aroraborealis

The day after my last post, Kitty developed a new unsteadiness throughout her body, which escalated noticeably in each 12 hour stretch, and she was losing interest in food at about the same rate. I arranged for the vet to come on Friday, trusting my gut that waiting until next week would be too long, took the day off, and spent one of the most perfect mornings of summer in the front yard with her.

She had been shortening our snuggle time recently, part of that drawing away I mentioned in the last post, but that morning, she let me give her a good belly rub, and she gave me lots of purrs, and it was super sweet. She had trouble eating even her treats, but had a few, and then staggered over to nap under the hostas.

Later, M came home, and we all sat in the yard together, but doing our own things. A few minutes before the vet was expected, Kitty came out, had a drink, and curled in the grass under my chair, resting her head on my ankle. M came over and had a little scritchfest with her, too. Soon after that, the vet arrived, we discussed, and then we agreed that it was the right time, all things considered.

It was exactly what I wanted for her: she was able to purr all the way until the sedation took full effect, after spending the perfect summer morning in the yard, and before her death was a struggle.

It was also exactly what I wanted for me: I gave her as good a death as I could, and I was able to recognize when it was time to make that choice. I was really afraid that I would miss that, or something emergent would appear, and she would die in pain, or confusion.

I went away for the weekend, which was a really good choice. I'm home now, and seeing little ghosts of her everywhere. It's bittersweet, but mostly sweet.

We had a very good life together, and I'm going to miss her a lot.

Normally, this is a once-a-day gratitude practice for the week of Thanksgiving, but November was hard.

I'm grateful for change and the knowledge that what's difficult today will not always be difficult. Of course, new difficulties will arise, and there's every chance that today's challenges will grow even larger in coming days, but the fact of change means that nothing is forever, and that fact is the key to the door of hope. I'm stashing that key in my locket for all those times when I need it.

It's pretty hard to feel thankful this year. In the last two weeks, contessagrrl died suddenly and unexpectedly, and Trump was elected.

But in dark times, hope shines the light of a way forward, so I'm starting out this week's gratitudes for hope. It springs eternal, the green bud of the crocus pushing through the snow banks, not promising that winter is over, but promising that it will end.

I don't know where we're going from here, but I know I'm bringing hope with me, and that's what has me putting each foot in front of the other for now.

It is hard to appreciate a feeling of thankfulness today, given the ongoing events in Ferguson, which painfully represent events, practices, and ways of thinking throughout the United States and the world. I feel heartbroken that our society continues to fail black people in such a violent and dehumanizing way. I am sick knowing that I benefit from the system that oppresses black Americans and black people around the world.

So, today, I give thanks for the noisy agitators whose efforts make a ubiquitous and unjust practice rise to the level of news. I am grateful for the hard work done for decades by people striving for the liberation of people not seen or recognized as people by the society they live in. I grieve for the need for their work, and I am so thankful to them for doing it. May there be less cause for their work in the future.

My heart is broken for Connecticut, and for the friends and family most directly harmed there. I'm just sitting at my desk crying, can't believe we do this to each other.

Today, my dad's oldest brother died, after many days of preparation. And, really, months and years of preparation. He was 68.

Uncle Doug was a little socially awkward, always quirky, reserved. He took pictures of food before the Internet, and even made at least one album of photographs of dinners he'd had. The last picture in the album is photo of a toilet bowl.

He was the oldest son of a difficult father, and suffered in the military academy where he and his brothers went for high school. He worked hard to live the life that was expected of him. He loved to golf. He has a daughter, my cousin Sarah, who is my age. He lived with Parkinson's for many years.

Doug was a really good person. He was incredibly amiable and regularly struck up friendly conversations with strangers. While sitting at his deathbed, his daughter told the story of him not arriving in Boston for her to meet him because he had started a conversation during his layover and decided to miss his flight in order to continue it.

For many years, he was my only family in Boston; most other Carsons live out west, and we bonded over that.

Doug greatly looked forward to retirement as the time in his life when he could kick back a enjoy, but before he could do that, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's and took an early disability retirement that looked so different from what he hoped or imagined.

I will miss him, an the world is a less wonderful place without him.

In his memory, please do somethig pleasurable or wonderful today that you had thought to put off to a later time.