In Flames
3/31/09

 

Okay, so I'm a girl. Thru and thru. And one of the disadvantages of being a girl is that sometimes when PMS'ing our brains out... we get triggered...

 

I needed to run quickly to the drug store to get my anti depressant med refilled as I haven't had it in over 24 hours and am a bit light headed as a result and unsure what further withdrawal symptoms would come during this night if I didn't get to the drugstore... you know, it does stuff to your brain... the last one I took caused me to be violently ill in a matter of hours after missing a dose, so after years of taking it only to prevent horrific withdrawal effects, I switched to another... anyway, now over 24 hours since last took med... need to get it refilled ASAP...however, I make coffee beforehand... am preparing my cup before running out the door.  In my haste, I grab the bag of coffee grounds and measure a spoonful over my fresh cup of coffee, my body on automatic thinking this is sugar or creamer. Coffee grounds spill over the spoon into my cup before I realize what I've done.  Okaaay. Well, no biggy... fish most out with paper towels, figure the extra grounds will merely serve to wake me up quicker and I run out the door.

 

Accomplished what I needed to do, and come in through the back of the neighborhood which I rarely do anymore. I realize a house on the route has had its’ restoration completed and it looks stunning... same kind of yellow it had been prior, new windows, newly built porch, the yard has been cleaned up. It looks picture perfect. But I am reminded as I drive by slowly of the time a couple of years ago when I heard sirens and saw police and fire trucks at this house and how I was even detoured thru the streets. I stopped and asked the officer at the intersection if everyone is okay... "No," he answered sadly. There was one who did not survive.

 

I could see many people gathered across the street from this house and I found out later that day from some kids that a 16 year old boy who was handicapped and in a wheelchair, lived in this house with his family... he was adored and loved by everyone else in this old neighborhood. Being fairly new and only driving by every couple of days, I'd never seen him.

 

For some reason, his bedroom was on the second story... pretty high as the houses are elevated about two feet and the ceilings are over nine feet...

He had been at the window of his bedroom with smoke billowing out... others were outside beneath encouraging then begging him to please jump from the window. He must have been too scared and thought he could make it down the stairs... He didn't.

 

The family left but the house remained with broken windows and the ghostly image of black ash above the windows for months. Eventually someone slowly began to restore this building to its former state of refined elegance in this historical mill village. It is a lovely structure as are the identical ones that surround it... this one is on a corner and yellow, unlike most before or since. And this one has a sadness about it that I am reminded of each time I drive by... only tonight I saw that it was complete and while I could certainly appreciate the original beauty from an aesthetic standpoint, for some reason the finished project only makes my heart ache more than the one in progress did.  

 

With tears brimming I pull up to my house and see a juvenile black cat under a shrub in my yard and what I see is something more similar than I'd seen in a long long time. This one in my yard could be the twin of my own sweet girl that I cared for outside and eventually took in as a gift to myself for my 30th birthday. She was the one soul that lived with me as people came and went... the one who three years later under the guise of my 33rd birthday, allowed me to give in to another little stray for her to tolerate, sometimes groom, but never allow to take her place as first in line, keeper of my heart, and protector of my abode (yes, indeed, but that’s a whole other story.)

 

We lived in many places and situations in three states during our 10 years together. She developed a lump in her side which I had removed and while she looked like she had been through hell by the shaved hair and seven inch gash held together by 15 staples... she was quite okay with it all. Less than a year later I noticed a lump had formed in the gum of her mouth. Her tooth above was indenting it's formation and was the reason I had it removed as well. It was only a few short months before this one came back and I kept my fingers crossed that if done one more time, they would simply get all remaining cells. She never showed signs of illness, never changed in her sassy nature, never ceased to greet me at the door just as a dog would. Never stopped telling me when it was bedtime for the two of us. She was just as consistent in my life as she had been for 10 years. The only constant in my life for ten years, more precisely. So with all the love I could muster, after finally deciding to send the last tumor away for analysis and receiving the terminal news, I carefully watched her for any signs of distress or pain as I went through my hours crying on the drive to and from work as the days continued to pass.

It was in the evenings that I would interact with her, cherishing each moment and looking into her eyes with sheer disbelief at the knowledge she was dying. It didn’t seem that way at all. She was just as full of sass and full of life when her tooth again began to indent the newly and quickly growing mass that would soon require a fourth surgery. I was firm in my decision that I would not put her through chemotherapy and more empahatic that I would never allow her to suffer... because I couldn't communicate the reasons to her. Eventually one morning I decided to bring it all to a close. Perhaps it’s a surprise to some that this morning followed an evening where I had actually come to a sort of peace that I would give her more time even if it meant a little discomfort for her. I can’t really explain the reasons why. But what happened through the course of that day is something I cannot forget, cannot discuss, and something that reduced me to sobbing at any memory of her for the next two years that followed. Though at the time I tried to talk about it to family members, they were far more concerned with my emotional distress that would spring forth than they were with acknowledging the feelings I was trying to release and the necessity of it all. Even my sibling, the one with the degree in counseling, would look at me as if I'd grown a second head and kind of laugh in disbelief when months later I still could not discuss my girl without my voice hitching which forced me to either give in to it, or change the subject. I know her callousness and refusal to practice that which was supposed to be ingrained in her may be shocking to some, but that is the extreme irony of this sibling and something I have learned to expect and tolerate but never to understand.

 

So this evening I entered my house with tears streaming down my face for the first time in a very long time... and they continued to ebb and flow as I typed out this now visual catharsis... yes, this is what it's like sometimes to be a girl.

 

It only seems appropriate that while I’m double checking this post, I grab the coffee without thought to finish that last cold bit and get a mouthful of coffee grounds that I immediately spit back into the cup. Though she was only a cat, I’m certain she can appreciate the humor of this wherever she is now, even if not while she was here in that form. She was a brilliant one, so I would never attempt to decide with certainty exactly what she could or could not understand. I can only tell you that on the day of her death, I could not and did not adequately communicate with her. I barely could look at her for the two hours before our appointment with death. Not wanting to force her into a carrier, I looped a leash around her neck and carried her to the car. I'd already placed an open carrier on the back seat and due to her confusion and fear this was suddenly her place of refuge. Realising quickly it was the opportune time to close the door I reached back, tossing her leash into the carrier behind her and fastened the door shut. I then turned around placing headphones over my ears specifically so I couldn’t hear her appealing to me. During this time I spoke to her even though I couldn't hear anything and told her how much I loved and would miss her.

A relative was in the parking lot to meet me in order to follow through with the plan I had made only hours before…  he would take her lifeless body from this vet to another that I also had frequented  and trusted and whose loving staff assured me that they did onsite cremation and would do so immediately as I couldn’t live with the idea of her being placed into a freezer.  I know this is done sometimes as this particular vet was an old friend from high school who worked here as a tech in our younger days and had taken over the practice upon her completion of vet school. So yes, I had been in this establishment with her during off hours, years prior, to feed and water the sick. It was then that another friend of ours had made it a point to pull some frozen carcasses out from an appliance not unlike the one in my own kitchen. Boys! *eyeroll*

But it was this animal lover and trusted veterinarian and friend who would gently ease my girl from life to death on this day. Ultimately, I couldn’t even get out of my car and so my relative took her travel carrier and handed her over to my friend, The Executioner. While it wasn’t my plan, I warned her in advance I may not be able to stay though I knew that was the right and loving thing to do. But my relative had made the mistake of exiting his vehicle with a handful of some unimportant mail that was still delivered to his house. How he could be so out of touch with the person that I am and so completely unaware of the distinct nightmarish quality of this sequence of events that he was drawn into by a pleading phone call for his assistance and to somehow fathom that it was appropriate to try and first take care of such mundane business on this horrific occasion was simply beyond my comprehension. The recognition of what was in his hand as he opened the passenger door and placed this garbage on the seat beside me absolutely and unequivocally threw me over the edge of sanity that I had been so desperately clinging to for hours. Of course, in this state I made no attempt to censor my shock and pain at the realization this person who was once my hero was now demoted to callous idiot and didn’t know me at all. Some expression made its way out of my agape mouth but it was less communicative and possibly only contained disgust and cursing.

There was only one thing I could do now to complete this journey into hell that Lady Luck and Mother Nature had conspired and started but that I was determined to schedule and manage to its’ unjust end. I would embrace these flames now and if all went well, I would simply spontaneously combust. I begged him to hurry and take my beloved baby from the backseat before I could cause her further upset that I was certain she was experiencing as a result of these strange occurrences and the vibes I must be giving off in this utterly wrecked emotional state I was burning in. So in the end, I was not the strong one I believed I should be, prayed I could be, and knew would be best for her. There was nothing beautiful or peaceful about her ending and I will never be able to let that go. I backed out in haste as I saw him speak to my friend as they transferred the cage from one to the other…  a cage that contained a living and breathing piece of my heart that I would appreciate, long for,  and cherish forevermore. I proceeded to drive into the traffic distinctly alone in my SUV as I screamed primal, loud and long in my attempt to release the pain and agony of this situation that I had brought to an end for what I believed was my girl’s own good… it is this that I have packaged and wrapped to place on a shelf in the depths of my memory. It is this that on occasion is brought to the foreground, unwrapped and released to freedom.  It is today that I realize, more than three years later, that it will continue to haunt me and pain me in a way that nothing ever has because it was she who was and always will be my girl.

~end