The World Wide Wail

(If you're just checking in, I'm in process of moving I Call It My Art to http://theh2obaby.wordpress.com/  For a bit, I will continue to post in both places.  Wordpress isn't all brownies and hot fudge either, but they're both free, so I'll settle down again with whichever is less crazy-making.)

Is it a wonder we aren't all of us head-in-the-oven, falling apart, heart-broken zombies?  As if into each of our own lives enough sorrow does not fall, there is hardly a tragedy in the world to which we might not be privy.  The most recent globally mourned devastation, the earthquake in Port-au-Prince, is certainly a catastrophe and it is right to reach out from our wealth to their poverty.  The web and other modern technology make it not just possible, but easy and immediate.  Any one of us can spare what it takes to save a life there right now.  Hundreds of thousands have died, uncounted more are without a roof, food, water.

Sure, I've sent money to the Salvation Army (who are doing great work there in Christ's name), but I've shed no tears for those pitiful people who have just lost everything when they had nothing before.  Do you know what pulls at my heartstrings this week?  A cat.  A cat I don't know who belongs to someone I've never met.  I follow the owner's Twitter feed because it's interesting to window-shop the life of a successful author, whose work I generally enjoy.  So I, a complete stranger, am watching Neil Gaiman lose the sweetest cat ever.  Her name is Zoe.  She is fourteen years old, blind, was given a hip replacement because of her arthritis, and now is being taken by an inoperable tumor.  She will cross the Rainbow Bridge tomorrow.  But not before her human soul-mate, a girl called Olga, took a red-eye from the west coast to Minnesota to say goodbye.

Is it the details, the cat, or the scale of the drama which jerks tear?  The population of a sizable city is crushed beneath its own dwellings, but that is so far removed from one's own experience that the news reels look like just another movie.  But a sweet little old cat walking feebly out of this world?  I've been in that movie.  I empathize.

empathy |ˈempəθē|
noun
the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.

Empathy has been a buzzword in recent years for the media and others.  They insist we empathize with all the victims in the world.  Who can understand what it feels like have loved ones flattened under cinder block?  Let alone share that feeling.

sympathy |ˈsimpəθē|
noun ( pl. -thies)
1 feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune

Sympathy is the word they're looking for.  I would never presume to share the grief and horror of people who are injured, dying of thirst, and mourning the sudden deaths of so many.

So, while I sympathize with those Haitians, I empathize with Neil and Olga.  And still I miss desperately a little old frail cat called Wordsworth-Fireproof-Chutney-BulletTrain-SignorBisogno-InternationalIncident.

A Chapter Closes

For 18 years, they were my constant companions, my first consideration, my beloved responsibility. Life was built around the framework of their needs. That framework has disappeared; life has lost its shape and strength to stand upright.

Not long after agonizing over leaving ChutneyWordsworth here with friends during HomeLeave, I knew no one could give the obsessive care I lavished on him. And the best itinerary for us came on Lufthansa, the only airline to allow animals in the cabin flying trans-Atlantic. So, the little old well-traveled man would go with us. At least then, no matter what, we would be together. He always enjoyed new places and would be seeing old friends.

But so soon after that he began to fade more quickly than ever. I prayed fiercely, continually, that he would be comfortable and not suffer, that I might be spared that decision one time. He was the thirstiest thing, and even as his appetite continued to decrease, what he did eat stayed down. That is surely a blessing to the renal patient. But every day he was thinner, even when there seemed nothing left to lose, and more frail yet still getting around.

Then one Wednesday, when I returned home, he mustered the strength and will to zip out the door between my feet. I scooped him up and brought him in; we both knew. But I would never let him go find a cold, dark corner to leave this world alone. He would have a hospice ~ heating pad and water bowl on the couch, sandbox and unwanted food on the floor. Even Thursday evening, he was conscious when I bid him "goodnight" and moved himself from blanket to heater. I slept on the other couch. At about 2:00, I heard a little hitch in his breathing. He hadn't moved. His eyes were open, but unseeing. The tenseness which had filled his little body for the last couple of days was exchanged for limpness. He was never one for laps, so I stroked him and rubbed his ears, talking and singing to him. Maybe he knew or maybe he was already crossing the Bridge. But 15 minutes later, he gave just a few little sounds, his jaw relaxed, one paw twitched, I felt the strangest buzzing go through his ears, and my little old man, reaching the end of his excellent life, walked out of mine. It was as peaceful as I had asked for, just him and me alone, at home. Apparently no pain, no fear. I miss him like my own heart, but God is good. He knows how much we can bear, what will make us stronger, and what will only break us.

When it was Mango's time to go, as much as she left gaping holes in her wake, Wordsworth was there to take up the mantle of "home is where the cat is." He still held down a cat's space on the bed, demanded my attention for cherished rituals, required primary position in any plans to be made. Life maintained its central character of being inhabited by cats. Suddenly, it is no longer bounded and supported and tied to my furry little wards. When my mother died, it felt as though someone had pulled up one tent stake, letting the canvas whip in the wind; the weather roared through. Now the tent is gone. The weather isn't roaring, but the overwhelming silent presence of options leaves me gasping, grasping for the anchor of those small creatures to show me the safe edge of boundaries.

But now is a season to embrace those options. After providing a lifetime for those I first took in, before I start over and give myself to a new generation who will need a roof and kibble and love, I will mourn and escape and become strengthened again. Some time unencumbered to travel with my husband, and perhaps discover a bit more of who I am, apart from being one owned by cats.