Monday, May 3, 2010
Its Finally Here
Gladys Tabor said, "Spring; although a violent season, never ceases to remind us of new life, yet not life associated with violence. Tentative wildlife make their first appearance, the rivers rumbling, ground shaking journey awakening those even in the deepest slumber. Spring rivers, ever mindful of mountainous thaws, may rage; but upon close observation of the mushy, centuries old banks can be found the peaceful up cropping of new life. Wild crocus poke their brave first tentacles of leaves through dank mud, while mint and wild onions await a more sure, less torrid occasion to make an appearance."
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Death be not a Stranger
I met death at an early age.
When I was around five years old, my parents decided to rent out the small in-law apartment in their large New England home. My mother placed ads in various newspapers and sat back to wait. The phone rang only once in response to the ads. Three or so days after the call, Mr. & Mrs. Dalton appeared on our doorstep.
My mother invited them in for coffee, I went to get my sister, and we all sat around talking eating a Sara Lee coffee cake. They looked at the apartment, decided then and there they would take it, and said they would return in a week to move in.
Sure enough a week later a van from New York showed up to deliver Mr. & Mrs. Dalton along with their few belongings. They were both in their early nineties, and spoke with heavy accents. In short, they were adorable.
My sister was eight years older than me, always off doing something with her friends, so I claimed Mr. & Mrs. Dalton for my own. If I wasn't away at summer camp, at the library, or in school, I was knocking on their door asking if they needed any help. They rewarded me with their stories.
They had escaped Poland before the atrocities of the WW's could affect them, immigrated through the demoralizing operating procedures of Ellis Island, and immediately landed jobs working for a wealthy couple on Park Avenue in New York City. He the butler, she the maid. Oh the stories they told of glorious parties, and the famous people in attendance they served drinks to. Mr. Daltons favorite had been a famous boxer, Mrs. Daltons was Charlie Chaplin. Mr. Dalton had even run into someone that was associated with Al Capone's gang, named Lefty (what else?!). Mr. Dalton continued in a lowered voice that shortly after running into Lefty at a well known bakery, there had been a murder in the city, and he never saw Lefty around again.
It had been their dream to save every penny they could, and someday move to a little town, on a quiet street to live out the rest of their lives. They were living their dream and so happy, still in love after over sixty years of marriage. I never felt more privileged than when they told me they never had the means to have children of their own, but they felt as though I was partially theirs, they didn't mind having to share me with my parents.
After two or so years Mr. Dalton became ill. They first consulted with my mother, the RN, before taking him to see the cardiologist my mother was working for. Mr. Dalton was not well, but would not go into the hospital. He was worried about depleting savings they needed to live on. So he came home with a pile of prescriptions. It was summer. I could do all their errands and be there in case Mrs. Dalton needed a break.
Dawn broke one morning with Mrs. Dalton at our door in tears. Something was wrong with the Mr. My mother was getting dressed for work and sent me upstairs. He was in pretty bad shape was all I could tell, and by the time my mother was dressed, the ambulance she had called for was at the door. I followed the stretcher down the stairs with Mrs. Dalton. My sister and mother were waiting by the back of the ambulance. Mrs. Dalton was not doing well at all either at this stage, and my mother decided she had better take her to the hospital to meet the ambulance, I would go with Mr. Dalton.
The back of the ambulance was crowded so I had to kneel on the metal floor to stay near Mr. Dalton's head. His eyes were half open while he whispered, "Please to tell Mrs. Dalton she is the love of my life, and thank you for all that you do."
He closed his eyes, and he was gone. I remember being so consumed with remembering exactly what I had to tell Mrs. Dalton, that I remember it to this day.
Six months later I would once again take another ambulance ride, this time with Mrs. Dalton. I was ready for it this time. I cried and begged her to stay, if only for a little while longer, but she told me she and Mr. Dalton would finally be together again, and she missed him.
In December of that year a package arrived for me. It had been a Christmas present Mrs. Dalton had ordered for me. It was a cookie jar in the shape of a bear.
I still have it.
When I was around five years old, my parents decided to rent out the small in-law apartment in their large New England home. My mother placed ads in various newspapers and sat back to wait. The phone rang only once in response to the ads. Three or so days after the call, Mr. & Mrs. Dalton appeared on our doorstep.
My mother invited them in for coffee, I went to get my sister, and we all sat around talking eating a Sara Lee coffee cake. They looked at the apartment, decided then and there they would take it, and said they would return in a week to move in.
Sure enough a week later a van from New York showed up to deliver Mr. & Mrs. Dalton along with their few belongings. They were both in their early nineties, and spoke with heavy accents. In short, they were adorable.
My sister was eight years older than me, always off doing something with her friends, so I claimed Mr. & Mrs. Dalton for my own. If I wasn't away at summer camp, at the library, or in school, I was knocking on their door asking if they needed any help. They rewarded me with their stories.
They had escaped Poland before the atrocities of the WW's could affect them, immigrated through the demoralizing operating procedures of Ellis Island, and immediately landed jobs working for a wealthy couple on Park Avenue in New York City. He the butler, she the maid. Oh the stories they told of glorious parties, and the famous people in attendance they served drinks to. Mr. Daltons favorite had been a famous boxer, Mrs. Daltons was Charlie Chaplin. Mr. Dalton had even run into someone that was associated with Al Capone's gang, named Lefty (what else?!). Mr. Dalton continued in a lowered voice that shortly after running into Lefty at a well known bakery, there had been a murder in the city, and he never saw Lefty around again.
It had been their dream to save every penny they could, and someday move to a little town, on a quiet street to live out the rest of their lives. They were living their dream and so happy, still in love after over sixty years of marriage. I never felt more privileged than when they told me they never had the means to have children of their own, but they felt as though I was partially theirs, they didn't mind having to share me with my parents.
After two or so years Mr. Dalton became ill. They first consulted with my mother, the RN, before taking him to see the cardiologist my mother was working for. Mr. Dalton was not well, but would not go into the hospital. He was worried about depleting savings they needed to live on. So he came home with a pile of prescriptions. It was summer. I could do all their errands and be there in case Mrs. Dalton needed a break.
Dawn broke one morning with Mrs. Dalton at our door in tears. Something was wrong with the Mr. My mother was getting dressed for work and sent me upstairs. He was in pretty bad shape was all I could tell, and by the time my mother was dressed, the ambulance she had called for was at the door. I followed the stretcher down the stairs with Mrs. Dalton. My sister and mother were waiting by the back of the ambulance. Mrs. Dalton was not doing well at all either at this stage, and my mother decided she had better take her to the hospital to meet the ambulance, I would go with Mr. Dalton.
The back of the ambulance was crowded so I had to kneel on the metal floor to stay near Mr. Dalton's head. His eyes were half open while he whispered, "Please to tell Mrs. Dalton she is the love of my life, and thank you for all that you do."
He closed his eyes, and he was gone. I remember being so consumed with remembering exactly what I had to tell Mrs. Dalton, that I remember it to this day.
Six months later I would once again take another ambulance ride, this time with Mrs. Dalton. I was ready for it this time. I cried and begged her to stay, if only for a little while longer, but she told me she and Mr. Dalton would finally be together again, and she missed him.
In December of that year a package arrived for me. It had been a Christmas present Mrs. Dalton had ordered for me. It was a cookie jar in the shape of a bear.
I still have it.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
The Great Gatsby...
Roman and F.Spot were making great strides in their attempts to get along. At least the greatest strides either would concede to. If they happened to be in the same room at the same time, a stare down would commence, ending with bob-catsy like crouches facing the other, mouths wide open, baring extremely white teeth, accentuated by loud growls mixed with hisses. The noises were horror movie worthy and for a while I thought maybe we could tape the encounters, send it out to Hollywood, and the cats would earn their keep. Soon they realized they were stuck with each other and maintained a wide berth. If this was the worst of it apparently they could handle it.
Until. One night at work we received a call from Sea-Tow. The Captain, a friend of the city's dog warden, thus a friend of a friend, had been hooking up to an abandoned house boat that was to be taken to a scrap yard. She heard mewling coming from the boat, specifically the engine compartment. When she climbed onto the rickety boat, lifting the lid housing not only two huge engines, but a pool of oily water, what she saw would make her gasp in horror. A feral cat, who apparently had made it through the birthing process but not much longer, and three teeny kittens clinging to her lifeless body, all floating in the oily mess. We sent the dog warden (later to be aptly renamed Animal Control) out immediately. Another save. End of story.
Only not quite. Seven or so weeks later the dog warden called me. "I can't find a home for the last kitten," she whined. "He's so cute, you only have two. And need I remind you we are not yet a no kill shelter..." She had been feeding the kittens with kitten formula in little baby bottles for kittens, in her home, since the day she picked them up, they were being cuddled by her three pit bulls, and she couldn't bear the thought of, well, you know.
She showed up while I was a work with the little guy in an enormous dog pen in the back of the even more huge, state-of-the-art (thanks to her) Animal Control van. I met her outside feeling like we were involved in some clandestine drug deal. "OK, where is he?" She slid open the door of the van and there he sat, taking up a hundredth of the front corner of the large pen. Just sitting. "A Tuxedo Cat," she said, beaming. Though she needn't. There was something about this kitten. So much trust in such a little face, none of the screaming, frantic clawing that usually accompanies a cat in a cage, never mind one who has been in a moving vehicle. He just sat. And stared at me. A 'Tuxedo' cat with one teeny little white spot next to his nose. A birth mark she called it, since it was the only out of place white on the entire kitten. And I had to have that little guy with the four white boat shoes.
I picked him up on my day off that week. His name officially became The Great Gatsby. What I anticipated to be another four or five weeks of adjustment for Roman and F.Spot would never materialize. Everyone loved Gatsby from the moment he entered the house. Roman and F. Spot were a far cry from pit bulls, but this cat needed to snuggle all the time, and they were there.
Though he has known only humans from day one, he came from countless generations of feral cats living under the docks, surviving on dead fish. He has large toes and incredibly long fangs on either side of his mouth that reach nearly to his bottom jaw. Menacing. Except when someone new enters the house. He'll look at the door upon hearing strange steps, get that deer in the headlights look, and race to the furthest corner of the house to hide.
Over the winter, this drafty farmhouse I moved to after a particularly hideous divorce, took its toll on Gatsby. He caught a horrible cold. Did I mention I happen to have the sweetest vet in the world? I called and told the receptionist, "Gatsby sneezed," (yuh, I'm one of those mothers, ask my kids, boy can they tell ya some stories...). She had us in the office in an hour. Luckily. Gatsby's one sneeze translated into double pneumonia. Need to know how much he weighs before medicine. My vet picks up poor Gatsby who was too ill to panic, and slides out the door to the scale. The look of surprise on his face upon his return to the examining room was just precious. "18 pounds, and not an ounce of fat on him." The last morphed his face into a look of sheer puzzlement, before he quickly spun into action to prepare a shot (can someone else come in here and help hold him, I'm needle-phobic...), and measure out liquid medicine. Over the course of the next two weeks and the medicine, Gatsby would either sleep under the covers with my electric blanket (medium his preferred setting), or the couch on his heating pad (low), watching TV. He loves sports, with the exception of golf. Tennis is his favorite. Funny, its mine as well.
Have I failed to mention a most important detail, yes. Especially at this stage. Our cats do not go out. The world is simply no safe place for animals that live near roads, nor, as in our case now, on a farm that coyotes visit with regular frequency. We are on the low end of the food chain here, and I heard a murder in the vegetable fields last fall, just outside my bedroom window. Followed by the mother coyote howling, and three little pups huddled around what would turn out to be a large raccoon. The tail was the only evidence left behind the next morning. And no, I did not condone my son drying it out and hanging the thing on his rear view.
In fact my son and I are having the same difference of opinions that my parents had on the subject of cats and the great outdoors. The fact that - due to economic downturns - my adult son was forced to move back in with his mother, much to his chagrin - does not change house rules. He thinks his cats want to go out to the fenced front yard for walks with him. He believes they will stay where they are supposed to stay. Obeying his commands if you will.
My father used to say the same thing. To my mother. When he was home on leave, a point never forgotten while my mother explained to him that a.) he may think the cat wants to go out and explore, when in fact it was she that b.) had to worry about the cat when she couldn't get the darn thing in at night and she had to go to work the next morning, and c.) she was the one stuck with a cat wanting to go out long after my father was safely aboard an icebreaker in the middle of the Arctic.
At the time their cat-in-residence was Morris. One night before my father was to leave, the same night before the morning my mother would have to drive him to Boston to put him back on the ship, Morris decided he wanted to spend the night camping out under the barn. The main barn doors were just under my bedroom window, and its kind of hard to sleep with an hysterical woman down on the ground looking into the hole under the sill with a flashlight, screaming "MORRIS," so I went downstairs. There sat my father at the kitchen table, attempting with no success at all, to stifle insane giggles, dabbing a tissue at his eyes to sop up the tears his laughing was producing, as he said, "I'm in trouble," which set him off into another uncontrollable fit of hysterics. "I gathered," I said, as I slid over to the window to look out. Then I understood. There was my mothers butt pointing straight towards the Big Dipper in her flannel kitty pajamas my sister and I had gotten her for Christmas the year before, her head nearly under the sill of the barn, yelling at the cat, while Morris sat placidly behind her, staring.
My father had cramps from laughing so hard, making him incapable of going out to fetch the cat, and besides he later confided, no one would have believed it if someone else hadn't seen. I slowly walked out the back door, snatched the cat, and told my mother the neighbors were going to call the fashion police, ending the crisis.
And as my father like to remark forever after, neither Morris, nor any other cat that had owned them, would ever feel the cool fall breeze on his whiskers, nor the soft grass between their toes, while my mother sat, effecting that teeth-sucking-eye rolling routine that wordlessly conveyed, "You, my friend, are still in trouble."
Until. One night at work we received a call from Sea-Tow. The Captain, a friend of the city's dog warden, thus a friend of a friend, had been hooking up to an abandoned house boat that was to be taken to a scrap yard. She heard mewling coming from the boat, specifically the engine compartment. When she climbed onto the rickety boat, lifting the lid housing not only two huge engines, but a pool of oily water, what she saw would make her gasp in horror. A feral cat, who apparently had made it through the birthing process but not much longer, and three teeny kittens clinging to her lifeless body, all floating in the oily mess. We sent the dog warden (later to be aptly renamed Animal Control) out immediately. Another save. End of story.
Only not quite. Seven or so weeks later the dog warden called me. "I can't find a home for the last kitten," she whined. "He's so cute, you only have two. And need I remind you we are not yet a no kill shelter..." She had been feeding the kittens with kitten formula in little baby bottles for kittens, in her home, since the day she picked them up, they were being cuddled by her three pit bulls, and she couldn't bear the thought of, well, you know.
She showed up while I was a work with the little guy in an enormous dog pen in the back of the even more huge, state-of-the-art (thanks to her) Animal Control van. I met her outside feeling like we were involved in some clandestine drug deal. "OK, where is he?" She slid open the door of the van and there he sat, taking up a hundredth of the front corner of the large pen. Just sitting. "A Tuxedo Cat," she said, beaming. Though she needn't. There was something about this kitten. So much trust in such a little face, none of the screaming, frantic clawing that usually accompanies a cat in a cage, never mind one who has been in a moving vehicle. He just sat. And stared at me. A 'Tuxedo' cat with one teeny little white spot next to his nose. A birth mark she called it, since it was the only out of place white on the entire kitten. And I had to have that little guy with the four white boat shoes.
I picked him up on my day off that week. His name officially became The Great Gatsby. What I anticipated to be another four or five weeks of adjustment for Roman and F.Spot would never materialize. Everyone loved Gatsby from the moment he entered the house. Roman and F. Spot were a far cry from pit bulls, but this cat needed to snuggle all the time, and they were there.
Though he has known only humans from day one, he came from countless generations of feral cats living under the docks, surviving on dead fish. He has large toes and incredibly long fangs on either side of his mouth that reach nearly to his bottom jaw. Menacing. Except when someone new enters the house. He'll look at the door upon hearing strange steps, get that deer in the headlights look, and race to the furthest corner of the house to hide.
Over the winter, this drafty farmhouse I moved to after a particularly hideous divorce, took its toll on Gatsby. He caught a horrible cold. Did I mention I happen to have the sweetest vet in the world? I called and told the receptionist, "Gatsby sneezed," (yuh, I'm one of those mothers, ask my kids, boy can they tell ya some stories...). She had us in the office in an hour. Luckily. Gatsby's one sneeze translated into double pneumonia. Need to know how much he weighs before medicine. My vet picks up poor Gatsby who was too ill to panic, and slides out the door to the scale. The look of surprise on his face upon his return to the examining room was just precious. "18 pounds, and not an ounce of fat on him." The last morphed his face into a look of sheer puzzlement, before he quickly spun into action to prepare a shot (can someone else come in here and help hold him, I'm needle-phobic...), and measure out liquid medicine. Over the course of the next two weeks and the medicine, Gatsby would either sleep under the covers with my electric blanket (medium his preferred setting), or the couch on his heating pad (low), watching TV. He loves sports, with the exception of golf. Tennis is his favorite. Funny, its mine as well.
Have I failed to mention a most important detail, yes. Especially at this stage. Our cats do not go out. The world is simply no safe place for animals that live near roads, nor, as in our case now, on a farm that coyotes visit with regular frequency. We are on the low end of the food chain here, and I heard a murder in the vegetable fields last fall, just outside my bedroom window. Followed by the mother coyote howling, and three little pups huddled around what would turn out to be a large raccoon. The tail was the only evidence left behind the next morning. And no, I did not condone my son drying it out and hanging the thing on his rear view.
In fact my son and I are having the same difference of opinions that my parents had on the subject of cats and the great outdoors. The fact that - due to economic downturns - my adult son was forced to move back in with his mother, much to his chagrin - does not change house rules. He thinks his cats want to go out to the fenced front yard for walks with him. He believes they will stay where they are supposed to stay. Obeying his commands if you will.
My father used to say the same thing. To my mother. When he was home on leave, a point never forgotten while my mother explained to him that a.) he may think the cat wants to go out and explore, when in fact it was she that b.) had to worry about the cat when she couldn't get the darn thing in at night and she had to go to work the next morning, and c.) she was the one stuck with a cat wanting to go out long after my father was safely aboard an icebreaker in the middle of the Arctic.
At the time their cat-in-residence was Morris. One night before my father was to leave, the same night before the morning my mother would have to drive him to Boston to put him back on the ship, Morris decided he wanted to spend the night camping out under the barn. The main barn doors were just under my bedroom window, and its kind of hard to sleep with an hysterical woman down on the ground looking into the hole under the sill with a flashlight, screaming "MORRIS," so I went downstairs. There sat my father at the kitchen table, attempting with no success at all, to stifle insane giggles, dabbing a tissue at his eyes to sop up the tears his laughing was producing, as he said, "I'm in trouble," which set him off into another uncontrollable fit of hysterics. "I gathered," I said, as I slid over to the window to look out. Then I understood. There was my mothers butt pointing straight towards the Big Dipper in her flannel kitty pajamas my sister and I had gotten her for Christmas the year before, her head nearly under the sill of the barn, yelling at the cat, while Morris sat placidly behind her, staring.
My father had cramps from laughing so hard, making him incapable of going out to fetch the cat, and besides he later confided, no one would have believed it if someone else hadn't seen. I slowly walked out the back door, snatched the cat, and told my mother the neighbors were going to call the fashion police, ending the crisis.
And as my father like to remark forever after, neither Morris, nor any other cat that had owned them, would ever feel the cool fall breeze on his whiskers, nor the soft grass between their toes, while my mother sat, effecting that teeth-sucking-eye rolling routine that wordlessly conveyed, "You, my friend, are still in trouble."
Thursday, April 29, 2010
How Could I forget...
A.T. Officially 'After-Thought,' later Appalachian Trail...
After my sister's terminal diagnosis, she adopted our mother's theory on 'no more cats' - what if something happens to me, who will care for the cat as I have?
During countless trips back and forth the 90 miles to her chemo and radiation treatments her husband would stop to rest at a midway point, which happened to be an animal shelter in the center of a village. They would visit with the rescues, the remainder of the ride home spent remembering stories of the cats (and two dogs) that had not only touched their lives, but changed them for the better.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the dogs. Buster was my brother-in-law's childhood dog. Any space my brother-in-law occupied was always adorned with his one favorite photo of Buster in his old age. A black lab sitting on a cement sidewalk (remember those?!), staring dutifully at the camera. A few cats, and many years later when they moved to the mountains, Spot became a much loved member of their family.
Spot had been my brother-in-law's mother's dog. When Iris's elderly siblings began taking advantage of her worsening dementia (which included two sisters 'borrowing' her car to go on a spending spree with checks stolen from her purse, yeah, old Thelma and Louise...), it became clear she would need to go to The Home. Naturally, greedy humans crawled out of the woodwork to latch on to Iris's many valuable collectibles (shades of Christmas Future). My brother-in-law drove two states across to survey what was left. What he found was teeny scraps of paper littering empty rooms, and Spot.
Spot was the strangest mongrel any of us had ever seen, and the sweetest dog I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. He was like a barrel on legs, really long, tall legs. He had a large round chest, that tapered to a thin set of hips, sitting on top of the four spindly legs, ending with huge paws. His face was long and thin, and he was covered with short, wiry, curly hair, with the exception of his paws, which had long, silky smooth hair sticking out from between his long, delicate toes. He was totally white, with a large, round, brown spot on his right side.
So thorough had the morally bankrupt been, all my brother-in-law had to do was pound the For Sale sign into the front lawn beyond the picket fence, load Spot into his truck, and head for home.
No one was ever quite sure exactly how old Spot was, nor where or when Iris had acquired him, but on his first trip to the vet after becoming part of my sister's family (which at the time was a lone Maine Coon), the vet said, "Well, at least he has a good place to live out his last years, he may live two or three more." Eleven years later I was assigned to babysit Spot & A.T. while my sister and her husband vacationed in Scotland for two weeks, a gift to them from my parents. The coon had passed away, a victim of old age, several years after A.T. arrived.
Back to A.T. My sister and her husband had each developed a silent affection for a particular short haired tiger in the shelter. Neither would admit it, but every time they would arrive at their resting point, they would automatically drift towards the middle-aged tiger's cage, for weeks at a time. During a particularly easy time with chemo, the evening came, after leaving the animal shelter for the remainder of the trip home, my sister said to her husband, "What if I don't die?"
That was all it took. My brother-in-law immediately headed for the shoulder of the road, pulled a UE, and they raced back to the shelter. Hence his name. After-Thought. Upon arriving home that night, they introduced Spot to his new brother. Spot could not be contained. He needed to show his new brother the layout of the house. The next day the, now five, members of the household would take A.T. out to the yard to show him the cornfield my sister was so carefully cultivating with Silver Queen. Spot found a shed moose antler, growled, chewed on it, and taught A.T. that moose did not belong in Mom's garden. Years later during my babysitting stint, I would watch A.T. chase thousand pound moose out of his Mom's garden. The Maine Coon was more than a bit aloof, which was why Spot loved A.T. so. From the day he arrived home, Spot and A.T. slept together on Spot's extra large, LL Bean dog bed.
Spot passed away a week after my sister. He hadn't been ill, was still the same bizarre, healthy, old dog with the biggest heart in the world. He laid in the front yard for a week waiting for my sister to come home where she belonged. And at the end of that week he went to sleep waiting by the door and left us.
We figured my sister gave him a week to get over it and when she figured out he couldn't, she came and got him. Because that was just how she was.
But there was still A.T. and my brother-in-law left behind. My brother-in-law could not continue to merely survive without my sister, and his plan was to hike the A.T. (a dream they had both shared), not only in her honor, but to raise awareness for breast cancer, and in his selfless way, try to save others from his own, now vacant, fate.
Back in his truck he climbed with A.T. My daughter was living with me at the time, it was my night off from work, and she approached with that "Please don't kill me, I can explain," look and stance. "What?" I asked. She launched into the explanation of how her uncle had called and was on his way down with A.T. He had been desperate. My sister's two best friends had refused, it was too much, they were still not over her and could not handle being reminded she was gone with such a powerful, physical reminder.
I still am not sure exactly when my daughter made this arrangement, because not an hour had passed while I was trying to figure out how to introduce Roman to another adult cat and beg him to pul-leeese try to get along, the phone rang. It was my brother-in-law. He had driven from his home three states away, from the woods, and was calling from a pay phone in the middle of the city in which I lived. Directly in front of a convenience store known for its drug-dealing clientele and shoot-outs at the OK Corral.
"Get in your truck, roll up the windows, lock the doors, do not speak to anyone, I will be right there." Luckily he was still safe when I arrived to have him follow me home, though what I saw upon arriving in the parking lot where his truck sat was more than a bit surprising. I recognized the truck but... piled in the back on the six foot pick-up bed was what appeared to be left over from the set of Sanford and Son.
My daughter was waiting on the lawn when we drove in. Me and the Beverly Hillbillies. My brother-in-law got out of the truck, and after hugs and kisses he explained that the tangle of stuff roped onto his truck was everything from his house no one else had wanted, and he simply could not throw away my sisters chair...
After introducing A.T. to Roman who glared at us as only someone who has been betrayed can glare, we unloaded the truck and fed both visitors. My brother-in-law went to bed in my daughters spare bedroom and slept with A.T. for the last time.
A few months later when he was on his way south to Springer Mountain Ga. to begin his hike, my brother-in-law asked my daughter and I to meet him halfway north of us to say good-bye. He took us out to eat at an old fashioned diner just off the highway, and got to meet his new nephew as an added bonus. We talked, laughed and cried telling stories of my sister to my daughter, and he ordered Shepards Pie, his favorite, for dinner. It was the last time we would ever see him face to face.
A.T. Passed away in August of 2003. When I called my sister's best friend to tell her, there was a long pause on the other end of the line. When she finally spoke she said it all. "You know, when that song "Angel" came out and we all thought of them, I still could not feel as though it were over. Now I feel it. A.T. was the last of them, and now hes gone. Now I feel like its finally over."
I was forced to think about grief. How it operates so differently, yet is equally devastating, in all of us. For my sister's friend it was over, for me there would be one more before it was finally over.
After my sister's terminal diagnosis, she adopted our mother's theory on 'no more cats' - what if something happens to me, who will care for the cat as I have?
During countless trips back and forth the 90 miles to her chemo and radiation treatments her husband would stop to rest at a midway point, which happened to be an animal shelter in the center of a village. They would visit with the rescues, the remainder of the ride home spent remembering stories of the cats (and two dogs) that had not only touched their lives, but changed them for the better.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the dogs. Buster was my brother-in-law's childhood dog. Any space my brother-in-law occupied was always adorned with his one favorite photo of Buster in his old age. A black lab sitting on a cement sidewalk (remember those?!), staring dutifully at the camera. A few cats, and many years later when they moved to the mountains, Spot became a much loved member of their family.
Spot had been my brother-in-law's mother's dog. When Iris's elderly siblings began taking advantage of her worsening dementia (which included two sisters 'borrowing' her car to go on a spending spree with checks stolen from her purse, yeah, old Thelma and Louise...), it became clear she would need to go to The Home. Naturally, greedy humans crawled out of the woodwork to latch on to Iris's many valuable collectibles (shades of Christmas Future). My brother-in-law drove two states across to survey what was left. What he found was teeny scraps of paper littering empty rooms, and Spot.
Spot was the strangest mongrel any of us had ever seen, and the sweetest dog I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. He was like a barrel on legs, really long, tall legs. He had a large round chest, that tapered to a thin set of hips, sitting on top of the four spindly legs, ending with huge paws. His face was long and thin, and he was covered with short, wiry, curly hair, with the exception of his paws, which had long, silky smooth hair sticking out from between his long, delicate toes. He was totally white, with a large, round, brown spot on his right side.
So thorough had the morally bankrupt been, all my brother-in-law had to do was pound the For Sale sign into the front lawn beyond the picket fence, load Spot into his truck, and head for home.
No one was ever quite sure exactly how old Spot was, nor where or when Iris had acquired him, but on his first trip to the vet after becoming part of my sister's family (which at the time was a lone Maine Coon), the vet said, "Well, at least he has a good place to live out his last years, he may live two or three more." Eleven years later I was assigned to babysit Spot & A.T. while my sister and her husband vacationed in Scotland for two weeks, a gift to them from my parents. The coon had passed away, a victim of old age, several years after A.T. arrived.
Back to A.T. My sister and her husband had each developed a silent affection for a particular short haired tiger in the shelter. Neither would admit it, but every time they would arrive at their resting point, they would automatically drift towards the middle-aged tiger's cage, for weeks at a time. During a particularly easy time with chemo, the evening came, after leaving the animal shelter for the remainder of the trip home, my sister said to her husband, "What if I don't die?"
That was all it took. My brother-in-law immediately headed for the shoulder of the road, pulled a UE, and they raced back to the shelter. Hence his name. After-Thought. Upon arriving home that night, they introduced Spot to his new brother. Spot could not be contained. He needed to show his new brother the layout of the house. The next day the, now five, members of the household would take A.T. out to the yard to show him the cornfield my sister was so carefully cultivating with Silver Queen. Spot found a shed moose antler, growled, chewed on it, and taught A.T. that moose did not belong in Mom's garden. Years later during my babysitting stint, I would watch A.T. chase thousand pound moose out of his Mom's garden. The Maine Coon was more than a bit aloof, which was why Spot loved A.T. so. From the day he arrived home, Spot and A.T. slept together on Spot's extra large, LL Bean dog bed.
Spot passed away a week after my sister. He hadn't been ill, was still the same bizarre, healthy, old dog with the biggest heart in the world. He laid in the front yard for a week waiting for my sister to come home where she belonged. And at the end of that week he went to sleep waiting by the door and left us.
We figured my sister gave him a week to get over it and when she figured out he couldn't, she came and got him. Because that was just how she was.
But there was still A.T. and my brother-in-law left behind. My brother-in-law could not continue to merely survive without my sister, and his plan was to hike the A.T. (a dream they had both shared), not only in her honor, but to raise awareness for breast cancer, and in his selfless way, try to save others from his own, now vacant, fate.
Back in his truck he climbed with A.T. My daughter was living with me at the time, it was my night off from work, and she approached with that "Please don't kill me, I can explain," look and stance. "What?" I asked. She launched into the explanation of how her uncle had called and was on his way down with A.T. He had been desperate. My sister's two best friends had refused, it was too much, they were still not over her and could not handle being reminded she was gone with such a powerful, physical reminder.
I still am not sure exactly when my daughter made this arrangement, because not an hour had passed while I was trying to figure out how to introduce Roman to another adult cat and beg him to pul-leeese try to get along, the phone rang. It was my brother-in-law. He had driven from his home three states away, from the woods, and was calling from a pay phone in the middle of the city in which I lived. Directly in front of a convenience store known for its drug-dealing clientele and shoot-outs at the OK Corral.
"Get in your truck, roll up the windows, lock the doors, do not speak to anyone, I will be right there." Luckily he was still safe when I arrived to have him follow me home, though what I saw upon arriving in the parking lot where his truck sat was more than a bit surprising. I recognized the truck but... piled in the back on the six foot pick-up bed was what appeared to be left over from the set of Sanford and Son.
My daughter was waiting on the lawn when we drove in. Me and the Beverly Hillbillies. My brother-in-law got out of the truck, and after hugs and kisses he explained that the tangle of stuff roped onto his truck was everything from his house no one else had wanted, and he simply could not throw away my sisters chair...
After introducing A.T. to Roman who glared at us as only someone who has been betrayed can glare, we unloaded the truck and fed both visitors. My brother-in-law went to bed in my daughters spare bedroom and slept with A.T. for the last time.
A few months later when he was on his way south to Springer Mountain Ga. to begin his hike, my brother-in-law asked my daughter and I to meet him halfway north of us to say good-bye. He took us out to eat at an old fashioned diner just off the highway, and got to meet his new nephew as an added bonus. We talked, laughed and cried telling stories of my sister to my daughter, and he ordered Shepards Pie, his favorite, for dinner. It was the last time we would ever see him face to face.
A.T. Passed away in August of 2003. When I called my sister's best friend to tell her, there was a long pause on the other end of the line. When she finally spoke she said it all. "You know, when that song "Angel" came out and we all thought of them, I still could not feel as though it were over. Now I feel it. A.T. was the last of them, and now hes gone. Now I feel like its finally over."
I was forced to think about grief. How it operates so differently, yet is equally devastating, in all of us. For my sister's friend it was over, for me there would be one more before it was finally over.
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