Off-ramps on Life’s Highway

I recently attended an in-person grief support group here in Hong Kong. I had signed up several weeks ago, put it on my calendar, and then completely forgot about it until I got the reminder email the morning of the group. Things have been extremely tumultuous recently, so a whole big part of me wanted to skip it. I’m not in the frame of mind to meet new people. But when I thought about cancelling I realized this was something I really wanted to try out, and putting it off another month wouldn’t change much. It was better to go this time and decide sooner than later if it was beneficial or not.

It was beneficial.

I’m an introvert (which no one who has spent any time with me in real life believes) and my least favorite activity is a group situation with strangers that has no structure at all. This was not that. It was well-facilitated right from the moment the first person walked in. Everyone had a chance to talk if they wanted but there was no pressure to do so. The guidelines were clear that we were there to listen and support, not to talk over anyone or tell them what to do. This was also beneficial, because while grieving a loved one is the common denominator, everyone’s situation is unique. We may be walking the same road, but we’re doing it with different baggage, in different shoes.

An idea that came out of this experience is to not push myself to move on from this sorrow, but instead allow myself to continue moving forward, carrying it with me. Words and their meanings are important to me, and there is a difference in those two ideas. It’s definitely something I’ll be thinking about in the days and weeks to come. As I left the group I thought of the Disney Pixar film Cars, and the very catchy soundtrack tune Life is Highway by Rascal Flats. It’s upbeat and fun so I smiled at the idea of moving forward with such a bop playing as I go. And then tears started falling as I had an image of myself, still on the highway of life (moving at a glacial speed but still, in fact, moving) while my Beloved is not.

Michael has taken an off-ramp from this long, winding road trip. And I’m learning it’s not just one off-ramp, there are several. For instance, it was very painful to flip my calendar from December to January. Michael was alive for part of December and turning that page felt like a form of leaving him behind. It was made worse by knowing it wasn’t just a new month, but a whole new year. I was moving into 2026 but Michael’s time here on earth will forever remain in 2025. And there are so many other examples popping up all the time.

We have lived in Asia the last fifteen years, which means I have another way of marking the years using the Lunar or Chinese calendar. This is done in a twelve year cycle, using a different animal for each year. When we moved to Macau fifteen years ago, it was Year of the Rabbit. We’d previously lived in both Japan (during Year of the Snake) and Hong Kong (during Year of the Rooster). I remember not-so-secretly hoping during our move to Macau that we might be able to stay in Asia for twelve years so we could go all the way through the cycle and end up in Year of the Tiger, which represents the year I was born.

We moved from Macau to Shanghai and then back to Hong Kong, but we did in fact stay in Asia all twelve years. To mark that milestone, I commissioned a local mahjong tile artisan to create a piece of art with all the animals in order, starting with our Rabbit year in Macau and ending with Tiger in Hong Kong. I asked her to change the colors on the tiles which represent our family, Dragon, Goat, Pig, and Tiger. I love it so much because it represents our time together as a family abroad in a unique and meaningful way.

Hong Kong, Macau, and obviously China celebrate Chinese New Year for over a week, with lots of activities and traditions. And because Chinese New Year is such a big deal, I am amused to find I remember many of our milestones not in what calendar year it was, but what animal it was.

It wasn’t until Chinese New Year arrived that I realized it also presented yet another off-ramp for Michael: While the boys and I continue this highway of life through a second twelve-year cycle in Asia, Michael’s journey with us ended in Year of the Snake.

Welcoming Year of the Horse last month was strange. I found myself pushing away this alternate form of counting time, as if it hadn’t been a huge, joyful part of my life since 2001 when we first moved to Japan. How am I expected to keep moving forward while my favorite travel companion isn’t right here with me to enjoy everything still to come?

And now we are faced with another off-ramp, long before we are ready.

If you and I are connected via Facebook, you’re likely aware of the ongoing saga surrounding our home. We have a huge-by-Hong-Kong-standards but petite for America apartment, which is actually two flats with the dividing wall removed. Our previous home had been an ongoing nightmare of things breaking and miserable neighbors, our current home has been a dream come true in comparison. We love to host people for dinner and conversation. Our current place came with a large central space big enough to fit a table that seats twelve, a glorious open kitchen with gasp a dishwasher, and it even came with double gasp a washing machine and a separate dryer! All things we haven’t had since we left America. Our sons had separate rooms and a bathroom on one end of the flat, while our room was at the other. Plenty of space for four adults to do their own thing, while also having a large central space to gather together. Dreamy.

Shortly after Michael’s diagnosis, we were told the owners of this dream home were anxious to sell it. From my understanding, they’d been forced to repatriate to Australia at the start of Covid due to work, and now that they are entering retirement, they are being taxed at a significant rate due to having rental property abroad. They wanted to sell this place, and fast. But there were a few problems.

First, as I mentioned, this is a double unit. Two deeds, two mortgages (and two water, electric, and gas bills if you’re curious). Second, we were living in it, with a contract through October of 2026. Per the real estate agent (and everyone else we spoke with), it’s difficult to get a mortgage in Hong Kong if you do not intend to live in the place you are getting the loan for. And, as we have already established, because it’s two units, two loans would be required. So this lowered the buyer pool to people who were looking for investment property who could pay cash for the whole thing, buying it with tenancy in place.

We weren’t thrilled with any of this — it added more uncertainty into our already bumpy existence with Michael’s health. Due to the owners’ increasing urgency to sell, the agent was anxious to show it as frequently as possible. And due to Michael’s extremely immunocompromised state when he was home or me visiting him twice a day in the hospital when he was not, it was a challenge to find a time people could come by. And an even bigger challenge to keep the flat in a presentable state while I was exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally.

This was also a time we were turning away our closest friends from visiting unless they were perfectly healthy and masked. Suddenly the agent was traipsing through our home with strangers, peering at intimate parts of our life, seeing not just our home but my beloved husband in a frail and vulnerable state. The stress and anxiety of this was so extreme I would hyperventilate each time I saw the agent’s name pop up on my WhatsApp (just remembering this and writing it down is making my heart pound).

Everyone assured us it probably wouldn’t sell, even the agent herself acknowledged the difficulty of selling a place, especially a double unit, with tenancy, in this current market in Hong Kong. There was also some protection in our lease which held any buyer to the terms of what we had signed, at least for most of 2025. So it was stressful and inconvenient but we were somewhat confident we wouldn’t be kicked out in the middle of Michael’s intensive treatments.

Hong Kong has a somewhat standard contract when it comes to renting a home. It’s generally a two year lease, with the first year fixed so neither party can get out of the lease without buying their way out. The second year either party can give two months notice to end the lease, penalty free. We entered that second year of the lease mid-October.

The last time a potential buyer looked at our place was on Halloween. I remember because I opened the door to people in ninja and princess costumes and felt surreal confusion. There was also deep concern since they’d clearly been in a crowd of people trick or treating with their kids and we were practicing an extreme form of crowd avoidance to protect Michael’s health. He’d had a blood transfusion that morning and had just returned home from his stay in the Infectious Disease Isolation Ward at Queen Mary Hospital for his horrific case of Shingles. And though we didn’t know it, he was just two weeks away from leaving our home for the final time, when we took him to A&E because of his shallow breathing and he was admitted to the ICU. I was so stressed at this added intrusion into our safe, peaceful home, and regularly feel gratitude that there hasn’t been anyone coming round since then.

This Sunday evening I had a conversation with the boys about our housing situation.

I said we should agree to not worry about it until we are forced to worry about it. We all decided that was a great plan. I slept pretty good that night. And then the very next morning I got a message from the agent: the flat has sold, the owners were officially giving us two months’ notice to vacate our home.

I was filled with more dread than panic. I know we have many people we can call who will help with the physical task of moving (and if you’re nearby and reading this, prepare for the call!). But there is no one but me who can do the heavy lifting of downsizing our belongings, deciding which beautiful items filled with stories in our home will now need to end their journey with us because of lack of space.

All of Michael’s clothes remain in his closet, his drawers still full, his nightstand untouched. I knew it would be difficult to hurry through the process of deciding what to do with everything, so I decided to be kind to myself and allow for more time to pass. Our lease was up in October and I knew it would be unreasonable to expect the owners to sign a new one, certainly not at a price I can afford in this new life without Michael and his salary. It felt like October was a manageable amount of time to do something with his stuff. Now there is a much sooner deadline. Not one I created for this task, but one thrust upon me. I know I’m not ready.

And so we approach this new dreadful off-ramp, yet another split where Michael exits and we continue on. My sons and I will move out of this final place where Michael lived, the very last address all four of us together as a unit called home. Every other place I go in this world, every lease I sign, every call I make to set up the gas or electric in a new house, will be without him. This is so heavy and horrible. Knowing it was going to happen someday does not make it better today.

Yes of course I will carry Michael with me in spirit all the rest of my days. But in our 31 wild and beautiful years together, with moves all around the planet and back, we were a powerhouse of a team, both pulling our weight while fully trusting the other to do their part. We made moving house look nearly as elegant as ice dancing at the Olympics, but only because we’ve done it so many times and worked so hard at it. In our three decades together Michael and I have lived in twenty different homes. It’s beyond my comprehension at this present moment how exactly I am supposed to move house without my teammate there to lean on, to rely on, to have him do his part. And more than that, I simply don’t want to do it. Any of it.

This highway that is my life without Michael’s actual, physical presence here with me is not a pleasant journey right now. Zero out of ten, as they say, do not recommend. I don’t know what else to say other than our dog Lucy Rocket is pleading to go to bed and that feels like reason enough to end here.

More soon.