Grief – Figuring It Out

Pet Loss – Finding Joy in Grief

Young or old, almost all of us who have had the pleasure of owning a pet, have reached that inevitable point where we lose them, due to old age, accidents, or disease. It’s sadder and often more heartbreaking than we acknowledge sometimes. And as I have noticed, the older I get, the more pets get added to the list of Rainbow Bridge crossers.

After having to put down our old cat last year, and watching others deal with losing their own special pets, it got me thinking about our beloved animals, what they mean to us, and how they seem to fade away as mere memories after. I also thought about the one who was a pet’s “person.” The “person” has connected with that pet on a whole different level, and the pet has returned the same intimate bond (for me, that was my first dog as an adult, Poppy).

That led me to think about how someone could be helped through that hard part, how to acknowledge the pain but also bring a bit of joy to their grief. When I visited my great aunt in Maine a few years ago, she hobbled around showing me different things in her house, but one area stuck with me. In her bedroom she had pictures on a special wall dedicated to important people she had lost. Her husband, brother, and nephew were all displayed there. She said that before bed each night she said a prayer for each them, pictured them in heaven as she kissed her hand and touched each picture, a small but meaningful gesture for her. I thought it was touching that she paid a daily tribute to her loved ones that were no longer with her.

Somehow, this translated in my brain to losing a pet and how it would help people to think of them in a special place, possibly feeling a little better about the loss, and imagining their pet back in the prime of their lives. Ideally, they could find some joy in their grief, when it’s fresh or long after when the pain is less so but still present.

From this, an idea turned into a real thing. I started Forever Loved Pets and created Pet Remembrance Prints, a way to celebrate the life of one’s passed pet while honoring them too. It’s a print with the image of the ideal place that pets go after they pass

the Rainbow Bridge, a “pet heaven” of sorts where all of the animals are happy, healthy, pain-free, and enjoying each day.

There is a cut-out at the top to insert a picture of one’s pet so owners can imagine their animal residing there. My hope is that it can hung on the wall and passed by each day, helping that person remember their pet in a special way in a beautiful setting, bringing a smile to their face and a little warmth in their heart.

I’m also hoping people will buy this for themselves or for others, “the person” who is grieving and needs a way to celebrate their pet; ideally, to find some joy in their grief. Losing a pet is an experience like no other. One of the hardest parts, in my opinion, is coming home to that empty food bowl that will not be re-filled. I want this print to help people through that time. There is joy to be found in grief, although it isn’t the easiest to access.

Learn more here.

If you’re interested or know someone who might be, please pass it on. Pets and their people are important. Let’s acknowledge them so they can get through a hard time with a little less pain.

Grief, Self-awareness

A Year of Grief

It’s been a year since my mom’s disease finally took her: a year without her nearby, a year not thinking about her medical issues, a year not sitting to watch her sleep through her days and nights, and also a year of not having to worry about these things anymore.

The initial shock of her death, which was still shocking even though I watched its slow progression, wore off over time. Suddenly, it was a few weeks after she was gone, then a month, then six months. And the first few were hard. The acceptance and recognition of never seeing someone again, never hearing their voice, and knowing that all that’s left is memories shared among a small group of people is heartbreaking in the beginning. That’s all there is. Besides the fact that my mom left almost no real possessions; even if she did, that’s all they would be – possessions, material objects that a person once owned. They might bring a smile or a tear in remembrance, but they can’t stand in for anything more than that. (It was more comforting to have a favorite picture of her around than a beloved China set anyway.)

Once I accepted her finally being gone, the real grief set in, although most days I felt fine. Logically, I understood the process and sometimes found relief in knowing that she no longer had the shell of a life she had before she passed. Still, I knew it would hurt, even if she and I were not the closest or best friends like some mothers and daughters were, I knew it was a loss. And, as it turns out, a big one. In the pamphlets that the hospice sent, this fact was pointed out again and again – the loss of parent can be harder than most.

These hard times would hit me seemingly out of the blue – suddenly I would be crying all day for no apparent reason, floundering in a bottomless well of sadness, and feeling like it would never end. I tried not to stop any of this. I tried to let it out as it needed to come, and that wasn’t easy. I can see why people push it down, drink away the pain, or distract themselves to not feel it.

At about the six month point I decided to take up the offer from the hospice and speak to a grief counselor. As my best friend put it, “that’s free therapy, you should take that.” So, I did. After a few weeks of phone tag and figuring out Covid protocols (because they were still in effect), I finally met Kathy in person in a small, windowless office with a cluttered desk, an extra chair, and a bookcase that I stared at during the silent spaces.

She spoke to me about the change that a death creates, not just in the physical absence of the person, but also the routines that the living had while caring for that person. She asked me about what was different now, what I remembered most about my mom, and how my kids were affected. But she also left a lot of silence for me to fill and that was difficult. It just hurt – I had no real words to express that in detail.

After that meeting, I thought about Kathy said, and while writing about it, I realized that my mom’s death was more than her being gone permanently from our lives, it was also the end of times in my life in which she was an anchor. Not just childhood, which has faded into memories here and there, but my late teen years and into my early twenties, when I was constantly working and going to school, and we lived in San Jose.

Back then, it was mostly my mom, my brother, and me (and my other brother occasionally), along with whoever my mom let live there at the time – it could be one of our friends, or a cousin, or my boyfriend (now husband). Anyone who needed a place, she would let them have it at our house on Sager Way. Her presence was constant, but more comforting than overbearing. She worked a lot, but I remember her in her room, watching TV on her bed, giving me the latest weather report in the morning (way back when we relied on the news meteorologist).

I realized that my mom’s passing meant a goodbye to that place and that time as well. It was home, it was safe, and she was always there. Now, that was over. And even though I knew that had ended a very long time ago, my mom signified that time. It was not only the loss of her I was grieving, but also a period of our lives together that wasn’t always easy but it was familiar, less complicated, and pivotal in some ways – the time before permanently leaving the nest.

I knew I needed to do something to say goodbye to her and to that time. I wrote a letter of sorts, more of a list of things I remembered, both the good and the bad because I knew having only nostalgia was not true or helpful. I acknowledged that space in time, my mom’s presence in it, and the sadness I felt because it was gone and she with it.

I re-read it, said thank you to the past, and burned it. Some think that fire can purify and heal; I was willing to give it a try. And it did help. Maybe it was the act of writing, the acknowledgement of times gone by, or facing the pain; whatever it was, the entire process helped. My days of extreme sadness dulled into ones of less persistent pain. The loss of my mom still hurts. I see a picture of her or think of a random memory from childhood and the sting is still there, but less so.

These days, I try to think of and point out the funny little quirks my mom had (and she had quite a few). It makes me feel like she still lives on in some way. My kids know her silly sayings and sometimes goofy mannerisms. My brother, husband, and I will bring them up when we notice something that reminds us of her. It helps. We know she won’t be coming back, and I honestly would not want her to be back in the same situation, but each day I can remember the things about her that make me smile. And on the days when it feels too hard, I know that they will eventually pass. She is gone but not forgotten. Miss you, Ma.

Grief, Parkinson's Disease, Relationships

When Your Mom Dies

Almost everyone experiences it, but now it’s my turn to know what it’s like. As of this writing, my mom died a little over two weeks ago. She had Parkinson’s Disease for thirteen years and finally succumbed to it. My family (but mostly my brother) and I watched her go from a functioning person to someone who was completely debilitated, and then mostly unconscious. In a sense we had been mourning her for many years. Each time she would decline, mostly mentally because Parkinson’s comes with its own horrible dementia, we would grieve.

And each time it hurt to see the person I once knew so well, degrade, and leave us a little more. First, being unable to remember things, then to delusions and hallucinations, then to the mind of a small child, and finally to someone who slept about twenty-three and a half hours a day and couldn’t communicate. Physically, she went from walking to using a walker then to a wheelchair and finally bed bound. The end stage of the disease is being unable to swallow, which gradually happened, along with losing whatever appetite she had for her pureed meals. She came close to dying multiple times due to various infections and sepsis, and I was convinced that ultimately would be her demise, but she managed to recover each time, although not fully in her brain.

So, when one of the nurses decided to call hospice (for the second time) because my mom had trouble swallowing and didn’t want to eat, I wondered, could it really be the end this time? Part of me didn’t think so, she had hung in there for so long. But you can’t stop eating or drinking for too long before it all catches up with you, and it did for her. Within a week’s time, she was on the brink, and we were told that she had less than twenty-four hours. My brother was at her bedside, my other brother was called, and I picked up my daughter from a friend’s house, planning to go there straight after. But it was too late. She left us late that morning, for the final time.

And it’s this finality that we all grapple with in grief – they are not coming back, ever. Even though I went to the nursing facility and saw her expired, peaceful body lying on her bed, so obviously without life in it anymore, I was in shock that it finally happened (and still am to a degree). I now realize that there was always this small, fictional hope in the recesses of my realistic mind, my own childish fantasy, that maybe she’d get better someday. Maybe some incredible medical innovation would happen and she would walk out of there. I knew in my brain, and in a large part of my heart, that this was completely illogical and would never happen. I knew this, but that tiny, impossible hope continued on anyway. Now, it couldn’t. Knowing that is hard to accept.

The hole that’s left behind is hard too. It’s like a chunk of yourself has been removed and it can’t be replaced. Time will dull the pain of the loss and that chunk may fill in a little, but I know that it can never be whole again.

Right now, it’s the the little things I notice that signal her absence – not needing to leave my phone on at night because the nursing facility may call, not working my visits with her into my schedule, not having that topic of discussion with my brother when we have our weekly phone call. That’s all done, over.

And I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit that there is a great sense of relief in that. These years, especially the last five, have been so heart-wrenching and full of sadness. Watching someone decline in that way is a slow torture. My kids have no great memories of their grandmother and in the last couple years, we had to visit her at her window (due to Covid) and, if she could see us at all through her constant sleep, it was in masks. How can I not feel grateful that it’s now over? That’s from my perspective. For her, I can’t imagine what the last thirteen years were like and I never heard her complain once about her disease. I can only hope that this last period of her life was free of pain and excessive suffering. In the end, that’s what we all hope for.

May she rest in peace.

Fear, Grief, Kids

Batman, Misinformation, and What Makes a Shooter

Instead of covering subjects and topics in-depth as I have in the past, I’m trying something different. These are my observations from each week in May:

The hardening of Batman.
Week 1: The last Batman movie, The Batman (because now he requires an article to sound more important) is pretty dark in almost all aspects, from the actual lack of lighting in the film to the character himself. As someone said, he’s the “emo Batman” with his smudged eye make-up and the lonely, gritty life he leads. A digital production company decided to take the “original” Batman, Adam West, and put him in The Batman’s trailer. They titled it, “The Batman but with the Goofy Batman.” It’s an entertaining watch to see the original Batman in tights with familiar visual sound effects “BAM!” “KAPOW!” etc. in the mean streets of Gotham City. What it made me think about, though, was Batman’s progression from campy entertainment to dark and violent justice. What does this say about what viewers want to see and what filmmakers create? Do we all want the latest version of Batman to be haunted by his past while ruthlessly killing his foes or would we occasionally like to see some ridiculous dancing and ludicrous situations? I vote for men in tights and silly lines, most others (including my brother, a dedicated fan) would vote otherwise. Do a quick search for “Adam West in the Batman” to check it out and see what you think.

Cause of death? Misinformation.
Week 2: According to the FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, “misinformation is now our leading cause of death.” He was referring to the wealth of questionable information on-line and in the news that people read, believe, and then make poor decisions based on. Interestingly, he put part of the onus on reporters. He said, “People are distracted and misled by the medical information Tower of Babel, but journalists like yourselves play an important role here and your work has a tremendous impact on public trust.” One would think that reporting truthful information would be journalists’ number one goal, but as we have seen with so-called news programs that label themselves as “entertainment” when in legal trouble, it is hard to trust any one source. Truly, it comes down to the individual’s ability and desire to use critical thinking, to check multiple sources, and not believe everything you hear (or read or see). That definitely seems to be lost in our current society, and apparently death can be the result!

Instinct.
Week 3: We recently got chicks (baby chickens, that is) as we do almost every year. What is so incredible about a chick is its instinctual ability to survive almost immediately upon hatching. It begins to peck for food, drink water, and seek out the warmth of the heat lamp from the moment we receive them. They don’t technically need a mother hen (though it is nice for them to have one for the protection) because they inherently know what to do from the very start. Humans, and probably most mammals, don’t have a fighting chance, not from birth anyway. We need the care of someone to survive initially. We have instincts too, of course, but as time goes by, we usually explain those away with our thoughts and emotions. A chick’s simplicity – to eat, drink, sleep, poop, repeat from the very start – is admirable.

What makes a shooter.
Week 4: The incredible and heartbreaking number of shootings lately has been hard to take. Why it continues to happen is the part that bothers me the most. Gun control of certain types of weapons is obviously an issue, but it’s only part of the solution. We should be asking why someone thinks it’s acceptable to kill multiple people in a rampage (especially kids), how they got there, and what we can do about it now as a society.

Turns out, two professors, one of criminology and one of criminal justice, have researched that topic and wrote a book about it, which came out last year (Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic). From studying and researching mass shooters, their personal histories, and the shooting sprees, authors Peterson and Densley found some commonalities among them. They note a “consistent pathway” for would-be shooters. “Early childhood trauma seems to be the foundation, whether violence in the home, sexual assault, parental suicides, extreme bullying. Then you see the build toward hopelessness, despair, isolation, self-loathing, and oftentimes rejections from peers.” This build-up often leads to suicide attempts. “What’s different from traditional suicide is that the self-hate turns against a group. They start asking themselves, ‘Whose fault is this?’ The hate turns outward. There’s also a quest for fame and notoriety.” The last two shooters (at the time of this writing) were 18-year old boys. 18. What could’ve been done for them during their short lives to help them become young men who were looking forward to their futures after high school instead of plotting to kill themselves and take many others with them? The answer to that is multi-faceted and, of course, costly which unfortunately involves the government and politicians. And that’s where many of us lose hope and feel helpless about anything changing anytime soon. Sometimes, prayers and a desire for change can only get us so far, sadly.

Grief, Relationships, Self-awareness

Never Dead, Forgetfulness, and Some Regrets

Instead of covering subjects and topics in-depth as I have in the past, I’m trying something different. These are my observations from each week in April:

So I have to pay attention?
Week 1: “Forgetfulness isn’t usually a memory problem so much as it is an attention problem.” Isn’t that comforting news? On her podcast Brené Brown interviewed Dr. Amishi Jha, a neuroscientist who has studied memory and the brain. She says that when many of us get older and “can’t seem to remember where we put things,” it’s because we aren’t paying attention to where we put something, not that we’re getting dementia or that our old brains don’t work as well. My dear friend Vicki was infamous for losing her car keys since the day she got her driver’s license. It’s interesting to know that she wasn’t forgetful so much as not being mindful of where she set them down (and they could end up anywhere). However, the rest of us can still lose our glasses while they sit on top of our heads…

It’s hard to accept life sometimes.
Week 2: “You know, I’ve tried to accept this life. But it’s hard.” This was spoken by a woman being wheeled into morning activities at my mom’s skilled nursing facility. I couldn’t help but wonder, did she mean her whole life, or living in a place where most patients are at their last stages, or some other time that she regrets. And, let’s face it, there are some points in all of our lives that we’ve tried to accept, but it was hard. I’m hoping she has a better day tomorrow.

Should dead be forever?
Week 3: The concept of the show Upload on Prime offers interesting and perplexing questions. In it, the main character dies, but before doing so, his consciousness is uploaded to a server where he can continue to “live” at a resort style hotel and keep in contact with people on Earth. Of course, only those who can afford it can go (and everything there costs extra too so you must have alive, wealthy people paying for you). The idea presents some thoughtful questions, like should we stick around after death, even as consciousness, and still be in contact with the living? Would we want everyone we know who has died to be around forever? And when we die, would we rather leave this life forever or try interact with the living from afar? At different points in the show, the dead character realizes that living in a VR resort isn’t so great. He wants to be back in the land of the living, regardless of the many crappy parts. Personally, I’ll just go to the hereafter when it’s my time, wherever that is.

What’s good for some….
Week 4: “Good for her. Not for me. That is the motto that women should constantly repeat over and over again,” – Amy Poehler, Yes, Please. In her book, Amy (because we’re on a first name basis) was speaking about childbirth and the use of hospitals and painkillers during labor. A friend of hers used no drugs and birthed at home. Amy’s response was, “Good for her. Not for me,” then said that we should all be saying that to ourselves. So true. We should avoid comparing in any situation. Especially as women, where comparison and “not good enough” is bred into us as little girls. What if we just said, “Good for her. Not for me,” instead? The world would be a better place. (I’ll have to practice saying that about every Kardashian and the watchers of their show because I can’t understand why people like these women and what makes them so popular, except for their ridiculous wealth…. “Good for them, not for me.”)

Thanks for reading!

Grief, Kids, Parenting

By the Way, Your Summer is Canceled

If you had any fun and exciting travel plans this summer, or camps or sports for your kids, you’re probably starting to get the feeling that they’re not going to happen. Just like the spring when, one by one, event after event got nixed, so is the summer. Yes, places are slowly attempting to re-open, but they do so while maintaining difficult, and sometimes impossible, restrictions on the number of people allowed, adequate spacing, and many mask and glove requirements. So even if some of these plans did go forward, they sure wouldn’t be much fun.

This was the realization with my own children’s summer rec swim team. Typically, practice starts the Monday after school gets out and it’s a summer filled with weekly practices and Saturday meets. It’s exhausting at times, but it keeps them busy, active, and socializing with their friends. The board decided (and I am a part of it) that the attempt to try and have a max of eight kids in the pool at one time, along with six-feet distancing for anyone on the pool deck, people occupying the bathroom, or waiting outside to get in, was just too much for parents to enforce or comply with. Couple that with constant required temperature checks and you have a rigid, restrictive, and depressing summer rec team.

Still, accepting that fact was hard on my kids and me. This has been our regular summer for the past five to six years. It is something routine and expected. My kids are dying to feel some normalcy and be around their usual teammates. Now, like everything else with this virus, it’s changed. And that’s still hard to take.

So, we are accepting and dealing with the frustration, disappointment, and sometimes anger, about more changes to plans, be it summer swim team or that trip we were thinking about (insert anyplace here, we had no idea yet). And I am also trying to re-think what summer means, then and now.

Before, it was always about trying to keep my children occupied and not let them become screen zombies, while also staying active in some way. Summer was never really that relaxing time with “beach reads” and sunbathing, not when your kids are small, and not before that when there was always work or summer school. Summer has never been that idyllic, carefree vacation time, for me anyway. But can it be now?

And this is where the “let’s make the best of it” side comes in. Maybe summer can be somewhat relaxing for all of us. Instead of sweating at swim meets, working the meet computer software and waking up very early to do so, maybe we take the summer off. Yes, it will be challenging to keep my son’s Fortnite marathon at bay, or to make my nearly teenager daughter do something more than lie around and complain of boredom, maybe we can do different things instead. No home schooling, no rushing to practices, and hopefully, no ensuing arguments over frivolous things (being really optimistic there).

What that might look like, I still don’t have a clear picture of yet, but I told my daughter that we will be visiting lots of places with water in lieu of a pool (and thankfully, we can do that where we live in the middle of nowhere). For those of you who had that great trip planned, the disappointment and the pain of getting refunded is probably extreme, and I am sorry about that. No one wants to continue this way. But, can we find ways to make the best of it? We can wait (which many of us have a hard time doing) until it’s safer to go on that trip (because it really wouldn’t be much fun right now anyway). In the grand scheme of things, so far, we have had two seasons of one year altered from the way we expect them. That’s six months out of the many years that we live. Yes, we can get through it, children and adults too.

So go ahead and admire my optimism right now, but by August, I’m sure I’ll be praying for open schools!

Fear, Grief, Parenting, Self-awareness

3 (Positive) Things the Virus Has Given Us

Let’s face it, it’s hard to find many positives in our current shut-down society (if you live in California anyway). We’re starting week three of shelter in place, only going out for food or necessities, and for my family, homeschooling. These are trying times, indeed. By Friday, school is out and we need that break – from each other. Despite the inconveniences, and hardships for many who aren’t working right now, we can try to find the good, even if we don’t really feel like it (and I can tell you that no one in Target yesterday felt like it, not even a smile could be had). Here they are anyway:

1) We have time at home. By now we may not really want that time at home, but for lots of people, they’re almost never home. Either working, socializing, taking kids to various practices, there are many who are seldom at their own places, but this avoidance of the virus gives us the chance to just “be home.” That can be good if we take advantage of the opportunity to catch-up on the rest that our fast-paced society never affords, clean-out some overflowing closets or cabinets (you’ll just have to wait to donate that stuff), or read those magazines or books that have stacked up. If you’re like me with kids at home, this luxury isn’t always the case or easy to accomplish, but you have the chance now to carve out the time (maybe with the help of a spouse or partner), so do it. We’ll be back to the never-ending race before we know it.

2) Time for kids can play. With no school, except our homeschooling which does not encompass an entire day (unless it’s a day where arguing, pleading, and negotiating is at work), my kids have lots of time on their hands. We still try to limit screen time so they don’t end up coming out of this thing even more zombie-like, and it’s challenging to combat the “I’m booored!” complaint, so they often end up going outside. They have ridden bikes with the neighbor kids (far apart from each other), created a “secret hideout,” and have witnessed spring come to life outside their windows then went out to see it (in real time, people). As tough as it is to have the kids home all day (and trust me, I feel it), we aren’t rushing to the next practice or lesson, and I’m not scrambling to be in two places at once. And while they might be missing their sports right now, they just might appreciate them more when they go back to them (so maybe there won’t be so many complaints over practice? Fingers crossed on that one).

3) Finally, and so important, dogs are happy because their families are home. It might be a small token of gratitude, but I know that our two dogs are so glad that we are all here (all the time). They aren’t waiting around for us to get home, they are happy to accompany us when we go on walks, and they are content to nap next to us while we work (which is what they do most of the time we’ve found). So, even if you don’t own a dog, know that those who do are happier and that’s good (as we know, cats could care less).

To wrap it all up, here are a few coping strategies to get through this time with no foreseen end date:

– Try to remember that this is all temporary. True, that is hard to do when we don’t know any real facts or have a window of time for a goal, but know that it will end and that we will go back to our lives, possibly altered a little, but we will go back.

– View being at home as “safe at home,” not “stuck at home.” I saw this on a Facebook post, and it really is a good way to shift your view for the better. Feeling stuck gets me anxious, frustrated, and clawing at the cage to get out. Feeling safe gives relief and calm. I’m reminding myself of this often.

– Appreciate the simple things. It might sound trite, but try it, you’ll feel a smidgen better. For example, I got toilet paper at Target yesterday – an 18-pack no less. Score one for my family! We won’t be using the leaves I’ve been picking each day. (Kidding? Maybe, maybe not.) Also, here in good old California, we have electricity! Anyone who lived here in the fall knows that power outages for days on end are NO fun. Having lights, heat, hot water, that’s something to appreciate (for real).

Good luck, everyone, stay “safe at home.” This will all be a “remember when” moment some day, really!

Grief, Self-awareness

My Donkey Died – And So Did the Beginning

My donkey died last month (no, really). He was nearly thirty, which is about their life span, and he went very quickly. In the morning, Marcus was eating his hay breakfast with this buddy Olivia, and our two goofy goats, then by late afternoon, he was laying down at an odd angle (which isn’t typical) and looked dead. But he was still barely breathing.

By the time the vet got to our house, Marcus was staring vacantly, and she realized that he was a goner. She went to her truck to get the medicine to put him to permanent sleep, but in that short time, he had died. He gave one last breath while I sat next him, and was gone. We buried him in the dark. Mercifully, it had stopped raining that day during our very wet winter, but the mud and muck remained and we sloshed through it to his grave site.

My family said their last words to our donkey as he lay lifeless in a five-foot hole (tractors are a tool to be grateful for). Both of my kids were upset. Both of our donkeys have been around since before my kids were born. Marcus was a constant presence, even if it was in a pasture braying for his breakfast. He was always around, following his lady, Olivia, in a humdrum kind of fashion. A.A. Milne wrote Eeyore well because both that donkey and Marcus shared many characteristics.

donkeys — Marcus in the front with his buddy, Olivia, in the back.

I was sad about it all, especially the speed at which he went down. Could I have done something more? I wondered. Were there warning signs that I didn’t notice? These were my thoughts that night and the next day.

Then, by the third day, I cried. And cried, and cried some more. I questioned why I was getting so upset over a donkey? I mean, I liked this donkey. He was a good donkey, as far as donkeys go, but I didn’t have a special bond with him like people do with their horses. I told my best friend the news who put it all into place. “You’ve had him since you moved there,” she said. “It’s like the end of something.” Aha! She was right. It was the end of the something – the end of the beginning.

We moved out to the country almost fourteen years ago. We got Marcus and Olivia soon after that as adoptees. They were there at “the beginning.” It was when we decided to move from Southern California after only living there for a couple years (we didn’t care for it there), when we decided that we wanted “some land” (and five acres was a lot to us, suburbanites), it was the beginning of a new phase of a newly married couple’s life.

It’s funny how time can pass so quickly once you live in a place you love, how having children accelerates time, and how you don’t notice that all of us are aging – human, dog, donkey, it’s all going by so fast, you don’t take note. With Marcus suddenly dying, and me realizing that he had reached his actual lifespan, I had to accept that it was officially “the end of the beginning,” and I cracked.

marcus1 — Marcus featured on our Christmas card.

Like the death of any pet or person, the end of one’s career, the milestone of a graduation, they are all endings to beginnings. “The end of an era,” my dad always says. It certainly was with Marcus. But with the end of things comes the paradox of a new beginning.

So, though I do mourn the death of my donkey and the beginning he represented, I know this means the beginning of something new. Possibly a place with only one donkey to bray at us in the morning, or maybe welcoming a new donkey into the family.

R.I.P. Marcus – we will miss you.

Grief, Illness, Self-awareness

Do We All Get Softer with Age?

Last week, the vet put our old goat down. He had reached the point where no food interested him, his arthritic bones ached him to the point of limping, and he was ready to move on to the next plane. We weren’t sure of his age, but the vet commented that he outlived his teeth (he only had about two left). We got him about six years ago with his buddy, Maggie, who has passed on last winter. And yet, Ginger kept hanging in there. He had a severe liver infection over the winter that nearly killed him, but he recuperated on antibiotics and kept going, despite his body continuing to deteriorate.

When we first got Ginger he was generally a jerk. He would threaten to head butt my husband (a sign of dominance) and would lean over the fence if my son was nearby and pull his hair with his teeth! My son learned to fear Ginger and my husband mostly disliked him (especially when he severely sprained his ankle because of the goat).

I’ve generally had an okay relationship with the grouchy goat. I tried to treat him kindly and in the end, he usually just wanted pets (some goats are just like dogs who want attention). Of course, I didn’t appreciate him pulling my son’s hair and I always warned my kids and their friends to stay out of the pasture with the goats, but generally, he was an “okay goat” in my mind (think of a family pet that you weren’t very close to, but tolerated well enough).

Recently, in his elderly years, he became much nicer, to people anyway. Maybe he didn’t have the energy or the will to try and be dominant, maybe he realized that it doesn’t really matter, or possibly he knew that he was old and vulnerable and just couldn’t be on top anymore. Whatever the reason, Ginger had softened. Almost anyone could approach him in the last few months and he would just look to see what you might have in your pocket for a snack, or an ear scratch would often suffice.

Do we all soften like Ginger with age? I watch my father interact with my own children. He is a much more gentle and understanding grandfather to them than he was as father to my siblings and me. He watched his own father do the same thing. My own grandfather was sweet and kind, and always nice to us grandkids. My dad has different memories, which is probably typical of any parent dealing with his own children versus grandchildren. Maybe, as we age, we realize how fleeting it all is, and that kids will be kids for a relatively short time.

Enjoying apples. — Enjoying the moment – with apples.

Still, it seems like a choice for most people as they get older. Will someone realize that all of the worries they once had aren’t as important as they thought and just living each day peacefully and contentedly is the path to be on, or, as we all have seen, do they choose to be angry, cursing any new trend, and repeating how good “things used to be,” and generally being, well, a jerk like the younger Ginger was?

I’m hoping to take my lesson from the old Ginger, regardless of why he became nicer and realized that the fight isn’t worth it, he changed from an “ornery old goat” to a “relatively nice old goat.” I’ll go with that description for myself, human or otherwise.

Fear, Grief

Where Were You When the Country Changed?

It is hard to believe that it has been sixteen years since 9/11. Those of us who were adults or young adults at that time still remember exactly where they were when the horrific news was broadcast. I was getting ready for work in our small, crappy apartment. I had the news on the TV in the background and caught images of the Twin Towers broken and aflame as I got my purse, ready to leave the house. I went closer to the television and thought that must be from some other country, not here in United States. And then, as I drove to work and turned on the radio, the two goofy DJs who I normally listened to with their practical jokes and bad sexual puns were quite serious this morning. They relayed the little information they had: it truly happened; someone had attacked US soil in a massive way in New York City and Washington DC.

When I got to work, which was in a construction trailer on a job site, the usual joking or complaining of guys who filed in and out were very quiet. Many were huddled around my desk radio listening for whatever news they could get. This was no joke; this was no prank; this was real and none of us quite knew what to make of it.

History books talk about how the Great War (WWI) change the lives of everyone forever with the modern inventions of trench warfare, the machine gun, and mustard gas. They also write about how D-Day and World War II continued to make our lives different so that no one could go back to the “way things were.” The United States especially felt that with the attack on Pearl Harbor. For Americans living in the twenty-first century, 9/11 was the day the world changed for us civilians. Suddenly, we were not invincible; we could be affected in very large ways by people who wanted the Western world to end. They had not succeeded fully, but their attempt was significant and they accomplished their goal of inflicting great pain, worry, and anxiety about the way we live our everyday lives.

I remember watching President George W. Bush standing at Ground Zero and making a speech. And although I did not care one bit for that president at that time, I do think he held the country together well during that moment in such crisis.

We were all scared and confused and utterly flabbergasted about what happened. I remember thinking that some of his words were actually helpful (even if he didn’t write them). But unfortunately, as what often happens when a tragedy occurs, within a few days time the finger-pointing started. Who is responsible for this? Who’s fault is this? Who dropped the ball so that these men could board planes and crash into the Towers and the Pentagon? Who is to blame? That is what many people want to know in the end because they think it will stop their pain. If they have someone or some entity to accuse and can prove it’s their fault, then that will alleviate the grief. But it ends up just being a distraction in the steps to accepting the pain and the realization that this tragedy happened, could possibly happen again, and what we can do to avoid that.

Since that time, sixteen years ago, thankfully nothing to such a scale has occurred again. But little by little we are experiencing more and more small, but still tragic, incidents in Europe and here in the US. It is still incredibly sad and frightening: the faces and the organization may have changed but the problem still exists. Rooting out the culprits and sticking them on some island prison or killing them outright does not solve the problem. It just morphs into something or someone else who has the same sentiment. While they continue to truly believe our way of life is wrong and we are evil, we will always be in danger.

I think we would be better off if we took these key people, made them live in the United States (under extreme security measures obviously), and showed them that the majority of us aren’t all that bad. For the most part, we are compassionate, empathetic, and caring human beings who are living everyday lives like everywhere else in the world. (We could also expose them all to some terrible stomach flu with it coming out of both ends, then pretend we cured them; they would be thankful after that, if anything.) Then they would go back to their countries and tell others, including and especially future generations, “Those Americans, they’re okay. They were nice to me and I can eat solid foods again. Let’s not destroy their way of life because it’s just different from ours, not bad.” That is where people seem to get stuck, in the differences. If we’re from the United States, or Europe, or from North Korea for that matter practicing whatever religion, we are all just human beings. Homo sapiens attempting to continue sustaining life on planet earth. Why any of us feel the need to end the lives of fellow humans in the name of whatever god or country or whatever moral rules they feel are being broken still continues to be incomprehensible to me.

And that is part of the reason why 9/11 is still a day that sticks with me and always will. Besides the fact that the country did change that day and has changed since, we’re still in the same fight, still at odds with others who don’t want us around and, likewise, we don’t want them around. Where does it end?

In the words of good old Gandhi, “An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” Or, in the words of a very different person from a smaller, still violent, historical event: “Can’t we all get along?” I continue to hope so.