grateful for the life I was in, grounded in daily rituals and routines. I think that’s why I find so much joy in ordinary moments. We never needed grand celebrations for anniversaries or birthdays, because each day felt like its own quiet celebration of the life we’d built.

But grief is rewriting that. Because now, my past truly is the good old days — not through the haze of nostalgia, but through the clarity of loss. I am forever changed, and because John can no longer be a physical part of my present or future, the days we shared will always stand apart as better, in an unalterable way. That doesn’t mean my future won’t hold goodness — happiness, contentment, even joy — it already does. But my life is different now, and my past with him will remain frozen, memorialized.

It’s not nostalgia that colors those memories; it’s truth. The world — my world — was fuller, warmer, more whole with him beside me. Grief doesn’t let me escape that reality; it shines an unrelenting, honest light on it. My challenge now is to honor those ‘good old days’ — that truth, without illusion, and find my way forward.

Those ‘good old days’ with John and Raffa at Diablo Lake in the northern Cascades, August 2019.

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I am not someone to hold on to anger or resentment. In my personal relationships, I have always prioritized kindness, mutual respect, and authenticity. I’ve been fortunate to be surrounded by people who reciprocate that care and consideration, meaning most of my relationships feel grounded in mutual love and respect.

Unfortunately, not every relationship operates this way. Our relationship with John’s parents has consistently been complicated, marked by their patterns of dysfunction and toxicity that brought stress over the years. We maintained that relationship as best we could, setting boundaries to minimize harm, fostering the relationship even at the expense of our comfort at times. John and I navigated the challenges of that relationship together, supporting each other and Raffa through it, within our family of three.

Immediately after John passed, however, John’s parents’ sense of entitlement to control, connection, and access, fueled their behavior to new heights of cruelty and became unendurable. My instinct to maintain that connection was challenged. Grief gave me permission to step away — to say no more, to protect our peace. It went against everything I had previously believed about what I should do: that continuing to nurture the relationship, even when it brought stress, discomfort, or harm, was the right course — because they were John’s parents. But grief changed that calculus.

I do not share this to vilify anyone; grief simply compels me to speak the plainest truth. For Raffa and me, new boundaries were necessary, even if it meant breaking patterns I had long followed to attempt to foster a relationship and connection. I had always led with kindness but had been met with cruelty. Grief forced a reckoning: to protect myself and Raffa in a way John no longer could, knowing what John would have wanted for us, and to protect our peace in a world without him. This has been a very painful part of the story.

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December 2022 - This photo was larger and included more of our family. But I zoomed in because I really like this photo of me and John. Our family came over and we were building gingerbread houses on this afternoon.

These are some of the ways grief has challenged my innate ways of thinking. I am not ascribing wholly positive or negative judgment to these aspects of grief — I am observing them, trying to understand them, and learning to move forward with my eyes wide open. Not to allow grief to alter me in unknown ways, but to use its pain to honor John — and myself — as I build a life without him.

That is the innate positivity in me — which despite everything — I still have access to. Taking this trauma, the worst thing that has happened to me, I’m facing its hardest parts and choosing not to let it embitter me or diminish the beauty in my life. Just as John faced cancer with the best of himself.

Inevitably, this grief will change me. But let me be an active and aware participant in that process, so that the best parts of who I am — the traits I shared and cultivated with John — remain.

Us, November 2019, just after moving back to Denver from Seattle.

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I finished writing this essay this weekend. And this morning, I went through my folder titled ‘John Photos’ to choose the photos. Looking at photos of John, he is so real — it seems more believable that the vibrant person in these images is still here, because it makes so much less sense that he is gone. Except that photo from June 2, 2025 — that version of sweet John, hallowed by cancer and with less than a month left on this earth. That photo blares at me with the truth I couldn’t see, couldn’t face at the time.