Puppycat’s Last Ride

If you’ve been reading this humble little blog (both of you), you’ll know about my puppycat, Hope. Check-up after check-up, our little ball of soft fur and love was pronounced to have the health of a dog half her age.  She filled our lives and our home when there were no little ones, or big ones for that matter, to keep us occupied.  The boys had grown and had lives of their own.  Babies were just beginning to fill the next generation.  We got her as a puppy, just shy of eight weeks, and the first thing she did was try to die on us.  Gastroenteritis in a little one so young and so tiny can be fatal.  So, the first week with Hope was filled with animal hospital care.  She got better, of course. Otherwise, what would be the point of this posting.

Weekends were special for her because we were both home.  She had to greet us in the morning with snuggles and tail wags and belly rubs.  First one, then the other.  She grew especially attached to Gini and quickly became her little white shadow. And she loved loved loved to go for rides.  We would sometimes take a drive just so she could go.  She always rode in her soft crate, was never confortable having free reign in the car.  When she was youger she would jump right in and get in her crate.

Her last annual appointment was typical.  At the age of 12 she had the health of a 7 year old.  Then January came, and we noticed she was having trouble eating and some other things.  We had her tested for Cushings disease, and were thankful when the results came back negative.  The doctor had mentioned some dental issues so once we got the test results back we scheduled her for a tooth extraction.  She was eating on one side of her mouth.  We dropped her off as always and went home to wait for the call to come get her.  That call came sooner than expected.  After they put her under and opened her mouth to begin, the doc noticed some tumors on her tongue.  Not good.  She biopsied some and sent it out for testing.  We picked up our puppycat and proceeded to worry.  The tests came back positive for carcinoma.....  inoperable....    she had about three months.  We were not ready; not even close.  We proceeded to care for Hope, making her food from scratch, wiping the drool from her face and mouth, watching her move slower and slower.  She could no longer get her tongue out of her mouth, so doggy kisses were over. She  began to get sick from the mucosal buildup, about once a day in the last few weeks.  Still, she had more happy moments than bad....  until she didn’t.

For the past month or so, she all but demanded to ride when Gini took me to work.  She just put her head down and headed out the door with us.  No more jumping in the van, though.  She waited patiently for me to pick her up and put her in the crate, then she’d settle down and enjoy her ride.

This past Saturday, June 29th, She woke up not interested in food.  She got up with me and laid close by, looking at me with a haunted look.  Her breathing was labored.  I was going to go to the van to get something, and she padded with me to head out the door.  So we went out and walked around the yard.  Gini joined us, and we watched as our beloved puppycat rolled around on the grass scratching her back.  But she couldn’t for long.  She had to get up and try to get sick to get the junk out of her mouth and lungs. She was in pain.  Enough that when I went into the house to get something, Gini was moved to tears watching her.  Hope was weak.  She was in so much pain.  And she just didn’t have any interest in moving around.  The haunted look was deeper.  There had a new tumor on the side of her neck.  A hard lump.  The cancer had spread.  It was too much.  She did not walk to the van this time.  I had to carry her.  When I put her in the crate, she whined from discomfort, but lay down and was quiet for the ride to the vet.  I hate this part.  The part you know is coming.  I’m going to skip the details.

They brought her out to us in a very nice little box coffin with her name on it.  I carried our little puppycat, our Hope, now 13 and never to get older, out to the van.  I put her in her crate, and we drove home.  Her last ride.

An angel sits watch over her next to the step out front.  We’re still experiencing firsts without her, and coming home has lost some of it’s joy.  No happy little bundle coming to greet us with a wagging butt and a scamper between us.  No morning kisses.  No expectant look for treats before I head to work. No Hope. 

I think the hardest part is going to bed.  She's not waiting for me on the back of the couch to pick her sleepy puppy self up and carry her to the bed.  She's not curling up next to me, or between my legs.  She's not digging an imaginary hole to sleep in.  I don't hear her breathing or feel her little heartbeat against my back.  My throat is tight, my eyes are filled, and my heart is breaking again. 

I miss my puppycat. 

The Eye

In the Storm I stand, on shifting sand,
While heaven's light steadily loses the battle
with the tempest raging, surrounding, resounding,
uncaging from its binds.
Chaos whips my skin from all directions
in the form of dejection, disappointment,
rejections and pain.  It finds
a crack in the armor that's formed,
so diminutive as to exist in abstract.
This is what the demeanor attracts, that appears not affected
by the day after day after day of challenge,
of push, of stress, of blame, of lies intended to shame.
Those outside behind a wall, stare in awe, unaware of the flaw,
as emotion seeps through the fissure forming,
yet I stand non-conforming to the buffets of fear, of doubt, of strain.
The pain acts as mortar to fill the gap, and strengthen that
which is holding me firm
In the storm I stand, no shield, no spear, for the battle is not waged
against the winds and debris and lightening and rain.
I don't hold the storm in disdain.  It is my companion, my shaper, my whetstone.
I welcome its coming, for knowing nothing else I let it surround me, go through me,
around me.
I lean in when I must, bending forward with each gust,
holding ground that is at once mine and not.  What I've got
is the knowledge that the Storm will not last.  It hasn't before, not in any past.
It simply rages until its energy is spent.
This event is my life, and I'm honed and strengthened,
ready to offer to any who would love and trust,
this simple fact that I must be the one who,
on the shifting sand,
in the Storm I stand.
It is Life.
It is Destiny.
It is Me.

cd - 102716  10:34 p.m

Contemplation on the Step

If I've learned anything from my maternal Grandmother, the value of the step is quite possibly the strongest lesson.  I should explain.

I would go to her house (she lived next door, which meant a soybean field away), and find her just sitting on her step.  That's it, just sitting.  When I asked her what she was doing, she said, "Just enjoying the outdoors".  For many of us "enjoying the outdoors" means actively doing something: swimming, hiking, playing sportsball, fishing (ok, you don't do much action fishing, but you get my drift).  For her, it meant just being with nature.  Listening to the sounds of the breeze through the trees, feeling the sun on her face, smelling the flowers growing and the turned soil.  Enjoying.

I'm 56 now, and through the years I've come to understand what she truly meant.  I have a step, and from time to time, why I need to clear the mechanism, I just go out there and sit.  I don't think about anything...  I just sit and experience the effect of everything around me on all of my senses.  Now, I prefer to do this at night, particularly when the moon is bright and the sky is clear.  My touchstones are the moon and stars (since I can't actually be at the point of the Cape at night...thanks, Government), and I know if I just sit and allow my senses to be filled with the night sounds, sights, smells, touch of air on my skin, I will be cleansed.  The only rule is to empty my mind, and not think. I can feel the rhythms of the earth and hear the songs of the sky if I sit there long enough.

I won't tell you I come away with the answers to all my questions and concerns and worries.  But what does happen is I come away with a clean slate, where I can write my own solutions, or realize the worries are trivial and don't serve any purpose other than to upset my world.  I don't really have a "religion", although I've been down that road.  I can, however, claim spirituality...  and I never feel closer to my spiritual self than when I'm out there on my step...  just enjoying the outdoors.

cd - 102016

The Passing of The Leader of the Band

I was ten when I met him.  But let's get there in a moment.

I was born here, but from the time I was around two all the way through my ninth year, I lived about 70 or so miles away.  At the age of seven (I think) I was introduced to a piano, basically because my asthmatic self couldn't always join in recess or play sports... at least not on a regular basis.  So, a funny thing happened on the way to filling the time...  I fell in love with music.  A couple years after that I was eligible to join the school band and wanted to play the sax.  My mother played when she was young, you see, and still had the instrument.  It was a win-win.  However, my teeth were in a sad transitional state, and the music director at that school suggested I not play a wind instrument until that resolved.  Dad played the drums, drumsticks were relatively inexpensive, so drums it was.

In the summer of 1970 we moved back "home"...   back here. In the Fall, I was ten years old, the new kid in school, and I wanted to play the sax now.  That's when I met him.  He taught the younger kids basic instrumentation, and I learned the sax under his tutelage along with a few other kids my age.  At the same time, I met this kid my age and, as ten-year-olds will, we became friends...  best friends.   And, the man was his Dad.  Over the course of the next eight years of my life, I spent a lot of time in their home.  Sleep-overs in the younger years, visiting in the "got my license and a car" years.  Bill and I were pretty much inseparable, and I had the opportunity to get to know his parents as a result.  Mr. and Mrs Bame.  Never "Dave and Norma" for that wouldn't suit at all.  I have a hard time even at this age forming their first names in my mouth without feeling disrespectful.  I watched Mr. Bame build kites out of sticks and newspaper, saw him reading books in his favorite chair, had the privilege of hearing him laugh from time to time, and yes, witnessed him being Dad to my best friend and his siblings.

When I reached high school, I finally had Mr. Bame as our band director.  I learned to love playing the sax and thought I was passably fair, and really couldn't wait to have him lead.  He did so for one year before he retired.  Everyone was sad, some upset.  But I knew I'd continue to see him from time to time when I came over and spent time with my friend, picked him up so we could go cruisin' with the rest of our generation (circles...  lots of circles).  I watched him create, and even helped build a few, the most beautiful wind chimes you will ever hear, made from metal electrical conduit and fishing line.  Each length cut precisely to emit the exact note, and placed so that no two chimes would be struck by the clapper that weren't perfectly harmonized.  It was a means for additional income...    It was art.

Bill and I attended college together, at least for a couple of years, as roommates.  He was best man at my wedding at St. Peter's.  I attended his wedding in a Baltimore Synagogue.  I saw less and less of Mr. Bame as Bill and I left our homes and started families.  I confess guilt over not at least going to visit from time to time.  I can claim "life" but that's really no excuse.  Bill's brother Paul moved away first, and farthest at the time.  His sister Carol (my "other" little sister) is still here.  I think without her I would have no contact with Mr. and Mrs. Bame, even indirectly.

Mr. Bame has passed.  And while it was expected, when I got the news by throat tightened...  much as it has now while I write this.  There's a tear in the corner of my eye.  A significant part of my childhood is gone.  The Leader of the Band has laid down his baton and will direct no more.  And I believe the world is a sadder place for it.

Thank you, Mr. Bame.  Thank you for taking the time to set me on a path.  Thank you for producing my best friend, his brilliant brother, and his sister whom I've come to love as my own.  Thank you for leading all of us, generations, class after class of music makers, music lovers.  Thank you.

A lunar tale

Silent, she stands, hiding in plain sight 

Reflecting into night 

The light of day, filtered with Solitude, 

Tempered by time and disappointment.

"It's fine", but it's not. 

The battles fought take toll on her heart 

Till she shelters close 

Not morose, but safe with her faith 

So misunderstood.  All will be good 

With time, you'll see.

The walls will grow strong against all but the song

That haunts and fills all the holes in her soul. What now?

Vocal, he reclines, pulling into his mind 

Unaware of the world

Revolving about while he shouts

Without sound; for he's found the counter 

To his voice, no choice. 

His soul reaches out far into the night 

The flight is long yet close at hand,

For silent she stands, walls tight against the night save for the passage that allows his song to invade, connections made.

All the while far above, the messenger, with love watches over the distance as though a blink,

As they sink into ancient embrace, her silently standing, him vocally reclined. 

Hush.  Allow.   Be.

cd - 062116

Rumors of Spring

A deep blue field of crisp vast sky, textured with the bump of an alabaster half-moon.
The sway of skeletal branches, accentuated with the green of newborn growth.
The touch of Winter's last cold breath tempered by a warm kiss of the strengthening sun of Spring.
Scattered birdsong, punctuated with moments of silence as the full choir has not yet arrived to join in.
Gentle stirrings from deep within of life awakening, new possibilities, promises of opportunities whispering in the soul.

cd - 032916

Through a Wood Winding

Finding your way through a dark wood winding, Moon-silver reminding your steps that the path unseen is clear and serene to the mind once open and free.

Reflecting at times on choices bisecting, fleeting thoughts injecting full color,

While monochrome trees sway gently in breeze that surrounds and guides what you see.

Keeping your memories from happily seeping, while eyes trickle weeping,

Betraying your heart as the foliage parts while you're finding your way through a dark wood winding, Moon-silver reminding that all love is binding, and open, and free. 

cd - 122115