Lukas

 

Oh my boy, my sweet, sweet boy.  

I found this unpublished when I came here today.  He died on July 31, 2020 and I swear that it is as  painful today as it was then.  It is honestly better that his sister is with him; he was always lost wihout her.  But sitting here with my feelings today, I started to think of him and his toys, almost an outline for a children's book.  I thought of him full of life, teaching love and trust.  Those dogs were so much more than they seemed. We were so blessed to have them in our lives.  I just to share this little thought that I wrote back then.

You were the most loyal little guy that ever lived and you must never think that you were any less loved than your sister.  You were our playful guy, the one who knew the name of every toy that had ever come your way.  Your most beloved Foxy was with you for playtimes up until the day you died, you, hardly able to walk, standing behind that toy, asking me to throw it for you.  I am so honored that you spent your last two weeks wanting to be safe in your pouch, or on a lap, sleeping the day and night through, always touching us, trusting us.  I carry you with me in my heart, caring for your sister who will join you soon, being the pure, joyul spirits that you always have been, no longer trapped in these old limited bodies.  

When I look up at the stars, I know that you are there somewhere, chasing falling stars, maybe, and watching over us the way you always have.  Thank you for loving us.  We will never, ever forget you; we will never stop loving you.

Finnegan Chases the Light

 

He was only ours for about 10 days.  I took about 100 pictures, took him to the vet, bought toys and clothes and walked him religiously.  And then he couldn't be ours anymore.  We weren't ready.  It wasn't the right time.  I loved him almost immediately.  He was almost perfect...and then he wasn't, and he had to leave.  It kind of broke my heart again.  

This is what I wrote about him that 1st week:

He came to us as Finn.  He immediately became Finnegan Waddington McMaster.  This is the first moment he came into his new house, wearing his new Hufflepuff hoodie.

We weren't ready.  

I still carry the loss of Lukas and Zuza like a carefully bandaged wound.  Most of the time, the bleeding is controlled and the pain muted, and then something rips off the Band-Aid and I feel like I am hemorrhaging grief.  Carolyn, too, is struck with days when the grief simply will not let her go.  Yet, for both of us, there are mostly good days, where we remember the incredible joy that our babies brought us.

We weren't ready.

It's 1 degree out today.  Real dogs need to be walked.  My hands won't close to a fist.

He was a lover, had some really odd quirks that were funny and incredibly cute.  He was obsessed with light--like the reflection from a watch that moved around, or a laser pointer, and he pounced on them like a cat!  It was adorable!  Zuza and Lukas did the same thing with the laser, but they were a third of the size of our smallest cat.  It looked different on them.  We have a projector that puts dots on the  living room ceiling which are sometimes still, and at other times, move.  He would sit, staring, transfixed by these mysterious, untouchable bits of light.  

And he had a flaw that, as Not Really a Dog Person, I didn't recognize in time, didn't know how to fix, and frankly, scared the crap out of me.  If Carolyn wouldn't have been preparing for a total shoulder replacement which would knock her out of being able to train him, it might have worked, but she was.  She was in constant pain.  He was 30 freaking pounds and pulled like a Malamute.  And he bit me twice, Carolyn once, and failed in his last attempt when he lunged for my face but, miraculously, I leapt back in time.  He did resource guarding, which I get, but I had no idea what he was guarding.  It turned out sometimes to be bags of recycling that weren't immediately near him, but in the same small area, and I just couldn't read the signs in time.

After that, every time he pressed forward to express his undying love by licking my whole face, including my eyes, which was often, I flinched and leaned back.   He was a light chaser, something I need in my life to keep the darkness at bay, but I couldn't let him in anymore.

I wasn't fixable.  And I wept when I let him go.  

He lives with someone who loves him and can train him out of that behavior, and I am so happy that he is loved as much as he deserves.  He has a job visiting people in a nursing home.

I miss him.  

My Precious Zuza

I have sat staring at this blank page, day after day after day.   It seems that there is nothing more likely to cause writer's block than grief.  Of course, it could be tied to the fact that I have to stop and find tissues...or maybe just that I am not willing to say goodbye to her yet.  Yet, it is something that I must do, I think.  And I do want to share the wonder of my little dogs with the world.

I wrote those words almost 10 months ago.  I have some handwritten essays/journal entries that I've written this year...but I have found myself unable to do more.  With her death an entire era of my life ended.  I feel like I have lost a part of my soul.  Sometimes, like now, I forget to breathe, I forget how to breathe.  I forget why I should keep breathing.  And it isn't like there is nothing else in my life that is important, or that I love.  My wife, my sister, my brother(in-law), my friends, my music, even my work, however disjointed that has become since I hover between Covid and retirement--all of these are rich, passionate relationships.  But Zuza lived for almost 15 years as a part of me.  My sister said that Zuza lived just on the other side of my heart.  She was right. There Zuza sat, for hours every day, perched on my left arm, my heart beating beneath her, both of us, in our union, protected from all the dangers of the universe.  I was my best, bravest self with the help of a crippled three and a half pound dog who felt that there was nothing that she could not do. Amazing. She was a Force. 

I feel the emptiness there now.  It is cold without her warmth, without her little head tucked under my chin.  

Zuza lived from February 2, 2006 until January 21, 2021.  I truly believe that she is alive now, with four sound legs, two bright eyes that sparkle with intelligence, and the ability to speak whatever language it is we will use in the afterlife,  

She's waiting for me.  

Mind Boggling

I published this story on July 24, and then, the next day I realized that there were a couple of typos.  Augh!! I quickly pulled it back to fix them.  And in the cruel way cyberspace sometimes acts, it erased the whole first paragraph and refused to give it back.  It took me almost two weeks to come back and fix it.  But it's important to have this little snapshot of my sweet boy at this time in his life.

At 14 years and 5 months Lukas is sliding quickly away from us.  Most of the time, he walks slowly and stiffly, hips and knees not cooperating.   He sleeps a great deal and most of the time, he prefers a small bed near the table where both Carolyn and I sit to work on our computers.  He can be pretty crabby, especially in the morning, which is absolutely the opposite of who he is.  He has always been the sweetest dog, an incredible drama queen, definitely a lover, not a fighter unless it was to defend his sister from all perceived dangers.  But now his mind is....boggled.  He is off in some other land and seems lost

Most heartbreakingly, it appears that he sometimes doesn't know his beloved sister.  She has been his protector, his safe place, his happiest moments all of his life.  Every day when Zuza and I would return from work, he would come alive, greeting her hysterically, wanting to play, dashing around in absolute glee.  (She, of course, would look at him with a certain alpha dog disdain.  "Yeah, whatever.") But she then would spend an inordinate amount of time cleaning his ears, washing his face, being the Mom, all the while cuddling with him.  Now he growls and lunges at her, often enough that we seldom leave them together unsupervised.  It is most heartbreaking that it really scares her.  She's completely blind now, so she can't tell if he is growling at her or at the cats and it is much harder to protect herself, so she tries to hide.  The most unnerving thing that he does, however, is that he hallucinates.  He snarls and growls at invisible things.  Sometimes he lunges. It honestly shakes me to the core.  

Then he gets his medication, which is mostly for pain, arthritis and otherwise, and an appetite stimulant.  Then he's back!!  Our old Lukey!  He wants to play with his favorite toy, Foxy; he's hungry, he's hopping up and down!!  He's funny and happy and wants to be with me every second.

And now he wanders.  If he was a human, we would be locking the doors and making all of the cabinets impossible to open.  He has forgotten how to back up, so if he runs into an obstacle he gets stuck there.  Yesterday, in the house, he walked into teeny little places from which there was no return, squeezed between a piece of furniture and the wall.  One time, I was just outside disinfecting the mail--yes, I still do that--and he was in the living room between a box of record albums and a wooden dog crate, and he just started screaming at the top of his lungs.  I'm outside yelling--because he's really deaf now, "I'm coming Lukey!  It's okay!  You're all right!" as I dash back in.   The next time, I was in the kitchen and heard very loud rustling and crunching noises.  He was in a space that was perhaps an inch and a half wide, behind a wooden chest where an egg carton, (waiting to be filled by our chickens), had slipped.  Once again, there was no reason for him to be there.  And once again he was completely foiled by the obstacle.  I spent the rest of the day with him in a pouch, strapped to me.  The new normal.  And how long will this normal last?  I don't know.

Living with loved ones who are slowly sliding down the path of dementia is an excruciating business.  We learned this lesson thanks to our friend, Susan.  In the end, she made her own decisions about how and when she wanted to die.  With Lukas, this decision, like most of the others in his life, lies with us and the forces of the universe.  I hope that I can be strong enough to bear the weight of the life of this waif, my boy, my little man

Fireworks 2019

Last night I saw the best fireworks show ever. Our neighbors do this every year, but we usually have to go home before it starts because it has always made Lukas insane. He could still hear it at home, but it would be quieter and, of course, his barking and shrieking would only bother us, not the entire neighborhood. Zuza would just take it in stride, the way she always has.

This year was different, because they are both different.  Lukas has lost a lot of his hearing. It's harder because he can't hear the quiet praise and soothing sounds we make when he's upset. On the other hand, noise is much less of a problem. Innocent hikers walking by the house are finally safe from maniacal barking, and some trucks pass unnoticed. Woo hoo! Zuza's changes are harder to bear. She had to have an eye removed in January because of an abscess. The cataract in her remaining eye has destroyed her vision. This journey I'll detail in another post, but for the purpose of fireworks, her condition has made loud noise really scary.  She flinches every time there is an unexpected, sharp noise--hammering on the house, a dropped pan, a door slam.  The funny thing is that TV noises don't bother her. All kinds of mayhem can go on and she sleeps right through it. So, we left them home with a TV western blaring on the TV, and they were happy to sleep under a blanket in their best bed. And yes, they have a "best" bed.

So all that to say, amazing fireworks, right around the corner from our house, blossoming right over us.  Incredible colors. Incredible noise, including that sharp whistling that is usually followed by a soldier shouting, "Incoming!"

And suddenly I was a little girl, nestled up against my Dad, on the shore of Lake Winnebago at Lakeside Park in Fond du Lac.  We were talking about which of the fireworks we liked and which ones we didn't. Neither of us liked the "duds", ones that shot up and then, no colors, just an earth rocking BANG!

And who protected who in those moments?  My Dad came home from WWII shell-shocked--that term that became PTSD--and didn't go to the fireworks in my earliest years. I only learned the reasons after his death, in a random conversation with my Mom.  When he came home, she learned not to serve him coffee in a cup and saucer because his hands shook too much. At night he would cry out, and jump, and thrash. She said that she knew it would embarrass him, so she never mentioned it.

All those years, all those memories buried deep inside him.  No one ever let him talk out any of that fear, any of the revulsion he had felt at the destruction he saw.  He never told war stories. To my knowledge, he never wrote to the men with whom he served.  He said that he never wanted to return to the cities he had seen intact...and then torn up.  He never returned to London where he had grow up; he never saw Italy or France again.  And, I believe, he never appreciated the fireworks that I thought were so magical, if a bit unnecessarily loud.

This year, he would have been happier holding my nearly deaf dog on his lap in the quiet of my house, watching a western on TV.  I can't even begin to tell you how much I would love to have that be true.  The little girl I was still misses cuddling up to her Dad, listening to him explain magic.

Playing for Change, an Explanation

I found Playing For Change and linked it to my blog in 2014.  I couldn't figure out how to write on the page; it just didn't let me, so it sat as a draft for the next 6 years.  You can tell that it's not done today since all of the people are outside, surrounded by others an sitting really close to each other.  Remember hugging ? 

I looked at it again today and thought about how amazing it was that technology existed 6 years ago could let people who had never met and were all around the world sing together.  It still completely confounds me, even though I know today that it is still really hard to do.  Well, at least that's what I've heard.  

I still can't figure out how to write on the page, so I just published it and am offering this as a sort of postscript.  (Do only people who are old know what a "postscript" is?  For that matter, do only old people know what a semicolon is?)  Leaning on others seems to be a lesson we really need in today's world, as much, if not more, than we needed it 6 years ago.  So I offer it as an old/new lesson and a bit of comfort in this world filled with the anguish of another Black man's death at the hands of a cop, the indifference of government leaders in multiple countries, and the random acts of kindness in a troubled world.  Lean on me, and please, let me lean on you.

Lean On Me | Playing For Change | Song Around The World

Zuza, 2013

I found this on my blog list as a draft.  I don't know why I never published it; I suppose that I thought that there was something unfinished about it.  I can't imagine what that was, but I was still seeing myself in the not always complimentary light of working at Briar Patch, so perhaps that was it.

Zuza discovers a Bailey's glass

It was a little more than seven years ago.  Seven years!  Unbelievable that it could be that long ago.  This is a picture from about that same time, sleek coat, two eyes--doesn't feel like I'm asking too much, really.  Zuza had suddenly produced a large mass-like swelling on her belly which scared the crap out of me.  She seemed unconcerned, so it might not have hurt at all, but with her, you never know, she really didn't complain much about anything when she was a bit more mobile and closer to the Spring Chicken time of her life. She still doesn't complain much, but she has fewer ways to do things by herself now, so is required to ask for more help.

So here is my Spring, 2013 entry.  It was entitled, "Zuza, Today"

Zuza, brave little soldier that she is, is doing fine.  The unknown mass turned out to be an inguinal hernia which was easily repaired by our extremely talented surgeon.  Our other two doctors were there for consultation and dental cleaning--no kidding, they stitched her up so fast that they had time to clean her teeth.  Carolyn and I left the building while the surgery was happening.  On one hand, I do believe that there is some degree of consciousness that remains when they are sedated.  On the other hand, as she slipped under sedation and began looking not really very alive...I started to cry and figured if she could tune into me under sedation I better not be looking at her as a limp little creature. I am truly impressed with the quality of the team we now have.  She woke up quickly and, I am told, started looking for us right away.  And since it is Briar Patch and not some giant, impersonal place--and this is the bosses' kid--she went from one person's arms to mine instead of to a cage.  She kissed and kissed both of us and we held her wrapped in a blanket until I took her to work with me in the afternoon. 

Poor Lukas was incredibly worried, kept trying to squeeze as close to her as possible, and tried to clean her incision at any moment he could get in close enough.  She, in her generous way with her brother, growled at him every time he tried, even when she was too tired to lift her head.  Head down, grrrrrrrrrrrrrr, like a little gargle.

When we got home she slept in their bed by the fire with Lukas on guard in their chair next to her.  When any of the cats walked near them, he would lunge out, fiercely warning them away.  Okay, he's 4 pounds and not a rottweiler, but he can sound very, very fierce.  Unless he is frightened by scary stuff.  Like Velcro.  Or unexpected dry grass under his foot.  Or just walking around outside for too long.  Sometimes pooping scares him.  BUT, when he appoints himself a protector, it brings out all of his best self.  When we adopted Tenzing and Eddie, Lukas kept them safe when any of the big cats approached them.  He will still stop any of the cats from hissing or fighting.  And when Tenzing was sick last summer, Luke slept next to his cage and warned even Zuza away from him.

So, right now both of my canines are curled into little packages next to me on the chair.  She has a couple of ugly bruises and a tidy incision, (and me); he has his stuffed fox and a blanket, (and me).  And we're all happy.

Miracle of Miracles

So, no kidding, I witnessed a miracle this week and I promised God I'd write about it.  

I have been a tad fragile in the last couple of weeks.  And it means considerable weeping.  I am never good at finding things or keeping track of stuff.  It's just not my strong suit.  And a little deadly disease, disinfecting one's groceries and mail and newspapers, not hugging and not singing with the world's most wonderful choir, well...I'm doing an extra amount of looking for things.  It makes me testy.

A few evenings ago, we were just settling down to watch truly mindless TV in the early evening, when we got a call from dear friend Heather.  Her very big dog had just bitten her very old, little dog and there was a LOT of blood.  And it was the eye that had been bitten and maybe punctured and could Carolyn come over?  Well of course.  It took us forever to get ourselves all put together to leave the house to go into the big dangerous world.  Carolyn packed her doctor bag with whatever she thought she might need, we changed out of the jammie-like clothing we were wearing, located masks and gloves and clothing that could all be washed easily and off we went.  

I'm a decent assistant, although not as good as I used to be before my hands went to hell in a hand basket.  However, when we got there, Heather was holding the little dog like a baby and not only did the dog not fight Carolyn, Heather didn't so much as make a face when bloody awful things were happening.  Since we had left in a hurry, I didn't take my hearing aids out before I put on my mask.  Usually I do take them out.  They're teeny, tiny computers jockeying for space behind my ears already burdened with glasses, and now unruly hair clipped back away from my face, and adding the little loops from the mask is just trouble. But off I dashed off in the darkness, tucking the dogs into the front seat of the car in case this turned out to be a long night at Cornell.  

And when I got home, one of the hearing aids was gone.  We searched the car, the foyer, and the path from the house to the car. I called Heather and she went out in the darkness to search for a little brown thing in the dirt by her house.  Nothing.  Nowhere.   The next day we had monsoon rains and high winds all day.  I just resigned myself to not hearing for the rest of this year.  They cost thousands of dollars that are not covered by insurance and I'm not working for 3 or 4 months. I took the left one out to photograph for Heather and put it in its box.  I couldn't even wear it.  I only have moderate hearing loss so it wouldn't be so bad, right?  (You'll have to ask Carolyn about it because she's the one that is driven absolutely nuts when I can't understand anything she says the first time. Or the 2nd time. Sometimes the 3rd time.)

Yesterday we were gardening.  I wasn't feeling well, couldn't take my pain meds because of my gut acting up, and then I fell, tripping over the incredibly stupid rock walls we have around our garden beds.  They were built badly by NOT Carolyn who was going to rebuild them this summer after we got back from an epic vacation in June.  That was it.  I just lost it.  NOTE: I didn't fall on Zuza.  I wasn't carrying her and didn't drop her.  THAT tragedy was averted, which is handy because it's such a bad time to be institutionalized and I would have had to be sedated if that happened again.  After we were sure that nothing was broken on me, Carolyn went into the house for something and came back out looking at the palm of her hand.  "I found a hearing aid in the driveway," she said.  Unfreakingbelievable.  In the driveway.  Not squished.  Well, huh.

I took it from her and put it on.  Of course, it was dead.  "I'll, uh, go put in a new battery", I said, and left to do that.  I was already trying to figure out what to say to the audiologist.  "Gee, I don't know, it just stopped working." 

So, here comes the God part.  It was impossible that she even saw it on the driveway. It was impossible that we hadn't run it over or stepped on it.  It was impossible that one of the chickens didn't taste it.  It was REALLY impossible that it wasn't swept out to sea...okay, to pond...by the heavy rain.  I fetched a new battery.  And I prayed very, very earnestly.  

I don't really like talking about me and God a lot.  I have dealt with so many people who consider themselves serious God people and who are mostly serious judgmental, unkind, unloving people who believe that I am going straight to hell because my life partner is unacceptable in their god's eyes.  But Spirituality has always been important to me, a driving force since I was about 5 or 6 years old--no, really, I have witnesses--and it has always felt kind of private.  Maybe it was because I was raised Catholic in a small town in the Midwest.  We didn't do a lot of shouting out during services, weren't encouraged to read the Bible or have opinions about much of anything.  But since I'm like a Shih Tzu with separation anxiety, I liked the idea of never being alone, and a benevolent ally with magical powers seems like a good friend to have.  Then came Star Wars.  And Yoda.  (I love Star Wars, original trilogy, thank you).  And I'm watching Yoda explaining the Force to Luke, and I suddenly realize that the true essence of my belief system, of my capital letter "F" Faith is being summed up by a green puppet that sounds a cross between Grover and Cookie Monster.  That was humbling.



But I digress.



You guessed it.  The hearing aid worked.  I understand that it was a tiny miracle in a world that needs much, much bigger ones. But I made a promise that I would sing His (Her, Their) praises and tell everyone.  So here I am.  May you have ordinary miracles that brighten these bleak days.  



And May the Force Be With You.  💚

Lessons from Pets In the Midst of a Pandemic

I saved a frog from certain death today.  Our oldest boy cat, Adagio, really has a thing for catching frogs and bringing them into the garage.  I heard him singing the song of his people--that, "I am victorious with a mouthful of prey" song for which they are famous--and managed to scoop the poor thing up and return him to our pond.  

I am supposed to have been writing wildly for a month now.  Isn't that just what I have been whining about for years--time to write?  Now, there are other important things to do every day, and they have a lot to do with the other residents of our home--the whole thing, not the just in the house.  There are the chickens, of course, all four of them, who must be let out and in, who must be fed and watered, and who try to mob me to shake me down for treats.  Bread.  Little Debbie Snack Cakes.  French fries.  One of them--Foghorn--likes greens a lot, so she gets lettuce and spinach and whatever we have that the cats and dogs haven't snatched up, which means that peas, beans and squash never make it out there.  
Carolyn feeds the wild birds; sometimes I help with that, but she doesn't really need me there.  

Inside, there are five cats, three of whom eat in the garage and two of whom eat everything in the house.  And I mean everything.  Salads, pasta, cooked vegetables, cookies, and anything that counts as an entree. Dog food--lots of dog food. Twice a day all of the cats get a quarter cup of special dental diet food.  They LOVE this stuff which comes in big round crunchies that are designed to scrape the tartar off their teeth as they chew.  

The two little dogs are now 14 years old.  Lukas is deaf and perhaps a little senile, with terrible arthritis and not a lot of teeth in spite of three dental  procedures.  He has kidney disease and is medicated so that he will eat and so that his pain is under control.  Zuza is blind, which makes her much more crippled inside the house than she has ever been.  No more stairs, no happy wandering around the house.  There is a pee pad in the kitchen, just a few steps from their favorite bed and a water bowl to which she will go and use very consistently and efficiently. But then she needs help getting back into the bed, under the blankie and curled on to a warm snuggly--and if it is not warm enough, then there is more heartrending whimpering until she hears the microwave ding.  

Neither have ever been low maintenance about dinner time.  The canned food for Lukas must be cut into teeny, tiny bits and separated from each other.  Kibble is fed one at a time, from my fingers to his little mouth and if the piece is unacceptable for some reason, he spits it out.  Actually, sometimes the canned food has to be fed to him the same way.  Do you know how icky that is?  When they were younger we played Meals on Wheels every night where I would toss the kibble--sort of like the way you skip stones--and they would chase it down.  Of course, the cats would join in with this particular game.  Now the two youngest, Horatio and Calleigh, are right there; Horatio can grab kibble out of the air while Calleigh fields the grounders.  Sadako, with her head tilt and dealing with a world that is also tilted, no longer plays outfield, but insists on her own non-moving portion.  I do this, flinging pieces over my shoulder, while I am crouched feeding the dogs.  I must admit, however, the cats do help stir both dogs into eating.  They crowd around, trying to push their big heads into the little bowls of dog food.  Zuza always eats better if she has been able to say something nasty to any of the cats.

There is chicken coop cleaning...and litter box cleaning...and required sitting in the living room time, providing laps to little dogs with an occasional cat draped across my throat.  There are times that I feel that I have been overtaken by Tribbles.

But...most of the time, they can help keep the anxiety down to an almost manageable level and for that I'm really grateful.  The chickens are honestly really funny, and since we are not yet sowing seeds outside, they follow us as we prepare garden beds and do all of the thankless raking and pruning and soil testing around the yard.  They will jump into piles of leaves to scatter everything again, annoying, but funny-looking.  They will also dig up anything you plant, so we are going to be putting up more fencing as soon as it stops freaking snowing.

We have careful conversations with the cats, especially Horatio, about being gentle and patient and always putting all of their pee into the box.  (We were taught to do this by a animal communicator, and I swear to God it really works.  Horatio really makes eye contact, appears to listen  and occasionally comments.  And we haven't had any more litter box aversion problems which nearly forced us to give him up for adoption last Fall.  Okay, that's another story.)

About an hour after Luke gets his pills he turns into a much younger version of himself, complete with Nathan Lane-esque shrieking, bouncing up and down, playing with Foxy or any other available squeaky toy and demanding food.  Inconvenient, but it helps get me out of my head.  And Zuza...is Zuza, still alerting me when my blood sugar gets too low, still letting us know when she isn't warm enough, full enough, held enough and when it's time to go to bed, damn it.  

And she is still tucking her head up under my chin, cuddling close and letting me know that some things remain unchanged. 

Love is still here. Laughter is still possible.  

  

Susan

Susan Begg 1950-2019

I found her in her bedroom.  Hugger, her cat, had been in the window, calling for help for a few days and finally, the humans in the world had gotten smart enough to go into the apartment to check on her.  She had stopped answering her phone when we called and had not been pleasant to the neighbors that had checked on her; and so we had all backed off to let her figure out what she wanted to do.  This was apparently it.  

Fiercely independent, she died in a way of her own choosing, in the apartment that she loved. We don't really know the cause of her death, whether she had fallen or perhaps had a seizure or a heart attack due to her drinking; the bureaucratic world has made everything very slow for us "not-blood-kin", but indeed she was dead, and we had to deal with the aftermath.  One of the positives is that I had to go through her books and her METICULOUSLY saved letters to and from everyone in her life.  She had important poems and essays clipped to all of her lamp shades.  She had a million photos and journals and lists.  She also had all of the things that her mom had saved, which were just as meticulously identified and preserved as Susan's things.  Lord, Susan was as much a pirate as any of the cats in my life.  (She, being a Navy type would probably really resent my saying this, but it's true, she leapt into people's lives, took them hostage with poetry and a mischievousness that was anchored deep in her being. She held them with her brilliance, her kindness, her sense of fun and a loving heart that could touch a wide variety of people. When she had to leave, she did just that, and you were left with a maelstrom of feelings.)  

And so, she has left us for the last time.

On September 15 it was discovered that the Outrageous Susan Begg had exited this world to attend to whatever adventure awaited in the next one. She was born with at least five lives, perhaps not the requisite nine of feline fame, but definitely more than one.

 She started out a Navy brat, born on July 31, 1950, into a Navy family to Chief Warrant Officer Robert Begg and Renie Begg.  When they were stationed in the States, she spent some of her childhood in Bucksport, Maine, which was the favorite Begg gathering place.  Although most of her childhood was spent overseas and on Adak Island in Alaska, she always felt that tie to Maine.   In all of these places, she learned to love the sea, world travel, and eventually, single malt scotch.

Her next life took her to Smith College where, amidst other brilliant women, she found that she also loved women.  Pretty much all of them. 

Life number three found her enrolled in the Cornell Veterinary School. She thrived and excelled!  She was dubbed “Boomer” by one professor and did her best to live up to the name.  She found another smart woman with whom she would be involved both personally and professionally as she moved out into the world. 

In life number four she did an internship at the prestigious American Medical Center in New York City, and then a residency in Pathology at Cornell. She worked for a few years in Buffalo and then weaseled her way back to Ithaca, leaving a string of broken hearts behind her.  She worked at Briar Patch Veterinary Hospital until she didn’t.  Then she started her own business, Vet Express, where she became loved by every client who needed her to come to their house and attend to their beloved pets.

At this point, the lives she led became somewhat entwined.  Alcoholism followed her from Life #2 until the end of her life. She became very involved with 518.  This relationship was very important to her.  When she was her best self, it was when she had an outside structure, and 12 Step was a powerful influence on her.  She played softball and rugby; she became a fire fighter­­-- a job of which she was particularly proud.  She joined the Unitarian Universalists.  

Then, finally, studying and working incredibly hard, she returned to the sea by joining the Merchant Marine.  In many ways, she felt that she had come home. In each of these lives she found families of friends, lovers, team mates, neighbors and coworkers, all of whom will miss her. She is survived by her cousin, Jane Paxton, by her sweet cat, Hugger, and by a small group of longtime friends—Team Susan--who knew her for decades, and supported her for the last few years of her life.

Starting in 2016, she began to suffer from the beginning stages of an Alzheimer’s-like dementia.  Sometimes she could roll with it, telling friends to call her moments before they arrived at her house because she “couldn’t remember shit”.  As her memory failed more and more, she became increasingly depressed.  She grieved for her mother who died in 2007, but always told people that she was blessed by the friends who rallied around her.  She struggled with her old demons. 

Later it became obvious that most of Susan had headed out to sea, leaving us with a pale imitation of her former, larger than life, self.  Like the Unsinkable Molly Brown, the Outrageous Susan Begg has pulled herself out of the water and charmed her way into the next adventure.

A memorial service will be held at 3:00pm on November 16, 2019, at the First Unitarian Society, 306 N. Aurora St., Ithaca, NY.  In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to Ithaca Community Recovery, 518 W Seneca St., Ithaca, NY 14850.

      

The First Girl I Loved, Part One

It's odd that this should be my first post of 2018.  Odd that I haven't written for so long.  Some other day I will tell you why, but maybe that is why I haven't written.  I don't know the whole answer yet.

Anyway, on my way through my documents looking for the recipe for Tuna Brownies--yep, that's what I said, Tuna Brownies--I came upon something that I wrote a few computers ago and managed, through the magic of computer guys, to save.  (Tuna Brownies are actually part of another story that puts my Lukas in the limelight.)

So, I came upon the first chapter of something I have always wanted to write.  I do tend to do that, write first chapters--or titles.  I have lots of titles, most of them written down on little pieces of paper from the age of no computers.  But I digress.

This little story is true and doesn't even have a specific animal in it, unless you count four year old humans.  It's all true and no names have been changed to protect the innocent.

I think the first girl I loved was Colleen Zimmerman.  Why did she speak to my heart so?  I was three when she moved in next door.  I had a friend—Betty Rather—with whom I’d played since I was two.  But Colleen’s yard bordered mine and her house was built just like mine.  And there was something magic about her and her family and the twin, two-story houses that we lived in then.  I wanted people to believe that she was my sister.  I was a little blond girl, somewhat beer barrel shaped, with her hair in mandatory, pathetically thin braids.  Colleen was a skinny little thing...with longer braids of normal thickness. We weren't fooling anybody.  I spent as much time as I could with her. 

The Zimmermans were perfect for us, with a kid just the right size and gender for each of us.  They had an extra girl, older than all of the rest of us, but I don't think she minded being excluded.  Sometimes we all played together, shooting games mostly, lots of ducking and dying, although one famous variety show, staged in my garage, remains in my memory. Sometimes the four youngest girls became the Lennon sisters, singing siblings from the Lawrence Welk Show.  (I insisted that I be Janet, the youngest of the performing siblings, so Colleen, because she was 3 months younger than me, had to be Mimi, (the actual fifth Lennon sister, who only sporadically performed).  "Kathy" was somehow always on vacation when we performed.  I know now why I refused to be Kathy.  She seemed too much like a grown up.  I had no desire to be a grown up.  I'm not sure that I want to be one now.

Sometimes all the kids in the neighborhood gathered for frozen tag.  For Colleen and I there were dolls and countless pretend games, homes and stores and restaurants and schools, all in my garage. We rescued birds from our cats, caring for them as well as we could, and having elaborate funerals for the victims that didn't survive.  Somewhere in the yard beside Colleen's old garage, there is a metal breadbox with a sparrow skeleton.  

There were sleepovers that we tried to make last as long as possible, one time pretending to sleep until lunch time so that she could eat at my house and we could stay together into the afternoon.  Mind you, our houses were only a few feet apart and there wasn’t any reason that we couldn’t just play together outside.  But, for me, if we slept in the same house, it was more like belonging together.  On Christmas mornings we could run over to each other’s house in our pajamas to compare the haul and to envision the games that would grow out of those gifts.  And when our sisters grew up enough for a summer of playing canasta, we teased them for having become incredibly boring. 

One time, when I had done something that Colleen didn’t like, she stopped being my friend for a hideously long time, maybe as long as a week.  It was the summer after 3rd grade, for me, and I remember yearning after her, heartbroken, certain that I had lost her forever and certain that this was important forever.  I remember standing in my yard calling out to her as she crossed the street to play with the boys that lived over there (that we didn’t even like that much) and wondering if I would survive this. When she deigned to forgive me I was careful to remember my transgression so that I never would lose her again.  

She was my best friend, and in some ways I think I measure all of my friends against that first innocent love.  When we were ten years old Colleen's family moved to Iowa and I felt a hollowness that was nearly overwhelming, made worse because she was initially excited about the move and less devastated than I.

That was the first love of my life, the first real loss for my heart to bear.

A (Kinda) Happy Ending, I Think

Well...this chapter doesn't have anything to do with good-byes.  That's a relief.  I began writing it when I was dealing with January and all of its grief.  We had Zuza's surgery date, January 23, come upon us, and really, I was pretty nervous. There are good reasons for doing the surgery beyond my discomfort of seeing that blind eye everyday and being reminded of her mortality.  Untreated, there is a possibility that the "hypermature" cataract could begin to break down, causing inflammation and pain.  She could develop glaucoma, which translates into a lot of pain and the possible removal of her eye.  I realize that it could fit the pirate motif quite well, but she'd have a few things to say about wearing a patch.  And a parrot.  We had been waiting since October for this opening, (which we only got because somebody loves Carolyn up there at the Cornell Vet School), and now we were taking her there at 9:00am for her surgery. 

The first thing that we were told was that, oh no, the actual surgery wouldn't be that day, they would test her and keep her there for three or four days, (!) do the surgery, keep her another day or two, (!) and then we would bring her home.  This was all blithely spoken by the student, who then did some of the tests that I am familiar with.  She had some trouble with them and then admitted that this was her first day on this rotation and she was nervous.  She was actually very sweet, and was relieved that Carolyn was not only a retired vet, but was encouraging and kind to her, and after that didn't try explaining things that Carolyn certainly knew.  When she left, I turned to Carolyn and said that there was no way in hell I was leaving her for the week!! I mean, c'mon, we have a retired vet and a very observant dog mom in the house and...and...and!  Carolyn reassured me that we wouldn't let that happen. Then the resident came in and did everything over again--like they do--and then the grown-up doctor came in and examined Zuza and spoke with us (mostly Carolyn, because she's the real thing), and back came the student to make all the final arrangements.  

Mostly I was worried about the rehab time.  She was going to have to wear a cone of shame for a month, and you know that was going to be ugly. She was going to have a number of eye drops every day, forever--okay, that's doable--and on February 2, she would be 11 years old, going under anesthesia for the umteenth time.  And Luke would be a freaking basket case the whole time she was gone.  But other than that, it was fine.

It was decided that we would leave her there for testing that included ocular ultrasounds and electroretinagrams, and wait for a call around 4:30pm to pick her up, or to drop off her (prescription) food.  Oy.  We went to do errands.  

On a side note--it never occurred to me that one could ultrasound an eyeball, especially a teeny one.  It makes sense, I suppose, but how little is the wand?  Second, I had not heard of an electroretinagram (ERG) before, and it intrigues me that anyone can look through a thick cataract to see what's going on in there.

So, the call came at 2:30.  Hmmmm, early.

We could come pick her up, and they were sorry that she wasn't a candidate for surgery. What?!!  We zoomed back and met "our" student--I was actually getting really fond of her--and got the whole story.  Boiled down to the basics, they wouldn't do the surgery because it wouldn't help her see.  They might have done it if her good eye was perfect, but the retinas in both of her eyes had only minimal function. In fact, they couldn't say how much she was seeing now.  So, the good news is that she didn't have to stay in this very scary place or deal with all of the aftermath of rehab, and we didn't have to plunk down $3000.  The bad news is that my baby girl is going to be blind.  The student said, "You carry her most of the time, right? It won't be that different. She doesn't really need to see."  In some ways she's right. Zuza's nose works great; her ears work, and we have no idea how well she has been seeing, anyway.  She runs joyfully out into the backyard when there is no snow, jumps heroically from her little stairs to Carolyn's chair in the living room, knows the locations of every little bed and waterbowl in my office and at home, panhandles ruthlessly from my clients and the tellers at her favorite bank, and is more than content to experience outside life from inside my jacket.  So it's good, right?

We still have to worry about all of the reasons we based our decision upon in the first place, but in my non-logical heart, I'm not so worried about those things.  I can't even tell you why.  Maybe it's denial, or maybe it's living in the moment, but if I have learned anything from these pirates I love, it's to take one step at a time. Losing them is unspeakably awful, but having them in my life is such pure soul touchingly rich.  So, here I am, training to become her guiding eyes human, while she continues to be my medical alert dog.  Seems fair to me.

The Cat Who Hugs

I want to tell you an absolutely true story that won't make you cry and involves some magic. This is part of a longer story, that, sadly, involved a lot of tears and me doing my Nurse Ratched imitation, but this is, by far, the most interesting part.

This is not a fairy tale, although it begins like one.  Once upon a time, (January, actually) there was a woman who needed a cat.  Some people who loved her found her a little cat who had come to a shelter from a hoarding situation.  There were 28 cats in that house.  Some of the cats were sick and some were injured.  This cat, in fact, had suffered a punctured eye at some point and had scar tissue covering most of the eye.  And yet, with all of this, this was a sweet, loving little creature who could be held and petted and kissed.  She didn't have a name yet, was terrified to the point of paralysis and had just moved into her new home when the woman made a mistake.  She left the door open long enough for the sweet little cat to bolt out into the darkness of downtown Ithaca.

Here comes the story: 

We heard of her escape the next morning and dashed into town to begin searching. We split up at first, each doing separate "Here kitty, kitty, kitty's" and peering under anything big enough to hide a small, frightened cat. Often I would hear an answering meow and would try to track it, just to lose it in a morass of construction materials and plastic kid's stuff that had been left in a backyard.  I was wearing my pink "pussy" hat and Carolyn was wearing her "Rise Up Ithaca" hat, which might be the reason that one old guy was pretty nasty when we knocked on his door.  In the midst of crawling under porches I met a rather round tuxedo cat who was the source of the answering meows.  I would "Here kitty, kitty, kitty", and he would answer, "Yes?  You called?".  He began walking with us as we searched, chatting all the while.  As we were knocking on all of the doors in the neighborhood, asking for people to keep an eye out for her, we met the woman to whom the tuxedo cat belonged.  She told us that his name was Wilson.

We searched all of the garages that were open, put up signs and talked to many people who lived around that block.  Most of them were wonderful and one woman offered one of her own cats if we never found the one we had lost! I left my phone number with everyone.  And I chatted with Wilson.

We had been home an hour or two when I got a call that she had been sighted, so I dashed back to the neighborhood and searched with Jeremy, who had heard a distressed kitty cry right outside his house.  More searching, now with flashlights.  Wilson accompanied me for much of this.  Finally, I told him, "Look Wilson, I know that you can find her much better than we can. Please please please find her and bring her home.  The woman in that house, (and I pointed it out) "really needs this kitty home.  And the kitty needs to be there.  She's going to die out here in the cold.  Please Wilson, please bring her home."  I was sobbing by this time.

I left, feeling pretty discouraged.  

Moving into a hug with Carolyn

The next morning, the first thing I saw was a text.  It said that at midnight, our friend heard meowing at her front door, and when she  opened the door, in scooted her cat.  She said that a "big black cat" had cornered the cat on her front stoop.  WILSON to the rescue!  And when we got there to make sure that everything was okay, we leaned something new about this frightened, hiding cat.  

She hugs.  She puts those soft little white paws around your neck and moves in to snuggle.  And so, she got a name.  

Hugger.

I thanked Wilson for saving the day.  He asked me to leave food out on the stoop sometimes.  I said that it was a deal.

Whose Reality?

We--the dogs and I--are sitting in a lobby at the hospital, waiting for Carolyn to sign into the pain clinic.  Zuza is tucked in my jacket and Lukas has been sitting in the chair next to me. A man, accompanied by a nurse and a family member, was wheeled past. He was elderly and trembling and sat tall in the chair. The women were talking to him, obviously not getting the responses they were looking for.

"Well why don't you look at the cute little dog over there?" says Family Member.  They wheel him around, repeating the question, and come closer. He sweeps the room with his gaze, not slowing or registering anything. "Why would I look? How do I know what I'm seeing?", he asks.  
"Because they're so cute!", answers Family Member.
He shakes his head in disgust. "How do I distinguish what I'm really seeing?", he asks again.  I asked him if it would help if he touched them.  He shook his head and began to ask the same question again. the nurse said, "Your medication is wearing off, so you can--", he cut her off and started to ask again, obviously frustrated. They had turned to leave. The nurse came around to the front of his chair and crouched to be at eye level.  "I can't give you the answer that you're looking for.  I'm sorry".  She repeats this, and I feel that it is the most honest response he has gotten recently, and they move away, down the hall and around the corner.

It's like dipping momentarily into someone else's reality.  For Family Member, the dog's cuteness, like a kitten video, gives some solidity to the reality she is living, whether she likes it or not.  The Nurse seems to understand the Man's confusion, but can't sort it out for him, and my dogs and I are equally unable to penetrate his confusion.  I wonder what, and who he is seeing. I have dealt with three humans in the last two days who are completely untouched by my reality and the time sequences it follows.  I feel a little adrift, holding on to Zuza and Lukas like tiny life-jackets.  The Man used the word "distinguish".  He wasn't babbling gibberish; he had real concerns, real questions.  What was he seeing, and who?  And what does this say about my own reality?  The political landscape has become something similar to Alice's world seen through the Looking Glass.  Maybe that's where we are living now, on the other side of a Looking Glass, in a world unrecognizable.

And yet, I am anchored by my love for these innocents.

Tonight, hours later as I write this, my dogs have put themselves to bed without us.  Carolyn is sleeping in the chair after a hard Jubilee (chorus) rehearsal, and the Kittens are skulking like vultures, hoping that I will give them more food before Carolyn and I join the dogs,  (They know I will.  There is nothing better than being the cat who lives with an eating disordered female.)  Good Mama that I am, I will tuck us all into our respective beds, feed the fire, and do a last check of all of the doors before I succumb to the night.

I wish you all the sweet night of innocents, sleeping gently all around you.

Jesse's Last Chapter

My Jesse had her last day on earth January 13, 2017.  The new, young vet from Briar Patch--appropriately named "Kat"--came here with one of the techs, BJ, so we got to say good-bye right in the bedroom, right on the bed, where Jesse had stayed for the last couple of weeks. Carolyn didn't have to be the doctor, and I didn't have to be an assistant; we could just be the mommies saying goodbye to a presence that had been in our lives for as long as we were in each other's lives.  

As I write this, our youngest girl cat, Calleigh, is playing with one of her favorite toys in the world.  It's a needle cap from the needles that fit on my insulin pens.  There are probably 100 of them in this house, under the baseboard heaters, in the cellar, under the stairs, lurking under the refrigerator.  Life goes on, cat lives go on.

I believe that Jessa Jack Waddington McMaster goes on.  My sweet Jesse, indomitable spirit, happy and healthy and young and fearless, reaches out and finds hands that are always there to pet her. 

Silver Edged in Desperate Need

Jessa Jack Waddington 1997

This amazing kitten came to me in November 1997.  She was incredibly sick, so much so that I thought she was an amazingly calm kitten.  How wonderful, all sweetness and quiet.  And fevered.  And about to be euthanized as unadoptable.  This was the bad old days when kitties died more regularly at the Ithaca SPCA.  Her Mama had "died" and this little feral kitten was hanging by a thread.  And there I was, recently "divorced" from a 12 year relationship, headed into Heaven only knows what, with a spectacular woman--this is sincere, not sarcastic--who was allergic to cats.  And the kitten of my dreams appears, pewter gray, silver edged, in desperate need of rescue. 

Silver edged in desperate need.  Ah yes, that you were, my Jesse girl.  Ready to  teach me lessons that would take take two decades, two homes, two lovers to complete.  You were my ghost cat, the one no one knew existed except me and three other cats, Mama Kindra, Big Brother Path and your closest friend, your brother George.  Jesse was the last cat that was completely mine, adopted when I was struggling to feel complete in my own self, in my own house.  She taught me patience and delighted surprise when this sick kitten turned out to have a sense of loyalty, a sense of humor, and a sense of...self respect?  She  taught me to approach her at her own level, not as a tall, threatening presence, but as a creature on the floor, at the same level, reaching toward her--to have my hand guided by a sure paw, guided to her head, to her face, to the acceptance of a little cat who knew her worth to be priceless. The one time she escaped to the outside, I was able to bring her back in only because I used Kindra as a lure.  "Look Jesse, here kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, look it's Kindra!"  I dangled Kindra in front of her, purring up a storm, because that was what my angelic Kindra did every day of her life, and Jesse followed her back into the house.  

And here I am, my heart silver edged in desperate need, watching this old lady cat purring at the end of her life. 

Jesse, at 18, in 2015

The Year Begins...

Jesse, in 2004 

Well, here we are, poised at the beginning of a new year. It's been an interesting week.  We got home from our great train adventure, going to Santa Fe via Amtrak--that's another story, with more pictures--on Thursday, December 29.  We were just bone tired and although we actually unpacked and started the laundry, we spent a lot of time just snuggling up with all of the cats.  The dogs were happy to be in a place where the floor doesn't move while they are trying to pee.

Okay, interrupting for some technical info.  This is, once again, being typed one-handed while I have my other arm wrapped around a cat.  Calleigh will tiptoe across the keyboard while simultaneously batting objects off the table so I tuck her in close and off the keyboard.  If I stop kissing her, or rubbing my face on her head, she looks at me and cries and pushes the laptop away with her back feet.  I guess that I just want to prove that I can still multitask.

Back to the story:  Jesse, our 19 year old matriarch, was upstairs in the bedroom where we had set up private accommodations around Thanksgiving.  She hadn't been eating well; she'd had a couple, scary, neurological-type episodes, so we brought her to the bedroom where her food could be out all day, she had a private litterbox nearby, she had her own bowl and a fountain for water, and she would have us at night.  It was really lovely. At night, we'd put away her food so that the dogs wouldn't get it, and she would come up on the bed without stepping on either dog and proceed to take possession of one of the human's pillows.  From this perfect position, she could wrap around the head of the human and reach down to grab a hand and place it in the right position to pet her.  She's been doing this since she was a baby, and it's the sweetest thing.  She was a very sick, nearly feral 3-month-old kitten when I adopted her.  She would only let me pet her if I laid on the floor and reached toward her.  Then she would stretch out a paw and guide my hand. 


                I took these pictures a month ago: 

Reaching.........

Right here......

Perfect

 She's been my baby for 19 years and has clearly preferred the mothering of Carolyn for the last 15 of those years.  In fact, she chose Carolyn before I did.  
And when I moved in with Carolyn, Jesse became a whole new cat.  She stopped hiding.  She sat on our laps in the living room.  She begged charmingly wherever we ate.  She was really happy.

When the kittens (the 1st set, from 2003) grew up and became obnoxious, Jesse moved into our bedroom for a couple of years.  When her 1st tormentor moved to the garage and the furnace room to flex his masculinity and a twisted sense of humor, she took over the house again.

Do you see in the pictures how her fur looks lined with silver?  She's always been the most beautiful thing; I called her my pewter cat, and that beautiful plush fur has stayed soft and thick and wonderful.  Now, her kidneys have begun to fail, in spite of the kidney diet she's been on, and she isn't interested in eating much of anything anymore.  She's not a cat who can be treated easily.  Giving pills is possible but very traumatic; trips to the office are accompanied with deep, loud howls and lots of stuff in the carrier that has to be cleaned up.  We've decided that we are going to simply give her the highest quality of life for as long as we can.

When we got home, we found that she wouldn't leave the closet.  She wasn't using the litterbox and we had to do some serious cleanup and rearranging.  She would eat if we hand-fed her and purred mightily when we would sit sit in there and pet her.  So, that's what we've been doing.
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The minute I finished writing this, we remembered that we had a jar of chicken baby food and took that to her. She got up and RAN to it. Sucked up the whole jar. Then, of course, I got dressed and dashed to Wegmans for more baby food. Carolyn spent hours luring her out of the closet with the food.  About the time she'd given up, Jesse arrived on the bed and walked right under the covers and curled up next to her. Next move? Carolyn sat next to her and petted her.  Hours later, during a pause in the petting, out came a paw, searching for a hand. She's still with us, 25 pounds of personality in a 7 pound cat.  

I thought that I was writing an obituary when I started this New Year's Day.  Nope.  Not yet.