Wings

sleep, sleep easy...

rest, rest in peace

we'll still sing of thee

so, sleep, sleep easy

Doodle

I saw her in the shelter one morning as I went in to volunteer. She was in the back room waiting for a full medical check looking ragged, frail, confused, sad. If I used the words "resigned" or "defeated" they wouldn't be out of order.

what is stronger

than the human heart

which shatters over and over

and still lives...

I want to say when I went to pet her, she leaned into me with relief, but the reality is that I just don't remember. Soon after she was cleared, we took her home with us as a "fospice" you know... foster/hospice. She had a disease which was likely to be her undoing, but at least at that time she would not be undone. When we got her home we immediately realized she was also profoundly deaf.

so I wrote your name in my heart

and that's where it shall stay

I believe she had a very happy life with someone who adored her before she landed in the shelter. She had the softest pads of any cat I've ever known. It's impossible for a cat of her age to have beans that soft without an abundance of love and being cherished. I was told her person died, and she landed with a caregiver for a brief time. When that person didn't want to care for her anymore she was dropped at the shelter. Although I'm grateful for the shelters, I cannot help but wonder what do people think will happen when an elderly animal gets dropped at a shelter, not to even mention one with medical problems.

no matter how long we have with them

it is never long enough

Because of these, or maybe other things, she had a forever sadness in her eyes. I think she missed her person more than anything and was living with a terribly broken heart. She became a heart cat in my life, but for her I think I was probably just more a bridge that was going to see her through her needs until she could see her beloved person again. She loved me, she loved both of us here, but I am convinced her heart would never mend until she was reunited. Still, she gave us everything she had left in her heart that wasn't covered with her own emotional scar tissue of grief and loss.

when you see the moon, think of me

when the cool breeze touches you, know that I am free

when you feel the sorrow of us being apart

know I am not lost, I am a piece of your heart

We learned to communicate with each other... me with hand signals and stomps on the ground (especially not to startle her as she slept so hard), and she with these incredibly huge meowing screams (she couldn't hear herself, so that's just how she rolled). Often we spoke to her with our lips resting on her ears, head or body so she could feel the vibrations of whatever words or songs being shared.

I cherished you then

and cherish you still

a heart can stop

but my love never will

No one else stepped up for a deaf, elderly cat with medical issues so she stayed with us. Of course I had fallen madly in love. At one point last summer, she had a health crisis, we thought she was going to cross. So, we immediately adopted her to have control over every factor of what she might need. Once she was officially adopted, she rallied immediately. It was like she knew she would be forever safe for the rest of her life, whatever the rest of her life was going to be. 

grief, I say, come in, sit down

there is tea and sugar

this will take as long as it takes

Time went on. Mornings were for the other happy vegan's lap as her setting for hours, evenings she would claim mine. She would sleep a slumber so deep, one I've never known from another. As a happy accident I learned that she loved when I would put my phone against her body and play music so she could feel the rhythm. She basked in the sun, played with her yellow catnip bananas, screamed when she was hungry, and ruled this house as the Sun rules our planetary universe. She was simply the center of everything. Days and nights were filled with her magnificent breathy, loud and stilted purr, along with her ever present tics and little "mrph" sounds. It was a very good time, very very good. 

sometimes

everything cries in you

except your eyes

She went camping with us on our RV trip last summer. She was unphased through the travel and when she wasn't napping, she'd spend time looking out the window. I was in the back of the truck with her and all the others giving all of them anything they wanted or needed, but especially for her. At the campsite, she watched butterflies and dragonflies, huge HUGE dragonflies, pass her by through the screen of the special outdoor enclosure we bought for the her and the others. Always with the breathy, loud and stilted constant melody of her purr.

the sky's looking different

it started this morning

the sun isn't rising

and the day isn't dawning

Our home became full of different shaped cat beds, boxes, cardboards and any other thing we thought she might enjoy. Most chairs and even our own bed had a bench, a stool, a box or a container adjacent to them so she could more easily get up and down because sometimes she really liked being on things. Toys were everywhere, although the only thing she played with was the yellow catnip bananas we had scattered around, her favorite by far.

grief is the price we pay for love

She went for regular veterinary care and checkups, everything was being monitored. We had medications and herbs for her illness. She was especially difficult with the herbs, I guess they tasted like dirt, at least that's how she acted. Although her illness was progressing, we were managing it and mercifully it wasn't progressing nearly as fast as we had initially feared. Only a couple of weeks ago we had actually started to say out loud that maybe we'd all take another RV trip, how exciting!

her absence is like the sky...

spread over everything

I jinxed things with that RV trip chatter. One recent morning she refused breakfast, then the same night her dinner. A quick call and she was in to see the doctor within 24 hours. We thought something was happening with her underlying illness. This happened with our Agatha Rain, and although the signs were different, we surely thought this is what it was. We were shocked to learn that she had a sudden onset illness unrelated to her underlying disease. Although her prognosis was unknown, since it was caught so fast and the treatment started so fast, there was reason for all of us, including her doctor, to be hopeful.

I'll spend a lifetime remembering you

We took her home. We were obedient with everything the doctor ordered. She had a couple of seemingly better days, even had a light and energy session, two of them actually, as it appeared the medical treatment was working. Then just as suddenly, things started to get worse, and ultimately bleak. We did everything possible to support her, keeping hope alive that things would turn around; they did not. 

hark now hear the sailors cry

smell the sea and feel the sky

let your soul and spirit fly

into the mystic

When I say I didn't see this coming, I cannot impress on you dear reader how deeply this runs. I didn't see this coming until only very shortly before she crossed. I could actually count the hours off to you if I had to it was all so fast.

everyone can master a grief but he who has it

old is beautiful

I slept on the floor with her on her last nights. She was happiest on one of two of her special pads tucked up right next to me. I propped the phone against her body and played music so she could feel it. She continued with her deep uninterrupted slumber, but for me there was almost none. Alone with her in the darkness, I watched her breathe, listened to the purr which had dimmed to barely audible and watched the minutes rushing by on the clock which, no matter how hard I wished, I couldn't stop. The closest that came was once when she opened her eyes in the middle of the night, saw me looking at her and with a little yawn she stretched out her leg and rested her cloud soft paw upon my arm. Who was comforting whom?

so you think you can tell

heaven from hell

blue skies from pain

can you tell a green field

from a cold steel rail

a smile from a veil

do you think you can tell

As she lay on a table with soft fuzzy blankets, my phone propped against her body so she could feel the music playing and a yellow catnip banana next to her, I held her paw and told her she would finally be seeing her beloved person again. My friend says this is the last act of love we can show as guardians. For me it's the moment when another piece of whatever small sliver of soft tissue I have left in my body converts to scar tissue. I couldn't have been any closer to her as she crossed, we were face to face, nose to nose, staring into each others eyes. I watched the moment her bluest of blue eyes went blank and felt fresh scar lay down new tracks.

run, run freely...

field of deep green

that's where they'll be

run, run freely

travel safely my beloved, I love you

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge. I hope there she has found her person.

The Best Laid Plans...

Plans for 2023 included more frequent posts here. That didn't work out, there were problems with account access. Oh the joys of technology.

So, here I am, shall we try this again?

The last year was one of change, something I'm not a big fan of but also pretty much the only constant in our lives. We fostered a "fospice" kitty and then adopted her late summer. She's still with us although we had a very big scare last week, didn't think she was going to make it. Not only did she make it through the crisis, she's doing really well having just had another check up this morning. She's elder, and has multiple issues, but she quickly became a heart cat, and we love her dearly.

What can I say about work. Work is work. We aren't doing as much of it by choice, we have semi-retired. We still take guests, just not as often. We take time off with more regularity, we almost never used to do that. What can I say, a major hurricane, pandemic, and then an accident the other happy vegan had caused him to be out of commission for quite some time (then surgery; still recovering, but recovery is going well thankfully) gives clarity.

Our summer plans got torpedoed when he had his accident basically on our first scheduled week off. We did manage to go RVing for a couple weeks, which was very nice.

My camera did finally completely bite the dust, in January of 2023. This was a big blow to me as I didn't want to invest a huge amount of money into something I consider myself only marginally good at as a hobby. So I struggled for most of the year with a defective iPhone (it was replaced twice, still having hardware glitches including in the camera which was very frustrating). I held out for the new iPhone release instead of buying a nice camera. I'm still learning with the new phone, but it's a big improvement over my last one. Never in my life have I waited for a phone to be released, so this was new to me as well. It's too soon to say if it will be worth the money, but so far, so good. I did buy an older used camera which is much newer than the old one that couldn't be repaired. I'm struggling to learn all the features on it, and honestly I haven't invested nearly the amount of time I should have by now to learn more. Instead I have been focusing on the cell camera which is easier to learn.

Our computer crashed and burned this year as well. It was a Mac and it stored tens of thousands of photos. Most were recovered, but the issue now is getting new photos on the replaced computer. I'm using an older computer, instead of buying a new one right away, we moved the guest computer into the office and loaded what we could onto it. The photos program took a backseat due to the amount of space it needs, so now almost none of my photos are available on the computer, I have to look at them all on thumbnail size. This is a disadvantage when I'm doing photos for sharing, or photo challenges. I get by though and hopefully in the next few months I'll have that sorted out too.

Both of us here started taking steel drum classes, but he had to drop out after a few classes due to his range of motion from the injury. I've signed up for another round of classes with the hope of improving. It's not easy, no joke there's a lot of notes on the drum (I decided to start on lead tenor, not sure if that was a good move or not) and it seems the older I get the more difficult it is to learn new skills. Despite this, I've persevered, and a friend of mine from a few islands up signed up for the next round of classes too. She's an age contemporary and vegan so we have a lot in common. I think it will be nice to have a friend in class, although everyone in the first classes were super friendly and super supportive of one another.

I'm toying with a few things for the blog, mostly this is more of a therapy tool for me (haha) as I never monetized it or tried for bigger reach but I've hoped that with the vast amount of content on here (especially cooking tips, recipes and what not) that someone has found it useful if they've stumbled upon it. One thing I always planned to do was a vegan on a budget series, like "eat vegan for $20 a week" kind of thing. That's needed more than ever based upon the eye popping prices at the markets lately, but I'm not sure I can devote the time for not just budget recipes, but the meal planning as well as making sure things taste good. We did make it through Hurricane Irma on a very shoestring budget with LOTS of donations, but that included not having a kitchen at all and I'm not going to rely on as much packaged foodstuffs when I do the budget series. Today I'm organizing recipes, cookbooks and my office space for my kitchen reference books. I'm finding some inspiration for other ways to do a series, maybe just pull a book a day and randomly do a recipe. Not sure what to do. I've been intermittent fasting for quite a long time now, and with that I don't like to eat junk anymore. It's become harder to maintain a good level of energy and health the older I get if I eat crap, you know... garbage in, garbage out. So, the budget series with random cookbooks combo might get the nod.

Other than that, my time is filled with volunteering at the local animal shelter regularly twice a week, metal hand stamping (have we ever discussed that here, I'll scroll back and see), work as we take it, and a few other things like photography, recipe testing, and attendant to the kitties at home. Last year did see several animal protests at various venues, that remains on my schedule for 2024.

So, over the next week or so I'll see where I'd like to take these posts in the new year. It's nice to have access here again. 

Till next time, go vegan, live vegan, stay vegan.

xo