• Shawn and Marjorie Brimley playing guitar and having fun
    Things That Suck

    To Update the Account

    At 5 am the day Shawn died, I called and woke up my friend Becky. I needed her to get my will and bring the advance medical directive to the hospital so I could take over the medical decision-making for Shawn. She woke up our friend Michelle and they called a lawyer, who helped look over the documents. They got everything digitized and brought hard copies to me by the time the sun came up. I never needed them. Shawn died too quickly. I didn’t have to make any truly terrible decisions about his end-of-life care. But I’ll never forget them arriving at the crack of dawn, paperwork in hand.…

  • Shawn and Marjorie Brimley in love holding hands
    Family & Friends

    I Knew You Before

    Sometimes, when I try to remember my life before Shawn, I draw a blank.  I can remember fun college parties, my awesome job working at a summer camp, and a general warm feeling about childhood.  But right now, everything still seems a bit hazy, and thus my memories aren’t always so clear.  For those memories, I need people from way back when.  I need people like my friend Gabrielle. Gabe and I met in Italy, thrown together as roommates in a city where we didn’t speak the language or know the culture.  It was the spring of 2000, and we were young and stupid and adventurous.  We had a deliriously…