Nazgul

 It's October 10.  I last posted August 22, saying farewell to Wilhelm.  There has been no closure.  I still call him.  I still check the pictures on the shelter website several times a week.

A lot has happened since then, and I will have to catch up.  But there is more pain to get through first.  Much as I really really do try to keep a positive attitude, to keep moving forward, it's hard.

Especially when I lose friends.

I lost Nazgul.

Nazgul was 14, one of those "never goes to the vet except for annual shots" cats.  When he went for his checkup in July, the doctor noted that he had lost about 3 pounds from the previous year, but that's not too surprising in an older cat.  It was a couple of weeks after that when Wilhelm disappeared.  Nazgul started acting a little off.  He had been buddies with Wilhelm, and I thought he just missed him.  But he continued to just be too quiet and not wanting to eat.  I took him back to the vet.  Bloodwork showed some anemia, not bad, everything else seemed OK - but he had lost another 2 pounds in a month.  That's extreme.  He got shots to improve his appetite, steroids to help the anemia and perk him up, antibiotics just in case.  But he just got quieter an quieter and didn't eat.  I called the vet - we both agreed that it was probably cancer.  I could have taken him in for X rays to confirm, to see what was wrong.  I didn't.  Because if I had seen a tumor I would have felt the need to go ahead and let him go, and couldn't bring myself to do that.  He didn't seem to be uncomfortable or restless, or in pain.  Just rested.

Finally, on Friday, Sept. 11, I came home from work and realized it would be soon.  He didn't want to be held, but I lay down beside him and kept my hand on him for a couple of hours until he stopped breathing.  I held him and howled and felt so alone.  Then I buried him under the gardenia.

Nazgul first showed up as a "black cat-shaped hole in the universe" that would disappear when we looked at him.  Over the course of a year, he would creep closer to the house.  One night I looked out the window and saw glowing green eyes looking through the cat door onto the porch.  "Bob", I said, "There is a Nazgul on our deck".  Within a month or so after that, Bob could scratch him.  Soon after he lost his wraithlike look, gained about 10 pounds, and decided that he liked being an Owned Cat.  When we got the kittens RiverSong and NokoMarie he would lie in the hallway and let them use his belly for a trampoline as they ran down the hall.

When Bob and I were in Gainesville the other cats eventually accepted our housesitter, but not Nazgul.  He just stayed under our bed (Mac would peek under to take pictures and make sure he was all right).  When I came home for two days in February, he immediately came out and spent the night headbutting me and patting me with his paw.  Then, when I returned to Bob, he returned to under the bed.

He emerged when I came home alone.  Slept with me.  Let me hug him.  He was happy that I was back

And now he is gone, and I miss him.

Goodbye (?) Wilhelm

 On April 30, 2014, there was a major storm.  Not a named one, or an official tropical storm, but a mighty deluge.  And someone from Parking Services showed up at Bob's office with a tiny wet kitten, maybe two weeks old, that someone had grabbed from a gutter.  We never did find out who, or who passed it on, or who asked the guy from Parking Services to take it to "that guy in Environmental Studies who takes care of animals."

So, thus dramatically, young Wilhelm entered our lives.

We tried to name him equally dramatically.  Walpurgis, for Walpurgisnacht, a night of wild magic (which is on the night of April 30, the day we got him).  Nope.  Prospero, for the tempest in which we got him.  Big no on that too.  Then, when he was demanding his bottle, he let loose with a huge yell for such a small kitten.  "What's with the cat Wilhelm??" I asked. And there it was.

[digression:  In movies, the characteristic scream of someone falling off a cliff or a horse is called the Wilhelm scream (you hear it a lot in Star Wars). By extrapolation, the iconic cartoon sound of a cat scream, usually from an alley, is called a cat Wilhelm.]

Any vet will tell you that bottle babies often turn into somewhat neurotic cats.  So it was with him--sweet and loving, but also easily over stimulated and prone to using his teeth.  Got frustrated at being kept indoors.  Tended to get stressed out and nip ankles.

Of my 9 cats, 5 are strictly indoor cats.  Three of the others (Nazgul, Hamish, and Apache) just showed up as adults, used to being outside.  My plan was to have Wilhelm as an indoor cat, but he was having none of it.  I understand that there are dangers to letting a cat out.  But there is also a great deal of joy in having one that wants to follow you around the yard, that comes running up when you step outside, or trots to the car to meet you when you come home.  Maybe it's because of the trace of the wild that all cats have.  There's magic in the bond.

He was a homebody.  I could always spot him anytime I stepped outside (if not, he would trot up from wherever if I called).  He was the main one who would run to the car to greet me.  

You may notice that I'm speaking in past tense.  The outside cats (known collectively as the BoyCats) come in at night.  If cats are going to wander, night is when it happens.  We also have critters like coyotes around (although I haven't seen any lately).  Come nightfall, they trot in.

But two weeks ago, August 7, he didn't trot in.  I had seen him about an hour earlier.  The other three cats were behaving normally.  I didn't think anything was amiss, and figured he would show up soon.

But he never did.  Something happened to him, and I might never know what.  It's the not knowing that hurts so much.  Did he get stuck somewhere?  Injured? Trapped? Attacked?

People have tried to console me.  "Cats can take care of themselves" (that's a myth.  No they can't, if they've been used to being fed their entire lives.)  "Oh, they just wander off - he'll come back someday "(another myth--cats are territorial and come back to home turf).  "Oh, he probably got himself adopted by another family" (as Bob and I were pretty solitary, he was *very* spooky around strangers.)

And yes, I've done flyers and social media and I check shelter pictures every day.  But I have to accept that my little furry friend, my Mama's boy, is gone.   And I don't even have Bob's shoulder to cry on.

I miss you, my little one (yes, he was still called the Little Cat, at some 6 years old and 15 pounds).  I pray that you didn't suffer.  I love you.

Reef Deployment

 Last May I wrote about building Bob's memorial reef.

On July 17 it was lowered into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

I wasn't there.

We had fairly short notice.  On July 10 we were told "sometime next week".  On the 15th the notification was "it will be the 16th or 17th."  By the afternoon of the 15th the email said 7:00 a.m. on the 17th.

It was to be a family funeral of sorts.  We would all meet very early at Della and Don's at Mexico beach (it takes time to load and unload a boat and and get out to the site).  I realized that in order to get there on time I would have to leave by 4:30 in the morning.  I don't like driving at night, and much of the drive is through isolated areas where many deer would be feeding, so I planned on going down the evening before and spending the night there.  Amanda, Robert, and the kids would join us the next morning.

About an hour before I left, I got a call from Amanda.  Two of her lab partners were sick and being tested for Covid.  And one of Dane's co-workers had tested positive.  We talked for awhile, and admitted that she had to do the adult thing and keep the family at home.  So it would just be Della, Don, and myself.   I got out my suitcase.

Then realized I couldn't do it.

One of my co-workers was also out with a respiratory illness.  She gets one every year about this time, and while her Covid results hadn't been returned yet, her doctor was pretty certain it was a bacterial infection.

So I don't know if I used her illness as a reason or an excuse.  But I called Della and told her I wasn't coming.

The truth is that I realized I couldn't handle it.  I couldn't go out there, watch his memorial be winched down into the water, and then drive home alone to an empty house.  I hurt enough; I didn't have to beat myself up more.  And, for me, the pouring of the reef had been his funeral.  I didn't need a second one.

The deployment didn't go quite as planned.  The ship with the reefs got caught behind a coal barge that had grounded so was four hours late.  In that time a squall came up which knocked Don's boat around a lot, but fortunately cleared within an hour, and they watched the reef being deployed.

I felt calmer after that.  I didn't realize that I was stressing over something left undone, that another milestone had to be passed.  But wistful and sad.

The head of the artificial reef association (Bob Cox) had let me know that he would take pictures and videos of the deployment.  I did not know that he would edit and set to music a very lovely video of the reef in place. It was posted last week.

Of course I cried.  But the part that was uplifting, that actually gave me happiness, was the school of little fish that were dancing around it, claiming it as their new home.

A pyramid of cement and limestone rocks may not be everyone's idea of a memorial.  But I think of the graveyard scene from Phantom of the Opera:

"Passing bells, and sculpted angels

Cold and monumental

Seem for you the wrong companions

You were warm and gentle"

Yes, Bob was warm and gentle, and welcomed all life.  This is where he needed to be.

July 9, 2019 - July 9, 2020

OK, been sitting here for an hour, playing online solitaire, and wondering what to write.

Because I feel I should write.

Because it's July 9.

July 9, 2019 was the watershed day.  We had spent a few weeks being confused and concerned because Bob's "routine" checkup showed oddities in his blood count.  He stopped taking his gout medication (which can cause a disruption in his blood count) and had the tests taken again.  Still weird.  We had met with an oncologist, who had looked at his count, looked at his eyes and fingernails and gums, looked at me and said "doesn't he look pale to you?"  and in that light, well, yes, he did.  But I always thought of Bob as ruddy.  And he was acting normal--we had even been swimming on a regular basis.  But we ended up staying there another 6 hours because Dr. Nair decided he needed an emergency transfusion.

A few days later there was the bone marrow biopsy.

And we had an appointment on the morning of July 9 to see the results.

Fiona had not been feeling well for a few days.  This happened periodically; she had kidney problems for several years but usually responded to having fluids infused.  This time she hadn't.  And we got up that morning and looked at her--and her face was puffy, and she couldn't eat or drink, and we knew the kidneys had finally quit and the old cat was suffering.  Bob said he would have to call and reschedule his appointment; I put my foot down and said no, this appointment was important.  We called the vet and they agreed to slide us in as soon as we got there.  We held her while the doctor put her down, then left her tiny body there for cremation.  We sat in the car for awhile and cried.  Then we drove to the clinic.

We sat in Dr. Nair's office, trying to keep our act together, grieving for the loss of a 20 year old furry friend, wondering how such a small animal could leave such a big hole in our lives.

Dr. Nair came in, pulled his chair close to us.  Sat down, holding papers.  Looked us in the eye and said "I'm sorry.  It is leukemia."  Not "it's".  Each word separate.  A Pronouncement:  It. Is. Leukemia.

I can't remember how we reacted.  I remember that we tried to explain that we were in grief, that we had lost a friend an hour before.  I think he was confused and wondering why we were talking about a cat.

And I remember nothing about the rest of the day.   I remember being at the vet, and I remember being in Dr. Nair's office, and I don't remember anything else.

July 9.

Hallam Died

In the early 90's I took a seminar in Victorian Literature.  It was a small class, only 11 of us, taught by an amazing instructor.  Who *really* loved the Victorian era, and wanted us to learn, well, everything.

It was exhausting.  The class met once a week.  We were supposed to have read that week's novel (have you ever read an 1800's novel?  Really really long,  Really really involved.  Lots of sturm und drang and angst.  Every single adjective they could think of. ).  In addition, we had to research some aspect of Victorian life and write an essay on it.  Of which we made copies for everyone and were expected to have read the other 10 essays from a previous week.  And do at least one long class presentation each.

As the term wore on, we all began to look like Victorian waifs--hollow cheeks and shadowed eyes.  Came the class where the reading assignment had been Tennyson's "In Memorian" which is a poem of grief over the death of his friend Hallam.  A very long poem.  A poem that goes on for 90 pages.  Most people will recognize one line:  "'Tis better to have loved and lost; than never loved at all."  That's one line.  There are a couple of thousand more.

Dr. Fenstermaker opened the class.  "All right.  "In Memorian."  Who would like to start?

Crickets.

Finally someone spoke up.  "Hallam  died."

Dr. F:  "Would anyone like to expand on that?"

Another student, who had been resting her forehead on the table, lifted it: "Tennyson mourned."

Dr. F:  "Perhaps a bit more?"

Another voice:  "A lot."

Dr. F:  "Come on--let's get going."

We all looked at each other. The consensus was that we had about summed it up.  Tennyson had lost a friend, he grieved, and the rest was commentary.  A *lot* of commentary.


I've decided that grief is like any other major life event--endlessly fascinating to the one who has experienced it, and to everyone else--not so much.

I was at a party once, and ran into a woman I had known a decade or so earlier.  We had both been secretaries in different departments but sometimes borrowed each other's professors.  My point is that we had never been particularly close but we knew each other.  So of course, "Hey, --how have you been?"  Well, turned out that her husband had died several years earlier, and after 45 minutes of hearing about it I was feeling like one of those animals that chew off their own leg  to escape a trap.  Not that I wasn't sympathetic; it just wasn't what I had come to the party for.

I'm trying not to do that.  People ask how I'm doing; I say I'm hanging in there.  And then talk about something else.

How am I doing?  I didn't know that someone could hurt this much and for this long and still function, that's how.  And I know I've got a lot more to go.

So in the privacy of my own home, with only the cats to annoy, I can wallow.  Tennyson is bit lofty, but I've been indulging in Andrew Lloyd Weber.  "Til I Hear You Sing" is a lovely song and in my head I alter the words "hear you sing" to "hear your voice".  (If you want to be able to hum along, the song is   Til I Hear You Sing (on youtube--search it if the link doesn't work).   (BTW, the singer, Ramin Karimloo, has a helluva voice)

                              "The day starts, the day ends; time crawls by
                                Night steals in, pacing the floor
                              The moments creep, but I can't bear to sleep"

Still pertains.  For two months I slept on the couch.  I'm back in the bedroom, but I have to pile stuff (like laundry baskets) on his side of the bed.  I rarely get to sleep before 1:00 a.m.  To sleep, you have to let your guard down, so I have to wait until I'm totally crashing.

                                 "Weeks pass, and months pass, seasons fly
                                     Still you don't walk through the door"

There are many time I hear the cats in the next room, and I somehow think that's the sound of him coming in the house. Or I was working in my cottage the other day, and somehow expected him to drop by for a visit after working in his barn or the garden.

                                      "And sometimes, at night time, I dream that you are there
                                          But wake holding nothing but the empty air"

Yeow!  Need I say more?

                                             "Years come and years go; time runs dry
                                              Still I ache down to the core
                                             My broken soul can't be alive and whole."

No.  I wrote about that in April, when I discussed the Venn diagram of overlapping lives.  There's a big chunk of me missing.  And that's permanent.

                                                   "I turn and it fades away
                                                      and you're not here"

Still not here.  I keep thinking he'll show up somehow.  Maybe when all this COVID weirdness is finally over and things crawl back to some kind of normal.

                                                "Let hopes pass, let dreams pass
                                                  Let them die
                                                 Without you, what are they for?"

That might be the subject of a future post.

                                            "I'll never feel
                                              No more than halfway real"

I spent the last 48 years with Bob becoming the person that I was.  Now somehow I'm becoming someone else.  Just no sure who.  I still often say "we" and, to use modern parlance, I still identify as being married.

So that's the wallowing.  I've earned it, and I'll wallow (and cry) all I want, as long as I'm not pinning someone else in a corner while I do it.  And the fact that Tennyson or Lloyd Weber or Shakespeare can express this for me shows that my sense of loss is universal.  I may feel terribly alone--and trust me, I do -- but this is a path many others have trod before.

And even now what one of my professors called "the dry AED wit" rears its head.  The link to the song above is just the lyrics.  While you're on youtube, you can also find a video of it--complete with puffy shirt, tears in eyes, and the lost love wafting about.  Even I can't wallow quite that much. It's just a wee bit too over the top.  And even though Karimloo has a gorgeous voice, he also has a cute little baby face that's just a little bit at odds with the whole gestalt.
     

Strange Maskings and a Small African Drum

Living out here in the swamp, it's easy to think that I'm the only one whose life has been irrevocably changed.  That "out there" people are going about their normal, everyday lives.

But sometime I have to venture "out there" and it's a little weird.  I had my first appointment with my new doctor (my old one had the temerity to retire on me).  Online.  Me at home on my computer, her at the office (I suppose) on hers.  That was my physical exam (I guess I looked OK).   But I did have to go in because I needed shots (anti pneumonia and shingles ) and to get my blood work done.  So at least they don't just mail the needles to you and tell you to do it at home.

I went to the new clinic (The Center For Aging---ack!).  Sure is different.  My old one you'd go in and read magazines in the waiting room until they call you back.  Now you call them when you get there--and sit in the car until they say you can come in.  Then you pop on a mask and go in (where the first thing someone says is "did they tell you that you could come in?")  Got my shots, and then I was allowed to go into the lab (instead of back out to my car) where 2/3 of the chairs were roped off, everyone was masked . . . and no magazines.

So strange.

I've decided that I need a djembe (small African drum) because why not??  I'm starting to realize that it's going to be a long time before I can go take an exercise class, or sit on the porch at the Museum farm with my friend and spin, or anything of that ilk.  And I want to do more than sit around the house and mope.  I should learn something new.  Join a drumming circle.  Well--watch a drumming circle on youtube (I recently posted on FaceBook that I'm back to playing with imaginary friends)

So I contact the wife of a co-worker who is a belly dancer because I figure she might know some drummers who could advise me on a good beginner drum.  Lo and behold, she had a friend who wanted to sell hers.

In the "Before Times" this woman and I might have met at a coffee shop or equivalent and chatted for a bit.  But that was then, and this is now.  We arranged to meet in a parking lot.  We got out of our cars - both wearing masks - and violated the 6-foot distancing rule for a few seconds to exchange drum for cash, and then both back into our cars to drive off.

So now I can have one-woman drum circle.  Not exactly ideal, but it will have to do for now.

Building the Reef

If you build it, they will come.  This is definitely true for sea life; you can have a relatively bare space of ocean floor, but put something out there (say, sink an old car or a ship) and within months it will be teeming with barnacles, seaweed, fish and other creatures.

There is a company in Alabama (Walter Marine/Reefmaker) that makes cement and stone artificial reefs.  They are large (8 ft. high, 1500 pound) three sided pyramids.

And, if you like, you can buy one, personalize it, and turn it into a memorial.  And this is what I did for Bob.

Early morning on May 26, I got up and drove to Panama City, where our friend Kim lives.  God Bless her, she wanted to drive me to the Reefmaker for what is called "the pour."  I'm not sure what we were expecting, (after all, we were there to part with Bob's mortal remains)  but it was not to drive up to a chain link gate in a cement yard.  But why not?  And as we walked around, I felt good about the place.  A funeral home with a coffin and people in suits and dresses talking in hushed tones would have seemed out of place for Bob.  But this place would appeal to the inner 8-year-old.  Lots of big equipment and metal and rocks.  Bob was a maker (as am I).  And this was a place where things were being made.

Seahorses for an underwater museum

And where I would take part in the making of his memorial.  I had brought along Bob's ashes and other items to embed in the cement.  A doll to represent his famed "Island of the Dolls" scene on the haunted trail.  One of his scale models, and a first-place prize medal.  A packet of Panzit noodles, for his love of the Philippians.  An amulet from his sister.   A copy of the Shakespeare sonnet 116.  And the ashes of his cat, Fiona.

And here are the two of us (well, the three of us.  Fiona is in the box with him), on our last road trip together.

Yes, that's a wheel weight in the middle.  Bob always picked them up because the lead was good for casting bullets.  Got a little obsessive about it.  And Kim happened to have one in her car

The three large frames are laid out, the cement poured in, and then it's time.  First, Bob's ashes.

Then, personal items.

Finally, I read the sonnet ("let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments").  I had planned on reading it with grace and sorrow, but the truth is that I broke down completely and could barely choke the words out.

But then a lovely thing happened.  There were two more memorial reefs being poured that day, and a woman from one of them came over to talk to me, crying hard, because she could see how much I was hurting and wanted to give her condolences.

I wish I could thank her, and tell her how important that was.  Earlier this week I was listening to an NPR article on grieving during the pandemic.  It said that two things were needed:  Time to grieve alone and time to grieve in public.  To many in isolation with family, the alone time is hard to find.  But I've had that in abundance.  But the other, the public grief, I haven't.  The article said it was important to let people see your pain, to bear witness to your loss.  And mostly, the rare times I've been around other people (like at work) I haven't shown it.

I finally felt that I had given Bob his funeral.  And my hand, in a final farewell.

(with Kim's thumbprint for good measure.)

We were through by noon.  My mind, always clicking, thought we could be back at her house by three or so, and I could be back home a couple of hours later.  I reined myself in.  I needed time to decompress, to process.  I asked Kim if we could take the coast road home (shorter in distance but much longer in time).  The coastline is lovely here, and we found a place under a shelter to picnic (and make snarky comments about the people crowded far too closely on the beach).  I spent the night with her and was more prepared to go home the next day.

*******Nothing in my world is ever totally serious.  Two funny events that day.  One--when we were going to our reef molds, the family on the other side (not the woman who came to see me--this was the third group) was starting to put the ashes in the cement.  At first it was the father, but his wife started whanging at him "you're spilling him!  you're spilling him!" and grabbed the bag and distributed the ashes herself.  But when she was finished, she started shaking the bag to get the last bits out--and poor Kim happened to be slightly downwind and got enveloped in a gentle cloud of Dave and quite possible breathed some of him in.  (This is probably funnier for me than it was for Kim).

The other was a picture that Kim couldn't resist taking because she has a dirty mind.  The final pyramid will have a central support.  Glad you're happy to be here, Bob.