image credit misselisabeth via Creative Commons on Flickr
Last weekend, for Mother’s Day, I sat with Mama through a sleepless, emotionally-torturous, two-and-a-half day vigil as she held her baby, her twenty-year-old Siamese cat Sophie, in her arms. After a month-long ordeal of medical tests and surgery to remove a tumor from her stomach, a week in the hospital, another week at home recovering, my mother had to then put her beloved kitty to sleep on Monday, May 11.
For those of you who know — deeply — the very unique bond we have with our animal familiars, you can understand that losing a pet that’s been the center of our family home for half my lifetime was actually relatively “worse” — more emotionally painful — than the string of challenging events we’ve been through in the past several weeks.
Hurdles?
Mama kept referring to Sophie’s passing as “one more hurdle.” That metaphor wasn’t working for me. A successfully cleared hurdle implies something that you never really came into contact with, that you skipped over, without being touched, that there was velocity involved… running, jumping… speed.
To me, it felt more like trying to run underwater. What others might call a hurdle is for me a part of the flow that’s so slow it makes me more hyper-aware of motion than flying ever could.
This isn’t about leaping and it’s certainly not still.
It’s a waiting with such great volume… It surrounds — permeates, saturates — everything.
I’m most comfortable with — addicted to? — motion, to action, even when it’s all virtual and nothing but words. I don’t normally like to try and write about things I’m still processing… It’s ironic that when I’m living the most — experiencing — I’m least likely to be writing about it. But, I’m calling the waters back in with keystrokes, like a tide that’s been out, re-establishing some momentum.
If I had a well-composed lesson to share, I’m sure it would have something to do with patience. (I’m painfully aware that it sounds like I’m about to spit when I say that word.) Maybe one day soon I’ll have a sequel to the Art of Surrender.
If I had the necessary words to harvest, I’d tell you about the amazing, undeniably visible angels and spirits I’ve been wading through — the living rooms of my childhood filmed with underwater cameras. Translucent ceilings, with Heaven right upstairs. Like someone threw glitter in the air. Like the clouds literally descended around my head and shoulders, or else all the prayers (yours and mine) managed to raise my world higher.
Slade, I’m sending you a big, big hug, and lots of love. I know how it feels. I feel for you.
You are loved.
Rose.
Hi Slade
At the risk of once again opposing my favorite ‘Sunday’ writer, I think what your mom may have been talking about in this latest hurdle is what we all do. She’s been dealing with and dealing with and dealing with. Hit with more stuff in ten minutes of a test result than most of don’t want to or have to deal with in a year. Sometimes you have to step over, temporarily.
She won’t ever be able to step over Sophie leaving, this week in particular, because of what’s she’s so obviously been THROUGH with her for twenty years, which includes half your life.
I also know you’re not necessarily in the reincarnation camp. But having had my cat Melee (the teeny tiny diamonds that make up diamond pave) for twenty years leave and take with her so many pieces of what I lived those twenty years, and maybe pieces of me too, there’s another part. I don’t think Melee’s spirit or essence changes or alters anymore than yours or mine, here or gone.
Two years after Melee died, Millie found me one day in my backyard. If she isn’t Melee, than she brought enough of her knowledge of that spirit with her when she ‘moved in’ for what I find uncannily seems like Melee for the second time. Nothing really lost, no jumping over, it’s always through.
You’re a swimmer, aren’t you? Easier without shirt, tie and shoes, isn’t it? But I guess when you have to go as is, you do.
Dear Slade,
Some say animal familiars are here to love unconditionally, there lot, for I say we need that in our lives…
Many enough don’t have a friend, much less a 20 year life companion and/or additional family member. The “hurdle” is the pain of such loss in a easy warm expression…my sentiment.
In the not to distant past, I have had the wonderful pleasure of my fury friends come and yes…hurdle/s” as well… this is loss in a magnitude of grief beyond comprehension for me.
The unconditionaly love is pure, but, how?..sadly, almost never knew it.
Be that it is “another hurdle” is how in essence of purity….we are truly blessed.
Know, trust and love the spirit does return, somehow…
Swimming…great pic, Or, fishing with the drag so tight the work to reel in seems im possible, (past memory), then after a time it works well again, once I
Let it Go…all is always in perfect time…
Much Love,
Suzette
Slade,
My thoughts are with Sharon and you in the passing of your beloved Sophie.
~Love never dies~
I think your Mom is in the ‘process’ too. If her use of the metaphor hurdles grounds her and helps her in the process … GREAT. It still speaks of being in forward motion as opposed to sitting in a funk.
The processes ARE individual. That hurdles does not work for you, and
you admitting that is a good thing too. !
Besides, the most important blessing for Sharon is having her loving son at her side. Most times words fall short anyway….. HUGS are all the words we need.
xo xo
DebnOhio
Hi Slade,
I’m so sorry about Sophie
I’m sending you a huge hug.
Your last paragraph, though, was simply stunning. What beautiful imagery! I could readily envision an angelic choir greeting you in your room.
With love,
Marilu
Slade
Not very spiritually advanced, but f!##! that’s alot to be feeling.
I guess it helps to know that there are a few of us here, swimming metaphorically along with you.
Hey Slade,
The feeling of overwhelm that inevitably comes with this kind of life-turning event is often difficult to bear. But when you’re underwater, running is hardly the right response, even if it happens to work marvelously on land.
As you say yourself in the art of surrender, the only way to survive is to accept the fact that the laws of physics are acting against your trained, instinctual reaction. Instead of struggling, let yourself be carried to safety.
Patience? That’s not quite the word. How about faith and trust, or at the very least, buoyancy?
A Soka Gakkai Buddhist saying: “Until the hose is unclogged, waters remain dirty”
Just think of how clear that water will be once everything that needs to happen, happens.
Big Hugs,
J.Henry
It’s true, it’s like running underwater. Maybe the anticipatory anxiety knocks us out.
Hi Slade,
I’m back to talk about this once more. Your words, your mom’s experiences kept me holding a space for them. I could almost picture your mom, trying to mend her physical self, sitting, both weak and strong, missing her cat at the same time not letting herself miss her. She wanted so much to be able to hold her still, a place she often felt comfort and comforted. in her mind’s eye she could still hold Sophie and it could feel just as real as the familiar touch of her fur, her whiskers, her purr. Your mom knew however she’d have to let go eventually and eventually seemed to be now, when she had so much else she had to both let go of and keep a grip.
Today as I looked at the scenes again, even your mom’s words and thoughts with me here today, I knew something I said last week may not have been about your mom at all. She was grieving the losses, including Sophie, even if she didn’t know for sure she was, or could tell you. It was me stepping over things yet to be grieved, a ‘temporary’ step I took many years ago and one I continued to take many times since. Sometimes hardly noticing I had forgotten. I may now be ready to see things all the way through. I’m at least hopeful and willing, I think.
Thanks again for the story. And continued best thoughts as your mom heals.