My heart felt like a slab of meat dropped on a butcher's floor when my sister recently looked at my old cat Michael and announced, "Wow, he's looking pretty rough." Sure, Mikey's 18 years old, he has a right to look rough and the veterinary past with major credentials to back it up. But those words were like putting the kybosh on old Mikey. The last time she said those very same words about Mattie he was dead 3 weeks later. I'm so superstitious you'd think I had Gypsy origins, and hearing that Mikey looks "rough" fills me with dread. She and I share Useless Psychic Events with each other all the time, but I don't want her UPE's suddenly materializing with frightful accuracy on my cats.
Last May I was about to leave for about 5 days for my birthday to visit Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Utah and Jen was over learning the drill on how to take care of my many cats. Where each one's dish is, who eats in what order, who gets what pill, and a reminder to say hello to Baby who will never venture down from upstairs. Mattie, my yellow dandelion of a cat, shuffled into the kitchen just in case food was involved. That's when Jen declared, "Wow, he's looking pretty rough." Well, he's old, I countered. Mattie had been limping for years, a sliding shuffle to his gait since toxoplasmosis had attacked his brain, front elbows stuck out from arthritis. He'd never been big on self-grooming since he had a hard time twisting his body around - perhaps from an injury before he adopted Bob & I. All this made him look older than his years, which I presumed to be 15. But could have been more since we would never know how old he was when he wandered into the yard.
Mattie was the appropriate name for him because his long yellow fur was so thick with mats Bob swore he had tumors until I shaved the lumps off. Over the years Mattie also had bouts of asthma that meant he had to live on daily prednisolone for his scarred lungs that worked at only half capacity. Sometimes he'd even had fluid build up in his lung cavity which doctors removed with a needle and tested ad nauseum for fear of lymphoma, heart disease, etc. None of which he had. At long last a heart specialist realized that Mattie's diaphragm was perforated, probably all his life, and some organ had pushed through it. All the more reason Mattie had more difficulty than most cats in breathing. But that precious sunflower of a cat dealt courageously with every physical challenge that came his way, and never took the easy way around, even when we made the house handi-cat accessible.
When Bob died I relied on Mattie's loving, consoling nature more than ever. Bob had nicknamed him Matt Matt the Comfort Cat, and he was exactly that. Mattie would stare at me with huge alien eyes and wait for me to get comfortable so that he could then get comfortable. Usually that was under my left armpit or directly on my chest where he could continue to stare at me. Then that purr, that big rumbling, two-tiered purr, would start up. No mistaking his happiness. If by chance you did miss it, then the strings of drool would clue you in. Always had tissues nearby to mop up the drool. Since Mattie granted me one kiss per day I preferred them to be dry. Mattie lived 18 months after Bob died. He got out of the animal hospital the same night as Bob first went in to the people hospital. He'd had fluid removed again and in retrospect I guess it was miraculous that he lived another 18 months without the fluid recurring. When it did so, it was with a vengeance. One very hot morning about 2 weeks after my return from Utah Mattie kind of jumped toward me on the mattress, an odd move for him. He always moved methodically and slowly. When I turned toward him in surprise I saw that he was open-mouth breathing.
There's no time to wasted with a cat in that condition. I didn't even know cat mouth-to-mouth if he died. I threw him in a cat cage and raced down to the cat hospital in the Jeep, not giving a shit how late I'd be for work. We were sent on to the Emergency Hospital where Mattie stayed for work-ups and fluid removal. He came home, only to have it return again. Unable to sleep one night (sometimes I swear I could sense things) I noticed his sides heaving in and out with difficulty and off we rushed at 1 AM to the Emergency Hospital yet again. Despite the declaration 18 months earlier that Mattie did not have heart failure, the vets wanted to check again and so he was scheduled for an ultrasound. In and out of the hospital so many times, all I remember was a $1200 bill and the feeling that he was worth any amount of money, as long as he lived.
It began on a Thursday. By Wednesday evening the following week the vet somberly told me that they had accidentally pricked Matt's lung while aspirating fluid so now his lung cavity was refilling with both fluid and air. I brought Mattie Fancy Feast because no matter how sick he ever was, he always had an appetite. I brought my camera, feeling that this may be my last night with him (just as I brought my camera inexplicably that last night Bob was alive). Matt was confused. Why was he on a metal table? Why was I taking pictures of him? Why wasn't I taking him home? For such a sick cat he was restless. If I'd been allowed to bring him home he would have punished me when we got there by laying on the floor with his ass facing in my direction. That was his way of telling me I was on his shit list. The shit list never lasted long, though, and I was always back to being his favorite mattress before long. It broke my fucking heart every time I left him at the hospital. Doubly so because I'd only lost Bob, my human soul-mate, 18 months earlier. It was impossible to accept that I could now lose my feline soul-mate.
The morning of Mattie's ultrasound the vet called my cell phone at work and told me to come as fast as possible, Mattie was not going to last long. The same words I'd heard the morning Bob died. The air would not stop bubbling into Mattie's chest and they had him in an oxygen box so he could breathe. On my way I drove madly, running up over curbs, sobbing "Please don't die before I get there. Please wait for me, Matt". And he was alive in his glass oxygenated box when I arrived, but only because they'd saved his life one more time by aspiration before I got there. His big black eyes widened when he saw me, like he thought I was there to save him.
But they'd already saved him so I could be with him when he died.
I had no time to question the vet's decision. Although Matt looked fine (his lungs temporarily able to move freely), I didn't have much time before he'd struggle to breathe, then suffer. I didn't want him to even get as far as a struggle. If he had to die it should be peacefully, in my arms. I wrapped that beloved creature in his favorite pale yellow fleece blanket and held him in the crook of my arm. Cradled. He rested his head on my heart, just as he'd always liked to do. All his life he'd been like a baby, needing to feel my heartbeat. The staff gave us some time alone together and I cried and apologized.
I did everything I could to save you. I am so sorry.
I let the vet know when it was time. When his lungs started expanding more. Before either of us could panic. Before it could be any more traumatic than it already was. She knelt in front of us and Mattie was still, no longer restless like last night, just seemingly content to be in my arms, wrapped in his blanket. If the fluid didn't return, he'd be he same healthy, albeit old, Matt he was just last week. But we knew it was coming and nothing could stop it. So she inserted the needle and injected the concoction of soft, quiet death, then left us alone together again.
Neither of us had moved. I could pretend he was still alive. It was easy. I could pretend that he could still feel my heart beating and that it had simply lulled him to sleep. But I knew the truth and so I wept. I sat so still. He's asleep . . . don't break the spell. The vet padded back in after a while and I nodded. She could take him. I should have let the dream remain, that Mattie had just gone to sleep in my arms, that the pretend was real, he was just alive and asleep. I never should have looked. But I cursed myself with a look as she rose with my baby in her arms and I saw his head limply slide. That broke the spell. He was dead and there was no way I could pretend otherwise. Once I saw that limp head roll the way the living's never do, the spell was over.
My Mattie's spirit lives on in my heart. I like to think he slipped into my heart when he died against its beat. I believe he valiantly lived those 18 months after Bob died because he knew I desperately needed him. I think animals are greater, more mystical beings than we humans, and they can do things we cannot. Except live forever.
I knew he was getting old and decrepit. It's not like I was in denial. But when Jennifer said "he's looking pretty rough" I felt two things: defensive and a fear that she saw something I hadn't recognized. All I know is that within weeks he was dead and those words have haunted me since. If only I'd known, I never would have gone away for even a few days when Mattie only had weeks to live.
Mikey is old. He was here before Mattie and somehow he outlived both Mattie and Bob. He's still Top Cat in the household, but he's 6 pounds less cat than he used to be and had to go to the vet today for a strange new drag in one back leg. Perhaps injured in a fall from my too-tall bed. He blatted like a baby lamb all the way too and from the vet in the W. B. Mason cardboard box I had him in. I was afraid stuffing him in a standard carrier would hurt him more. When he got home and ate in ravenous relief, he then went upstairs to vomit all over my bedroom rug. His eyes are cloudy these days, i'm not sure he can hear much besides a can opening. He's got slow, chronic kidney failure and manageable hyperthroidism. Hell, the old guy isn't going to live forever but his quality of life is still very good even as the equivalent of a hundred year old man. Every night when he settles on my right shoulder I remind myself of this: treasure every moment, tell him I love him all the time, because he could go at any time.
After all, he's looking pretty rough. And I feel like the Grim Reaper follows those words.
too many people seem to find the holidays a chore and i find that sad. to them, i guess, the spirit was lost. perhaps long ago. perhaps when they found out santa claus wasn't real. but he is. he may not be a jolly fat elf in red velvet, but he is a spirit that should live inside your heart. a symbol of the joy of giving. within your reach. why should it matter so much how much money you have, how much you spend? where has the simple joy in giving gone? a handmade gift matters as much as a store-bought X-Box. more if you ask me.
in 2006, as december progressed, i spent every evening in a bentwood rocker as bob lay on the couch, weak from cancer, chemo and radiation. the past summer he had grown birdhouse gourds in the garden and we dried them during the fall, then scooped out the seeds and guts through an inch wide hole to hollow them. i am no painter by schooling (any art i have has come to me naturally), but that winter i took up some brushes and mixed colors as i sat in the rocker. i was my own worst critic as the little gourd paintings took shape, but bob urged me on. and indeed they took shape. a Modigliani lady for jennifer, a buddha for joanne, a sunflower for mom, a little house and white picket fence for bob's sister irene. secretly, as bob slept, i painted his christmas gourd upstairs in my computer room where there was no risk of him waking and seeing my surprise. it was the simplest gourd. all it had was a big red heart surrounding the birdhouse hole and I Love You painted in black script. the hole was the o in love.
on christmas morning it was his best loved gift. he loved that silly and simple gourd more than i ever would have imagined and had to have it on the coffee table so it was in his line of sight at all times. after all, cancer had made the couch his home. he was too weak to celebrate christmas more than our morning together and i was loath to leave him even for a short while to visit with my family, though he insisted. he gave me 2 things, neither home-made, but both from the heart and so special to me. one was a cordless drill and matching kit of bits, something i have used countless times since his death and thanked him inwardly every time. it has literally been a tool of survival many times. a tool that offered me his help as i work alone now. the other present was a necklace, a wave of diamonds that delicately hang in the hollow of my throat. the TV had advertised the design as Forever and that, to me, is what he was saying his love was. i think of him going out to get it, gathering all his strength just to do so. he made sure his gifts to me were meaningful, lasting, and i treasure them. in contrast, i didn't know what to get my dying man. hopeful things like a workshirt, jeans, things he could wear when he returned to work. all the while i knew he never would. but some part of me thought that if i acted like there was a future, i could make it happen. yet they felt so lame as he opened them. until he unwrapped his I Love You gourd. i said "it isn't much....." and he said "are you kidding? i love it!" and it was clear by the shine in his eyes that he did.
when bob died just 3 weeks later i brought his ashes home in a simple plastic and surprisingly heavy black plastic box. i knew of no urn, no box he would choose for his ashes. but then i thought of the christmas gourd he loved so much. an odd final resting place, but then bob was no average guy, and there was no question in my mind that he would have said a hearty YES! when i chose it for his ashes. a simple black rubber stopper from the hardware store is glued in what would have been a bird's entry, the o in I Love You. in his last days bob almost never had it out of his sight and now it sits always in my line of sight as i sit where he once lay. his favorite red electric christmas candle flickers nearby. never unplugged since christmas 2006 and still flickering as if by magic for 2 years. i could not pull the plug and extinguish his light, and it feels as though he's kept it lit long beyond the natural life of any real bulb. i am silly, sentimental, superstitious.
last valentine's day i stood on the back steps where we used to lounge around and shoot the shit together and i released 2 helium balloons into the cold winter sky. both silver, heart-shaped, with a red heart and I Love You on them. ribbons knotted together so they'd stay together wherever they went. yet they only went as far as the giant oak tree in the front yard, caught perhaps 30, 40, 50 feet up. tangled together in branches to bounce off one another in the wind. from my computer room window i could look right out and see them, slowly fading to simple silver over time. they'll never break free, i thought. slowly they deflated but still tossed with the wind together and periodically i'd stand in the yard and look up. still together, still there.
until this christmas morning.
for christmas i gave myself a 'present from bob', a ring with a pink tourmaline in the shape of a heart, hugged by 2 diamonds. it hung in a little gold box in the christmas tree until i opened it christmas morning and slipped it on atop his gold wedding ring which i wear on my left middle finger. then i dressed, fed the cats, then set out into the cold snowy day to feed the bunnies and fill the bird feeder. there, caught in the curlicues of his grape vines, was one of the valentine's balloons. somehow it had broken loose from its mate, from the tangle of branches, and fell right into my path despite the wind that blew. i put the coffee can of seed down in the snow and trudged over to rescue it.
i was filled with wonder on christmas morning. i looked up, and there was the other heart still caught in the tree, but in my hands the other flattened heart balloon still clearly read
I Love You
my pink heart ring paled in comparison to that gift. coincidence, you might say. it just happened to blow out of the tree, happened to catch in the vines. but i am not the most observant person in the world, yet i saw it glinting there. the wind was blowing hard - why hadn't it taken it away? it could have gone anywhere and yet there it was, right where i could find it on christmas morning. whenever i used to doubt something bob used to say "oh ye of little faith." but this, bob, i believe.
my last gift to him on christmas was I Love You and on this new christmas the I Love You was returned. i could not feel sad in the face of such a gift and looked up at his other heart in the winter-bare tree, saying aloud "thank you, bob" with a smile and happy tears.
this morning my hands were in both the toilet and the garbage. i may never bite my nails again. why should a toilet flapper leave me sobbing over the tank like Lucille Ball, wailing as if i'd lost my best friend? but i did lose my best friend. he would have known how to fix it. he knew how to do everything and, if he didn't, he figured it out or made it up as he went along. he'd never cry over a toilet flapper, or over cheap trashbags that breed holes and spill cat letter all over the bed of the truck on the way to the dump. he never would have filled the trashbags beyond their apparent "Hefty" capacity. "always trying to stuff ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag," he'd say to me. and it's true. the men at the DPW with their tanned legs and orange shirts look the other way when i don't have enough lime green dump stickers on my trashbags. they let me slide. they knew bob and they know he died. perks to being a widow.
so my hands smell and i find myself wondering what it is about all garbage that makes that singular smell? and why is the inside of a toilet tank black when the water is allegedly clean? i scrub my hands only to get dirtier, spending an hour or so on the back porch roof buttering it with tar patch. my red Vixen nails outlined in tar. i've added gasoline to the mix because that's all i have to remove the tar. if i lit a match would my hands explode into torches?
bob used to put cigarettes out in open coffee cans of gas. it's not the gas that ignites, he'd scoff dismissively, it's the fumes. and if it's in an open container in open air then you got nothing to worry about. still, i'd back way off when he did it, convinced every time that he'd explode into a human torch. but he never did. he always knew his stuff.
a long, achingly hot shower and i'm still vaguely perfumed with Regular Unleaded and my nail beds are still black. the trash is gone and the roof is almost entirely patched, but that goddamn toilet flapper still has me down. when i removed it from the tank i found that the reason the toilet runs is because the rubber stopper is crumbling at the edges, letting water seep. i can't wait to see this month's Water & Sewer bill. bob, always prepared, had a toilet repair kit on the basement workbench. so i brought it upstairs with complete confidence that it should be a snap. but of course it wasn't and now the old flapper is back in its place and i have to remove the tank lid and make sure the damn thing securely plugs the hole every time i flush. so i'm flushing a whole lot less.
i'l try it again tomorrow. surely if i can fix a roof i can fix a toilet. bob never would have imagined me fixing a roof or a toilet. i'll show him i can do both. i'll put on 1.75 strength reading glasses and maybe i can see through that water better. maybe this time i'll read the directions or consult my Tuff Chix Guide to Home Repair. my sister gave the book to me for my birthday five months after bob died. hard to misplace, being bright pre-teen pink. bob would have a good chuckle because he knew i never read directions, much less a guide. but i swear i did read the "how to" stop a faucet from dripping and i'm still intimidated by plumbing. so my answer was to shut the cold water supply off and brush my teeth real fast. the Hot, after all, turns hot real fast.
did so many things break when bob was alive? did he invisibly fix everything before i ever knew it was broken? could he fix me if he was here? if he came back alive, it would fix me, i'm sure.
but the reality is i am stymied by a jammed garbage disposal (hint: there is a Reset button). jammed it trying to stuff ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag.
(i wrote this one night in 1986 on an old-fashioned typewriter and haven't changed a thing just because. it's nothing more than my farewell to my devoted cat, from childhood to adulthood.)
i remember how i cut off his long white whiskers and kept them in an old cardboard jewelry store box so that if he ever died i would have something to remember him by. that was when he was barely more than a kitten, a three dollar cat my father bought for me to replace a cat that disappeared on Halloween night. now the three dollar cat and i are sixteen years older and we are looking at each other over expanse of of my white sheeted bed. i start to cry and Fearless looks at me, his yellow-green eyes rheumy with age. understanding.
he is dying and i no longer have the long white whiskers to keep to remember him by. i lost them years ago, perhaps believing that he would live forever. other cats have come and gone, but Fearless has alwaysbeen here. he's never been sick, never injured, never beat up. he's always been a fat lump of black fur sitting at the edge of the garage, waiting for somebody to let him in and feed him. he's led an ever-hopeful life, walking in his funny stiff-legged way to meet me half-way up the driveway. looking expectantly up at my face as if this was the night he was sure he'd be let in. that fat cat never knew when to stop eating, and when he'd demolished everything within his reach he'd settle his bulk at the end of my bed so that i would have to arrange my sleeping position to lay around him. "Put him on a diet," my family would say as Fearless benignly licked the last of a Friskies Buffet dinner from his lips, his stomach nearly hanging down to the floor. but how do you put a cat on a diet? i took for granted that Fearless would live forever and remain fat even if he were starving.
my opinion is changed now. my poor, ravaged cat sits before me with bones sticking out. his black fur is dull and lifeless. he is dusty looking and constantly shedding. he seems so very old. i lay with my head close to his, talking to him and petting him, telling him how glad i am to have had him for my cat and how i love him. his back ripples and his purr rumbles throughout his body. he loves me right back. he has been my friend for sixteen years, my buddy. a cat so full of personality you couldn't help but like him, even when he drives you crazy.
i remember leaving him at the vet's to be declawed because he was destroying the front of my parents' house. when i went to pick him up the veterinarian and his assistants gathered to say goodbye to Fearless, telling me they could hardly bear to see him go he was such a characer. i wanted to say "well if he was such a joy, how 'bout destroying his bill?"
Fearless would put up with anything as long as i was paying some semblance of attention to him. when we cut wood and brought it in to the house he would follow me back and forth out to the woods, over and over. "stay," i'd tell him, "i'll be right back." but he'd accompany me roundtrip over and over again. he would hobble out to the pool on the hottest days and sprawl his body under the lounge chair i was sunning myself on so he could shield his black fur from the sun. he was happy as long as i talked to him periodically and didn't splash him when i jumped in the water.
i have a picture of him on my bulletin board. he is buried up to his nek in a pile of fall leaves. he didn't mind it any more than he minded being dressed in a doll's dress and bonnet when i was a girl. he didn't mind it at all compared to the time i dropped him in the pool to see if cats could swim. or as much as he minds it every spring when i put the hose on him and lather him up with shampoo. he always submits with resignation, then looks at me in disgust as he stalks across the patio shaking off droplets of water and licking his fur dry.
he is never mad at me for long. he has always adored me even when i ignored him or refused to let him in. he has always been so definitely my cat and i am reminded of this whenever he does anything particularly offensive like use the bathtub as a litterbox. i am always urged to take him whenever i've moved away from home, though i am torn because he is so used to that place and its safety. Fearless doesn't fare well away from home. in my first apartment he disappeared for hours and not even the mention of food would draw him out. when he'd grown accustomed to the place he decided that night-time was cat-party-time. he'd howl songs to the moon, bat at the stereo's speaker wires, and scrape kitty litter out of the box and onto the cold bathroom tile just for fun. all this would routine occur at one o'clock in the morning. at another of my apartments he had a horror of the sound of traffic so close to the house. after all, he'd never heard any before. he would press te bulk of his body against the screen door, squawking like a row until i let him in off the porch. it was funny to see him scared of something because he'd always led such a casual 'fearless' life. even my mother's large German Shepards would give up on Fearless when they realized the large lump of black fur would pay them no mind. Fearless even managed to be home by dinner time the day my mother dumped him off on a dirt road over a mile from home after he'd devoured a bag of deli meat left out on the counter. i sat tearfully at the back window that night until i saw the recognizable blur of black and white fur that was his face march with determination across the back pasture.
Fearless eats his can of Friskies in his usual way. with one white paw he scoops out the meat and eats it. He acts like a person. I wish he could talk. i think he would be a riot, witty and sarcastic, commenting sardonically on his failing faculties.
he always seemed so ageless, but age has caught up with him this year. he is an old and decrepit cat now. he seems deaf to anything other than the sound of an electric can opener. his arthritis makes him look like he is walking on eggshells. Fearless has slowed down, if indeed that is possible.
But what a long, rich life he has led. he's been around a lot longer than most cats. he has lived out his nine lives, i am quite sure. yet his impending death to me is like the end of an era. i cannot imagine life without Fearless.
tonight may be the last night we spend together. i am going to shut out my light and pet my old friend until he falls asleep.
i turned my new-found roof repair skills to the bunnies' winter condo today. all summer they reside under the pear tree in the shade, catching breezes. all winter they live closer to the house in a wood & glass rabbit hutch with a whimsical rabbit shaped window facing south.
bob built both condos probably 15+ years ago when i had my first bunny, elliot, a dwarf dutch bunny. fur the color of a fawn with white wrapped around his shoulders. ellie lived 10 years, long for a rabbit, until he succumbed to some bizarre brain parasite that first made his head tilt then took him away entirely within a week, to die in my arms. i took his death hard and never came to peace with it until perhaps a year later when i lay on my back in the dark, in 'corpse pose' in yoga class. i'd begun to feel that familiar sensation of floating. you know the feeling when you just barely put your palm to water. that sense of being barely connected to surface. when suddenly out of the darkness elliot hopped, not bound to earth in any way, and slipped into the rabbit hole of my heart. from that day on i continued to miss him, but never again felt i'd lost him. instead he'd become a part of me.
then came pippy & gonzo, twin brothers who looked like elliot but unfortunately loved each other more than they'd ever come to love me. they did, however, accept petunia. i inherited petunia when my mother's other rabbit petie's cage had been torn open by some predator. as was petie. thus petunia came to be part of a threesome, and she liked it. the boys loved her and snuggled on either side of her slender body, and i called it a 'tunie sandwich'. collectively they were known as 'the Pippies'. less impersonal than 'the rabbits'. one by one, however, pippy & gonzo eventually died over the years. bob said they ate themselves to death. they were quite fat. finally only petunia was left. she was a happy and loving white bunny with brown/black ears and nose. her red eyes were preternatural and ruined her chances of being a bunny beauty queen. but we loved tunie.
one day i discovered a lump on her belly which turned out to be breast cancer. if female rabbits aren't spayed early on, and live long enough, they are good candidates for this. my parents had never spayed her. when i took her to the vet they removed not only the tumor, but also gave her a hysterectomy since she appeared to have cancer in her uterus as well. they handed her back to me with the warning that she'd probably only live about 3 months despite my best efforts. a year and a half went by. then i found another lump. breast cancer again. as she recovered from her second surgery i thought tunie should be the poster bunny for breast cancer. she deserved a pink ribbon. bob and i dubbed her 'the energizer bunny' because it appeared that nothing could kill her. even the predator who'd taken petie had spared her.
finally, a few months after bob succumbed to cancer of his own, i discovered yet another lump on tunie, this time on her side. by this time she was living with a smaller version of herself named violet. that is until i realized violet was peeing on her and therefore wasn't the girl bunny we thought. and so violet, now a boy and then a eunuch, is what i call my 'transgender bunny'. i had to separate him from his beloved tunie. at 10 years old and stricken again with cancer, she had no energy for the likes of him beyond touching noses through cage walls. this time the news was bad. this cancer had already invaded her lungs and there was nothing they could do. i asked 'how long?' and they shrugged. 'just bring her in to be put down when she appears to be in pain'. i don't know how to tell when a bunny is in pain. they are masters at hiding their weaknesses. how would she let me know? every chance i got i would let tunie hop around in the yard, free in the grass. sometimes it was harder and harder for her to get upright and at last i put her in a box and called mom to please take us to the vet. it was time. i waited for mom on the front lawn and as the SUV pulled up, tunie leapt out of the box and went hopping - as if she hadn't a care in the world - around the front yard. even escaping my attempts to catch her.
it wasn't her day to die.
mom left and i spent the weekend giving tunie the run of the yard under my watchful eye, expecting i would find her dead in her cage every morning. i did battle with myself. was it up to me to decide when she should die? it turns out the leap from the box and the escape from euthanasia was tunie's last hurrah. like bob, she rallied fully to life before death. as with bob, i was there for her death. as with elliot, i held her in a towel in my arms and watched it come. i don't know how she told me it was time, but i knew, and i held her. my energizer bunny's heart stopped beating as she lay next to my own.
and then it was only violet. but not for long. some irresponsible child lost interest in its black & white dwarf bunny and its irresponsible mother was going to set it loose in the woods to fend for itself. my friend called me to spare its life and, sucker that i am, i took it home and named it Gianni. naturally it too was not neutered so that cost me a nice piece of change, but i wasn't about to have violet or gianni succumb to testicular cancer. not after all i'd been through in the bunny department. violet had never lost his Dominant Bunny standing and wouldn't hear of gianni sharing his cage. bunnies may appear to be sweet, but really they are both cruel and gentle things. without my intervention gianni would have been murdered by violet's hand. or teeth, as it were. they are content to sniff one another through the cage wire, close enough company for either, which is unfortunate because they will never know the warmth of a 'tunie sandwich' on a cold winter day.
it is september 1 and before i know it fall will be here. violet had eaten the plywood roof of the bedroom of his condo last winter, perhaps from boredom, and so i set about repairing it today. it looked like the ruins of Katrina, but on a manageable scale for a lone woman and her table saw. i ripped off the old shredded plywood and replaced it with leftover kitchen countertop cut to size. then i screwed leftover roof shingles to the top, triple level! no wind, rain or snow will breach my roof. it took a hammer and nails, a measuring tape and heavy duty scissors, my trusty cordless drill (one of my last gifts from bob) and the Workmate 400, which i hauled up out of the basement with much difficulty. the last step will be the final seal with roofing tar. but i am far too exhausted at this point to carry a huge can of tar down a ladder from the porch roof.
i know it was mostly my labor and ingenuity that resulted in a beautiful new roof for violet, but i also thank bob who taught me how to do these things. maybe i should offer myself up to Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans. but in my world animals come before humanity, and my humane society (2 bunnies and 6 cats) is hungry right now. as their keeper, slave and recipient of their boundless love, i must obey their call! this energizer bunny is done for the day.
i'm sorry. those are the words you find yourself screaming and sobbing sooner or later when you lose someone or some thing precious to you. it may make no sense whatsoever. you may have done nothing to cause their death, you may have done everything to prevent it, you may have taken the very best care of them. somehow, though, deep in your psyche you feel responsible. sometimes. not always. but when it comes it's devastating.
that's how i've felt.
i can't say i'm sorry enough.
when bob first complained of a gagging sensation and inability to swallow i can look back and reassure myself that i did urge him right then to go to the doctor. but he wouldn't. he was TOO BUSY. maybe that's why i hate those words now. they are such bullshit words. i hate people who are too busy. they're too busy running away, whether it be from emotions or illness. if you stay busy enough you can keep pain at bay. so you think. but in the end it will get you. so spare yourself, be brave and make time for it now. while it counts. in bob's case we missed the chance to find out he had cancer 3 months earlier. maybe it would have made a difference. i'll never know now.
i urged him to go to the doctor every time it happened, but he wouldn't go. maybe he was scared to find out why. maybe he knew it was bad and didn't want to know for sure. he used to say "if you go to a doctor they'll find something wrong with you". as if you'd always be fine...as long as you never went to that doctor. why didn't i make him go? i tried, i know i did, but you can't make a grown and stubborn man do anything. and he was, after all, too busy. he had a job he felt responsible for reporting to every day on time, just like he had at every job before that. he never took an extended lunch hour. sometimes he reported back for work before he was even due.
i didn't know it, but he was actually going to lunch that summer more than he ever had before at any time in his history. i know why now. he was trying to eat as much as he could to battle the way the cancer was whittling his body away. candy, potato chips, fried chicken. after his death i found candy wrappers and empty chip bags in his truck. he was battling cancer with junk food. he should have spent one lunch hour in the doctor's office instead of Zee Mart's parking lot, enjoying their fried chicken. the doctor would have sent him in for an endoscopy right then. maybe before the cancer had the chance to network its way down to his liver.
i stupidly waited the marina season out and cancer had that much more feeding time. he would not agree to go until late october, even delaying one appointment by one week. but by then it was too late. i used to yell at him in a rage when he'd be incapable of finishing his dinner. when he'd dart into the bathroom as it came up immediately. i'd yell "do you want to end up talking through a hole in your throat with a computer voice?" obviously, i had the wrong tube, and may have known it, but i wanted to make some impact, however crass. i actually think that was the very thing that got him to finally agree to a doctor. that and the fact that by then his knees and his back hurt too.on halloween eve he told me the doctor didn't seem to care much about his swallowing, she was more concerned with the fact that his liver felt enlarged. "don't tell my daughter", he said. she was heading over to the house with the children for halloween. "she'll worry."
that was our last night of innocence. blissful ignorance.
when his blood test results came in he was impossibly anemic and soon a CT scan showed 3 tumors in his liver, one six inches in diameter. and then an endoscopy showed esophageal cancer. stage four cancer. and ten weeks later bob was dead.
why didn't i take better care of him? i am not sure why we do it, why we blame ourselves sooner or later. i am sure i am not alone. other 'survivors' must feel this way too. i know so. you can't explain it to a shrink much less a friend or family. in fact, i feel certain others must blame me too. as much as i blame myself. why didn't she take better care of him? how did she not notice all the weight he was losing or his abrupt and odd appetite for high calorie food? anybody else would have gotten him to a doctor sooner. he wouldn't have died. i guess it's easier to blame myself than it is to blame bob because he already suffered the ultimate price. and it's hard to comprehend that maybe no one is to blame. doesn't it have to be someone's fault?
but the 'i'm sorry" isn't just for failing to keep him alive. it's for every single wrong i ever committed. it's just that the worst was that i couldnt save him.
sometimes, crying, you need something to say. something that means something, something you can blurt between gasps for air. "i'm sorry" is perfect and, like the tears, relieves some of the pain.
until next time.
bob was doing laundry one night. god bless him, he liked to do laundry. but that might have been because he knew he'd have nothing to wear if he waited for me to do it. i was sitting in the living room when he passed through, laundry basket on his hip, and i heard him open the basement door, flick the light switch. and then roar "What the FUCK is a DUCK doing in the basement?" abruptly the door slammed shut as if he'd seen a ghost. and in a way he had.
naturally, the idea of a duck in the basement was curious to me and so i got off the couch to go see what the raving and ranting was all about. bob stood there in the kitchen, laundry basket toppled over on the floor, gesticulating wildly. "there's a dead fucking duck at the bottom of the stairs!" naturally, the idea of a DEAD duck in the basement piqued my interest even more. i opened the basement door and peered down and, sure enough, there at the base of the stairs, posing as if left as a sinister message by some duck-killing Godfather, was a dead duck. sure enough. it was incongruous, puzzling, baffling, mystifying. i remember that night like a film reel whirring in my head. bob, usually the Big Brave Man of the House, was quite unnerved by this duck while i thought it was the most hilarious and bizarre thing i'd ever seen.
we have CATS for god's sake! FIVE CATS and not one of them noticed a duck in the basement? and how did we not hear so much as a quack? bob wracked his brain. we'd been in the basement several times in the past week doing laundry and never suspected the presence of Dark Wing Duck haunting an already spooky cellar. the windows are not only all closed but sealed with plastic to keep out the cold and the damp. the vent for the dryer was quite intact. there was no conceivable way for a duck to wriggle into our basement that we could see. sure, bob had the hatchway open about 2 weeks before....but we've never even seen a duck overhead much less in the yard, so how could one have waddled its way down the steps unnoticed as he did whatever it was he'd done with the hatch open? there was no good reason for a duck to be on the ground, in the weeds, near our house much less in it.
but there it was. dead at the bottom of the stairs. bob was convinced someone had broken in and left the duck as a warning of some kind. yeah, the mafia is using ducks these days, bob. sure. and what could we have possibly done to deserve an incomprehensible message in the form of a dead duck anyway?
bob had the heebie-jeebies something fierce and found my uncontrolled laughter very disturbing. but come on! it was the craziest thing i've ever seen! i wasn't terribly concerned about how it got there, nor did i believe it was some evil prank, i was just insanely amused. but bob. he was not.
he got a snow shovel and scooped the pretty iridescent and speckled duck up off the cement floor and really, about then it did take on a certain "blair witch project' element. i opened the hatchway and followed him, still giggling uncontrollably, out to the woods out back, guiding his way with a flashlight.
then bob got a pitchfork and i must say he was looking a tad deranged at this point, scratching his head in the flashlight's beam and digging a shallow grave for a duck. he wanted to banish it from his life. it was too disturbing for him to wrap his mind around.
we never solved the mystery of the dead basement duck, though he spent the next hour examining every nook and cranny of the cobwebby realm where a duck had, apparently, waddled around for what may be days quacking amid the heater and the rusty paint cans and the washer and dryer. and we and five cats never suspected a thing.
