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.

Allegro, Office Cat

Allegro, sharing the warmth with Zuza and Lukas

Allegro died today.  She wasn't just the former office cat of Briar Patch, she was also the first cat Carolyn and I had together.  When I moved in, my baggage included my three cats, Path, George and Jesse.  But  before I moved in, my foster cat and her three kittens moved in, because Allegro--as she would soon be called--was the fiercest Momma cat you ever saw in your life.  My big, muscle-y boy cats were terrified of her.

She captured Carolyn's heart immediately.  She was the most beautiful calico Carolyn had ever seen and she was sweet and loving and so very grateful that she didn't have to be a homeless teenage mother anymore.  She took care of her babies fiercely, and she owned the house.  All of it.  Carolyn and I named Allegro and her kittens musical names.  I had already named the baby calico Minuet--sort of like Juliette, with dancing--and Carolyn thought Allegro, because of her speed and grace.  Little Rimsky was the first to purr a loud, but high pitched kitten purr which sounded more like buzzing than purring so she was named for "The Flight of the Bumblebee".  Her only boy was just a tad slower than his sisters, so was named Adagio.

About the time my cats moved in, Allegro began to go into heat again, and was rushed off to Briar Patch for surgery and rehab.  Then it was Thanksgiving and we moved her home.  Then we found out that she hated other cats, including her children and my guys wouldn't walk past her without an escort.  Then she moved into Briar Patch to become the Office Manager.  She charmed clients, annoyed most of the staff, accepted being a demo cat for client educational purposes and occasionally flirted with dogs that would have eaten her if given the chance.  Eventually the staff banished her to the upstairs of Briar Patch where Carolyn had her office.  She began to have some health problems which we tested and treated and tested some more.

When Carolyn retired it was made clear that Briar Patch no longer needed an office cat. The bad news was that we couldn't bring her home with our four inside cats. The good news was that after thirteen years, Allegro got a home of her own where she could be the only cat, and have a human all her own.  Our friend Susan took her in and gave her everything a cat could want--ample access to her food, multiple sunspots all over the house, a place on a warm water bed at night and lots and lots of love.  

We're going to bury her here when Spring comes.  We miss her so much.

Aging with Zuza

Now no one need panic!  Zuza isn't going anywhere soon, but she is showing signs of aging. Her face has grown so white that I almost forget how perfect it looked when she was young. Sophie, her breeder and self-named Grandma, used to say that she looked like a perfect, delicate carving, or maybe porcelain, she would say.  She did, and does, but we can see the aging and it's a little scary to me.  But what has developed in the last few months is more alarming.  It's her eye.

Her right eye appears to be entirely clouded.  A white filmy looking thing covers the whole eye.  The other eye seems unaffected.  I was at first afraid that she had, overnight, become blind, but this is not so, at least not completely.  It's a cataract, and suddenly she no longer looks like a puppy, but instead like the 10 year old dog that she is.  Rats.  We could have the cataract surgically removed and restore her sight in that eye, but it is really, really expensive and it is possible that the other eye will be affected and we will want to do both of them at the same time.

Her right eye is always dilated. It's been that way all of her life, we just didn't realize that it was the reason she squinted whenever in bright light.  Just when I noticed this change,  I began to have trouble with my left eye.  Two weeks later it also affected my right eye.  I have something called vitreous detachment.  It's also something that is inside of my eye, it's age related, I won't go blind from it, but it does seem like I'm looking at the world through a floating blob of amoeba. 

I must admit that I hadn't intended to include so much explanation.  I haven't even touched on what I wanted to say! 

What I have been thinking about is how our pets remain our babies, even as they age. For me it's this tiny creature who has become so much a part of me that I feel somewhat undressed when I go out without her.  It is almost unfathomable that I will actually be without her someday.  What an act of trust on our parts that we are willing to be so vulnerable to a being whose lifespan is so much shorter than our own.  We aren't thinking, when we fall for a little ball of kitten fluff that we are surely going to say goodbye long before we are ready to do so.

And so, I must accept Zuza's aging with at least as much grace as I accept my own.  Her blind eye doesn't seem to bother her any more than her broken elbow has bothered her for the last 10 years, which is to say, "What broken elbow?".   She doesn't worry about what will happen tomorrow or next week, (although she does seem concerned every night that I will simply let her starve).

I suppose, I will have to follow her example of just accepting each new development as it comes.  Somehow, my geriatric pet will always  be my baby girl, snuggling under my chin or tucking her nose inside my collar humming "Don't Worry. Be Happy."  

Zuza, sunbathing last week

Heart Dog

It's been a hard couple of weeks in the pet world.  I'm waiting to get some pictures before I write about a few that left us, but I do want to talk about one very special guy that Carolyn and I helped "cross over" on Monday.

His name is Monty.  His parents' names are Susan and Jim Johnston, and they are wonderful, thoughtful people who have known Carolyn as their veterinarian forever.  She has walked with them through illnesses and injuries, funny stories, multiple pet dynamics and the eventual aging of a long series of pets. Carolyn has loved them and the pets they entrusted to her care. Monty joins a whole lot of family members now, but Susan and Jim are left without him and without that unconditional love for which he was so famous.

And, you see, I think that Monty is a "heart dog", that one pet that reaches deeper inside you than anyone has ever reached before.  I don't know when that starts--was it the minute they locked eyes with you and saw something there that spoke to them?  Was it after a week or a month or a year when they knew that you were theirs forever?  And when do we figure it out in our cluttered human brains?  When do we know that this is the one, the one that will matter just a little more, the one that becomes so much a part of us that we begin to forget where they stop and we begin?

I think it is different with every dog.  Some would be happy with anyone who treated them kindly, fed them regularly and maybe understood the value of a squeaky toy or a tennis ball.  Others?  Others seem to know how to look into your soul and you cannot imagine living without them. And they, too, feel that you won't be as safe, or as happy, or as willing to face the tough times that happen to all of us, without them.  And they are right.

Monty was--and is--one of those dogs.

The good news is that they don't ever really leave you.  When they die, the loss is huge and painful, but after a while you begin to realize that you have been changed.  You are a little stronger than you were before you met them, a little braver.  Perhaps you find yourself a little more willing to listen, a little kinder.  However you are changed, it is for the better. And if you can get to a place of being willing to have a dog again, you will be a great pet parent, not because there will ever be that same heart dog in your life, but because you are a better person for having loved that heart dog.

I do believe that Susan and Jim will see Monty again, as well as all of those pets who preceded him.  But before that happens, they will have to be content with wrapping the memories of these precious lives around them, and to feel the richness, the glory of them all. 

They deserve every moment of that love.

I'm Back!!

Hi folks.  I last wrote almost 2 years ago.  And then I just stopped. I had more writing responsibilities at Briar Patch, and I got sick, and...I don't know, things got in the way.  I worried that I only wrote about sick or dying pets.  Who wants to read about that?

Well, I'm back.  And I'm taking a class in Grief Counseling around Pet Loss.  Guess what? People do want to talk about what makes their pet really, really spectacular.  They want to celebrate the relationships they have with their pets.  They want to see hundreds of pictures of cats they've never met, and hear stories of victories of pets vs. the cold, cruel world.  And they want to know that lots of people will never say, "Oh come on, it's just a dog.  So get a new one."

So that's what I'm going to talk about.  I'm going to talk about some of the wonderful animals I get to meet.  Some of them, like our newest kittens, Horatio and Calliegh, are the most pirate-like cats you will ever meet. To mix a couple of metaphors, they've boarded the ship and resistance really was futile.  And some of them, like the German Shepherd Greta, are at the other end of their lives when you meet them--but all of them have something to say to you, and I'm going to try to let them do that.

And now, for a completely gratuitous picture of a kitten to boost my followers: 

Horatio

WAIT! I have a better one!  

Horatio, the first night with us.  We fostered him. Right....