Slaying the Dragon (Part II)

(...continued from Part I)

Since the second week of March, there visited upon us, back-to-back, non-stop illness in one form or another. I think it began when I stayed out all night in the cold to grab him a spot in a highly popular local daycare. I'd heard the stories that people "lined up the night before" and I was thinking this meant perhaps 10pm or midnight. Registration wouldn't open until 8am but when did I end up lining up? 5pm the night before.

That's right. Twelve, perhaps fifteen crazy-ass parents lined up in the cold outside a daycare for 15 hours until those blessed doors opened for 8am registration. My parents took him for me and, unlike most of the other parents in line, I had no partner to "switch off" with. My body was cozy. Yes, it was early February, and I had donned every layer in my closet, but my feet were freezing! I begged everyone to let me keep my spot while I raced home and put on my cross-country ski boots. They were gracious enough to allow it. Hell, it actually became a really neat, bonding time with some funky people. There was a guitar, a ukelele. Everyone sang, told jokes. Someone had set up a tent. A couple of guys brought a propane heater. And when one of the spouses showed up close to midnight with a bottle of bourbon or scotch, we were suddenly figures in some Tom Waits song because by that hour, let me assure you, none of us cared we were all swigging from it like Depression-era, train-hopping hobos.

Singing the Sheep Dip Blues

Of course, come 8am when other dazed, sleepy parents trickled in who had not heard about the night-before-lineup-rumour-that-turned-out-to-be-true, the sudden realization that perhaps waltzing into a daycare to sign your child up with the reek of bourbon breath was perhaps not the best first impression to make dawned on all of us, but by then it was too damn late (or early) and we were too exhausted and frozen to care. We were only too happy to be herded like sheep into the warmth of the actual building where we could begin to defrost, our hands shaking as we filled out the necessary paperwork, faint smiles playing around our frozen lips, proud of our sacrificial selves in the knowledge we had secured our bairn with a spot the next autumn.

A bonus: the knowledge that for the next few years, we as parents could walk our wee ones into the daycare pointing at the ground, saying, "See this slab of concrete? Your mother lay on that all night in the WINTER so that you could come here..."

Okay. Okay. I refuse, as long as I possibly can, to play the guilt trip card, but it's fun to dream and giggle over it now. I actually met some amazing people that night and thought, "Wow. These are the parents of the kids my child will be hanging with over the next few years. Cool."

The downside, of course, was the sinusitis that ensued. I quickly passed that on to my wee boy. And that, combined with the emotional stress of parting ways (me to work, him to daycare full days), brought on pneumonia for him. This was followed almost immediately by full-blown ear infections in both ears for me (loss of balance and hearing in my right ear for close to two weeks), followed by a bout of pink eye for him and then the nastiest gastro bug working its way through our region hit us both with all its might.

You give me fever

He vomited Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I took him to emerg the Thursday and Saturday in between neverending loads of puke-piled laundry. My tummy waited until Monday to begin vomiting. I lost 8lbs in one week. And having already lost about 15lbs over the winter carrying him on my back in his carrier while we walked around town, I dipped well below my weight before I got pregnant.

For close to two months, not one week went by that one or both of us did not end up in emergency at the local hospital and/or our family doctor's office when we could get in: Sinusitis, Pneumonia, Otitis Media, Conjunctivitis, Gastrointitis. Somebody-save-us-nowitis. Bang, bang, bang, bang. By all accounts, our bodies were rejecting this huge transition in our lives and screaming, "We're not ready yet for this! We don't think either of you are ready!"

I spent almost as much time at home or in medical buildings as I did at the office and just as I'd returned, too. The other parents of wee ones on staff gave slight sympathetic nods and chuckles, recalling their own germ-induced onslaughts, I suppose.

Since last I posted, my wish was to turn my focus solely onto him for a spell during this massive transition back to work and into fulltime daycare, though it quickly became obvious I would have no other choice regardless. We have been going through extreme emotional and physical change (he is growing like a weed and I'm withering away to nothing). This blog o' mine remained sorely neglected. I wish to thank those of you who've visited, commented, discovered, read and stuck around.

In two weeks, he will, unbelievably, turn two years old and he is now, thankfully, thriving in his new environment. Got a note the other day from the daycare to say how proud they are of him that two days in a row when he saw another child crying, he went over and hugged him. He has moved from consolee to consoler already. I fought back tears reading that note, but the tears won, let me tell you. And even though I feel this kind of caring and compassion is just in his nature, I'm going to take full credit while I can. We've been, for the most part, on our own since he was born. Family and friends have their own busy lives going on, understandably. Such is Life. And we are surviving. Better than surviving. And, when in dire need, kind souls dropped soup to us, baked loaves, tucked chocolate and sympathy inside our screen door. We are blessed where we live.

The Dragon of Germ-ridden Daycare has been slain now, I hope. At any rate, I'm lowering my sword, dropping my shield and slowly raising my visor.

We are finally surfacing into health again, resuming happiness, and opening our minds and hearts to a Spring that has yet to really show herself. We call to Her now. Come, come to us! We need you. We're ready.

We're ready now.

The Ninth Life

My cat died tonight. He was 17. He had been mine for 16 1/2 years.

The way it happened was all of a sudden. He'd always been in good health. I guess that's usually the best way to go, they say.

I was playing with my son this evening in our front room and I heard my cat fall. I called out to him even though I know he has been deaf the last couple of years. At first I thought he was upstairs but when I discovered him, he was lying at the bottom of the stairs having what looked like an epileptic fit. All four limbs were flailing in different directions and his head was spasming like he was being electrocuted by some invisible cable. My first instinct, of course, was to pick him up and that's just what I did. He continued to flail and make biting movements with his mouth, jerk and spasm in my arms. I wrapped him in a blanket and held him until his body started to slow its movements. His head finally calmed, he started frothing at the mouth a bit and his tongue stuck out involuntarily. But the staccato of spasms gradually ceased until he lay still in my arms, something he has rarely voluntarily done in all the years I've had him.

I called the local animal hospital which, ironically (or not), was the same place I held my golden retriever when he died 16 years ago now. In fact, I ended up tonight in the same room with my cat when he was given his final injection. I felt as though my old dog was waiting there on the other side, my claddagh ring in his mouth, ready to guide this cat to my other kitty who passed away three years ago in June of 2007. They were both very close. Only about a year apart in age.

Life is so strange. We recently moved back to this area and ended up mere blocks away from where I first found this little abandoned, feral kitten. Actually, my twin sister found him. (Thank you, thank you, thank you, sis!) She had been visiting the duplex where I lived and we were painting my bedroom when she spied him outside the second story window. I called the Humane Society to see if anyone had reported missing a tabby kitten. I already had one cat and hadn't planned to have another, but they got along like a house on fire so I kept him.

My head is so full tonight of all the memories I have of him. My heart is full of them. Even in his dotage, he was so patient that I introduced a baby (of all things!) into the last year or so of his life. He was never declawed and had plenty of opportunity (and reason, likely) to protect himself from tail being pulled or ears being tweaked. But he would just strut patiently away from my son as though nothing had happened.

What comes to mind the most are the nights I would talk to him those months following the end of my marriage in January of 2007, especially once my first cat died the following May. He was my sole companion out there in our remote, rural farmhouse. I felt so thankful for his company and his love and affection. It was a lonesome time and a pretty damn emotional year or two that followed.

I think people who've never had a pet sometimes can't fully comprehend how much they become members of your family. How they are sometimes like your "children" (especially when you don't have any children). And my two cats and my dog were very much that for me for many years when I needed little ones to mother and love in that way.

I realized tonight, in conversation with my brother-in-law, that my cat who died today was only born a couple of blocks from here. Maybe he'd sensed that he had come full circle. That he was "home" again. Maybe he felt it was time.

I am very glad I was home when it happened. That I could hold him during the scariest moment of his life. He didn't know he was having a stroke. He didn't know what was happening. The vet explained that one pupil was dilated and the other wasn't. That he had lost function on one side of his body. She said we could wait a day to see how he does, but that he might have other seizures and, having witnessed him go through one today, there was no way in hell I wanted to risk him suffering that again. They left me alone with him for a few minutes and then returned and I held him while they gave him the shot to put him to sleep. They warned me if there is a struggle, as often happens, they would stop the injection and perhaps try another spot. I nodded. They asked me to hold onto the top of his body. I held him very gently. His little paws were crossed over my fingers and I cradled his tiny head in my right hand. He didn't move a muscle while they injected him and they both gasped quietly and said, "Wow, he is so sweet." Even in death, he was a gentleman. So patient and calm. That's how I knew he was telling me it was the right decision. He was ready to go.

Still, it rips your heart open. This is it for me. I know down the road I plan to get a puppy for my son, a companion of his own. Maybe when he's around 7 or 8 years old. But this guy is the last cat I will ever have. The two cats I had, I just can't imagine finding two better than them. I've always been a dog person and I guess I got lucky twice. My luck just isn't always THAT good. Murphy's Law tends to rule the day.

But I have to tell you. This morning. Uncanny. He must have known this would be his last day. When I came downstairs he was lying on the ottoman and turned to look at me. And he looked so beautiful curled up there, I grabbed my camera and took some shots of him.

Now, anyone who's ever photographed animals will tell you it's almost impossible to get a clear, focused shot. They turn their head in one or their tail twitches in another or they start to jump off the couch. They usually end up a complete blur. But he just sat there and let me take some lovely shots of him and then he looked me right in the eye, straight into the lens. Like he knew. Maybe he was saying goodbye and wanted me to have some proper keepsakes of him.

I didn't know they would be the last shots I would take of him. I want to share them with you. Here he is: Setanta.

For weeks now I've been complaining to anyone within earshot that there has not been enough snow to my liking and finally today the skies opened up and the white stuff came down. For good this time. To stay. On the drive home from the vet clinic they were falling as big and heavily as my tears. It's as if he made sure this would happen today. A goodbye gift to comfort me. A balm to my grief. To be blanketed in this way. Pristine, white snow covering everything. A clean slate. A new beginning. A final, perfect farewell.

Goodbye, my furry little guy. Thank you for being such a great cat! Thanks for being so g-d chatty. I loved that you were so talkative, especially when I was otherwise surrounded by silence a good part of the time (even during my marriage). I cherish the years we had on our very own out there on the farm. Just you and me. Thanks for making the good times over the years greater and the hard times easier.

And thanks for being so lovely and patient with my wee Sonshine. I know you were happy for me that I finally had a human baby to mother.

I know Brandy and Zosia are with you now and you're playing and all four limbs are working okay where you are and you can see good as new and you can hear just perfectly, again.

I hope, wherever you are now, you hear this:
I love you and I will miss you. Lots.

xo

Walking Through

I’m writing this late at night. It’s almost midnight. I’ve been writing with the theme of moving house and emotions about home, the home I’ve made here the last decade, the home I have been seeking for myself and my son, the home we’ve now found and will be moving into in just over two weeks.

Today comprised the first of two walk-throughs of my new property I negotiated in my offer. It’s standard to request two walk-throughs of the property you’re purchasing outside of the actual home inspection.

It had been pretty much one month since the week I purchased our new home and over the last few weeks, whenever I was in the area, I would drive by with my son secured in the back seat and begin a narrative for him. About how this would soon be his neighbourhood. How he would begin to know these trees. These sidewalks. That’s the school you’ll go to, I would say. This is how close we are to mommy’s work. And there…that pretty place…is gonna be home.

I’ve only been in the house twice. The first time I saw it August 26 and the date of the home inspection, September 1st. It was funny walking in today because I’d forgotten just exactly what the rooms looked like. And today felt like the home was beginning to transition itself to welcome me. I felt its own change. The current owners had emptied it of a lot of clutter and such in preparation for their own upcoming move. And I began to feel a slight shift as I walked through the door. Where the home began to acknowledge me and my son. As a new but legitimate presence within the walls. It felt really great.

going walkabout

Two things happened that made this day moving versus about moving.

As I was finished the walk-through, during which one of the current owners, the mother, was present with her two children, I knocked on the front door to let her know that we were done (myself, my real estate agent and my contractor) and I told her I just wanted to thank her again and how excited we were to be moving into this lovely home. I also wanted to wish her and her family a safe trip out West.

Her eyes welled up as I said all this. And I gave her a hug and whispered to her that if she were ever back in Ontario that, of course, she would always be welcome to drop in and visit. It’s so odd that the emotions she was going through about leaving never really occurred to me and they should have before now. They’ve lived in that house for 12 years. I’ve been so caught up in my own feelings about how I’ll miss the home I’ve lived in for 10 years but to see her become so emotional when I was wishing her a safe journey really made it hit home that, of course, it’s just as emotional a journey for her to be moving on with her family, the house her children were born to and grew all their years in. It was nice to have an opportunity to hug her and to feel her hugging back. It’s weird to feel that I would have really loved this woman as a neighbour of mine. But that she won’t be that for me. I’m taking her place in the neighbourhood. Her spot, anyhow. I can tell just how much she will be missed by those surrounding her. I hope to make up somehow for the loss it will clearly be to that street she now lives on.

After the walk-through, I took my son to the local Chapters to play while I followed him around the kids section with my latté. I was thinking about this couple and their two kids moving to B.C. and I was forgetting how late it was becoming. I had to interrupt my son’s playtime after 20 minutes and get over to the grocery store before heading home. We picked up some food and headed out to the rural backroads.

As I was driving home, though, I passed an elderly man walking at a brisk pace at the side of the road. I wasn’t exactly sure, but something felt wrong when I passed him. For one thing, I felt like I was almost going to hit him and I noticed something else. He wasn’t wearing a rainjacket. It had been coming down in sheets on and off all day and I thought to myself this wasn’t someone just having an after-dinner hike. I went through the lights and pulled over. All around me were farm fields and I was trying to see him in my rearview mirror. I called 911 and was eventually put through to the local police department. I explained that I wasn’t even sure it was an emergency but that I’d passed an elderly gentleman on the side of the road and that he could have been out for an evening hike, but I had just had a strange vibe when I passed him that that wasn’t the case. I explained that he didn’t seem dressed appropriately for the weather. While I was on the phone with the woman taking the call, he came into view at the lights and I saw him turn then to head towards one of the small towns.

I explained to the call attendant he had come into view and that I had my son with me in the car and it was getting late. She said they would send a vehicle and if I left that would not be a problem. When I hung up, I continued to watch him in my rearview mirror move up the road. I turned around and then turned right at the lights to follow him.

It became clear very quickly that he was disoriented. He was now walking ON the road. I pulled up slowly behind him and he turned and thought I was offering him a ride. I lowered the window only slightly and I asked him if he was alright. He said he was and the first thing he said was, “do you have a smoke?” I didn’t, of course. But I lowered the window a tad more and slid out the orange juice I had bought at the starbucks and hadn’t opened yet. He asked me if I’d drive him to the next small town. To the church there. I told him I was sorry I couldn’t give him a ride, but that I’d called for help for him. I didn’t want to say, “I’ve called the cops.” I honestly didn’t know how he’d react to that. He was very polite. He had a long sweater on and his corduroy pants were soaked from the rain. I wanted to invite him to sit in my car, but I couldn’t do that. Especially not with my son in the back seat. I felt unsure. So I sat with my car off to the side of the road waiting for the police car to show up. He kept coming to my window and asking me for a cigarette. I gave him one of my son’s mozzarella sticks. He was clearly homeless but he never once asked me for money. I was afraid he was going to be hit by a car so I stayed there with him. He paced back and forth in front of my car and then he’d come talk to me at my driver window. I asked him his name and he said, “Dave”. I asked him if he had family and he replied, ‘Back in Australia.” He looked in his late 60s. I had no idea how long he’d been walking and how far, where he’d been walking from. I asked him where he was trying to get and he said he had friends “up North”.

As I sat there, it occurred to me the cops were taking their time and I called 911 again and got on the line with the same woman who took my first call. I explained to her that I was unwilling to leave this man because he was walking onto the road and it was not safe. And also that I had a 16 month old who needed his diaper changed and could she upgrade the request for help. The diaper, I knew, was okay and could wait, but I wanted to put pressure on her because I felt they were not making this guy a priority for the night. And I understand that there are true life/death emergencies out there that need urgent response. But I was truly afraid this guy was going to get killed by a car. He was not really navigating the road safely. Cars kept whizzing by us and a few of them felt the need to honk at him as they passed.

As I waited, a truck slowed down on the other side of the road and backed up a bit and asked me if everything was okay. I explained what was happening. This guy offered to let Dave sit in his truck to wait for the cops. I felt relieved about that because it had begun to drizzle again and I felt badly I hadn’t been willing to open my doors to him. So we both waited. Dave got into the truck with this guy and two cruisers finally showed up after another half hour of waiting in the dusk and then, the dark. I got out and explained that he’d been very polite. That he was clearly disoriented in terms of not realizing he was walking on the road. He did not appear drunk. He had not asked for cash. He wanted to get to the church in the next small town. When I left, Dave had gotten out of the truck and the cops were talking to him.

I drove away and I am still wondering what has happened with him. Where did they take him for the night? Was it just going to be one night’s solution and he’d be back on the road again tomorrow?

What was difficult was that, while we were all waiting for the cops to show up, the guy in the truck said he could drive him to the small town himself to the Church. I felt concerned about two things. I didn’t know who the guy was who’d pulled over and even though I wanted to trust that he would help this man and I felt sure he was sincere, a small part of me felt that I wasn’t entirely sure Dave would be safe. I didn’t like feeling that because I’m sure this guy was truly sincere and had stopped to help. The second thing that concerned me was that Dave was not dressed for the weather and he was talking of “going up North” and he had been walking on and off the road even while he paced in front of my car, he kept going onto the road. I didn’t feel he was safe in terms of his ability to judge what he was doing.

The guy in the truck said he’d maybe take him home for a meal. My heart nearly broke when he said that. What I thought most when I drove away was that if I’d been a man, a man who didn’t have a 16 month old in my back seat, I probably would have risked offering this guy a ride. I might have even risked taking him home and cooking him something myself. I would have taken him to a store first to buy him a whole pack of smokes. I might have put him up for the night. I might have tried calling his friends if he’d remembered their number. I might have even driven him as far North as I could get him safely to meet up with them. I might have done all these things but I didn’t even feel quite safe enough to roll my window down further than the width it would allow me to slide a measly bottle of orange juice out to him. One measly stick of cheese. I felt helpless. I felt frustrated knowing that my gender, my situation, prevented me from being of more help to this man. More the kind of help he was actually seeking. I’m sure the last thing he wanted was to be taken away in a cop car. It was kind of the last thing I wanted for this man myself, but I truly didn’t know what else to do and felt powerless. No. Not powerless. That’s wrong. I was in the power position. Rather, I felt, I had to put my own safety above his. That’s the way of the world, isn’t it? I wouldn’t let him get dry sitting in my car with me and my son. I could only do what I could do. I wouldn’t give him a ride. I wouldn’t take him home for a meal or a warm bed to sleep in even though I have a guest room with a bed that is rarely ever used by anyone.

I know I needn’t have ever stopped in the first place and sure, I’m glad I did. But I have no idea if I helped or hindered this man tonight.

What I do know though, is, he was homeless and trying to find his friends. Trying to find maybe what “home” meant for him being as far from his real home as he was.

It really put things into perspective for me. Lately I’ve felt so stressed with all the stuff on my plate in terms of prepping for this upcoming move. Just what the fuck do I have to be stressed about really? I have a home. A roof over my head. A damn nice tin roof. And I am moving to another lovely home very soon. And this man was walking around the backroads in the rain just wanting a cigarette. I couldn’t even give him that small request. Such a simple one. A small one.

I know that this man was either suffering from some sort of dementia or mental illness in the way he kept walking onto the road and forgetting that he’d already asked me for a cigarette that I didn’t have. I know I did the “right” thing. But I wish I could have done a million different things a million different ways than what happened tonight.

I didn’t know this day would end this way. The owner’s raw emotion over leaving her home and this man trying to find a home or just anywhere out of the cold where he could sit and have a cigarette. I am lying in bed typing this and I feel so damn blessed. And I don’t even know why or how I get to deserve the luck that I have in my life. I don’t feel I’ve earned it. At all.

But, I guess. I guess I hope to. Someday…

Equinox

So last night I drive into Toronto. The way I go is to take the backroads as far as I can 'cause I like to avoid the major highways as much as possible. I went to catch Iron and Wine at the Music Hall on the Danforth, my old neighbourhood. Got there early so I tucked into my favourite Irish pub two or three doors down and sipped a half pint of cider. Told the bartender it had been far too long a time since I'd last cosied up to these hammered copper tables and he simply said, "welcome back" when he gave me my change. It still felt like home sitting there. When I got back to the hall, it was general admission and, as I was by my lonesome, I scored an empty seat in the fifth row centre just as the lights lowered. One of the best concerts I've seen in many moons. Sam Beam is a fucking genius and his voice is...well it's indescribable actually. Check him out yourself if you can.

After the concert, I headed back a few streets to my car, but then figured I'd take a stroll since it was such a beautiful night. A walk down memory lane to years when I was younger and still full of hope, lighter of heart maybe. Sauntered past my old house on Ingham. It was bought by a couple of Angels (literally their last name). I wandered around and couldn't help touching the older trees in the neighbourhood, guarding everything in their silent majesty. These giant witnesses of time. The old drycleaners where I'd forgotten my wallet one morning and was told to 'pay the next time'. The movie rental place where John, the Chinese owner, always teased me how my late charges kept food on the table for his family.

An electrical storm loomed in the distance and once the rain began to softly reach me, I saw two gay lovers walking slowly hand-in-hand so tenderly and I envied it. The streets were strewn with leaves of every colour and it caught my breath, as it always does, to see them swirl around in some cyclonic embrace in the middle of the road, the same way the wind can swirl your heart around visiting memories in the autumn. A drunk balanced himself as he walked along the little wall outside of an old church, like a child does when experimenting with his first fear of heights, testing himself. Made me recall this wall on the Southeast coast of England, the sole mechanism of play offered at recess, and the way we'd all gather cross-legged to hear Mrs. Read read aloud to us, our chins cupped in our five-year old palms. The soft glow of light emanating from some of the windows warmed my steps as I passed. Someone had planted a twiggy bush by one trunk and fashioned a banister up their steps with it. And yeah, I wept, okay? I remembered the taste of chocolate cake with maple icing and was craving it along with this ache surfacing in my womb, the one echoing beneath my left breast.

The equinox was Sunday and it was a wondrous way to celebrate the beginning of fall walking those streets with those old brick homes banking each crescent as I strolled. The moon is full tonight and it was coming on pretty bright as I turned each corner. It wasn't until I hit the dirt roads again that the rain really came down and, as my headlights illuminated the road ahead of me, they captured a frog leaping across. At first I thought it was another leaf, but it was bouncing too rhythmically and the underside of his belly and legs shone a bright white as he danced to the other side. And it made me think about the leaps and bounds I've been making this year for myself; the ones I've yet to make that still feel just around the corner.

And I hoped to God, even though I'm not religious at all, that I hadn't run him over as he was crossing. It would have been a shitty end to a beautiful, breathtaking night. A shitty end period 'cause he looked so damn happy to have the rain hitting his back like that. And maybe I shoulda pulled over and checked on him. Maybe I shoulda fucking kissed him 'cause for all I know I could fall in love any day now. Come to think of it, the autumn may be a better time of year for that kinda thing actually. It's always been winter in the past but that hasn't fared so well for me to be honest. And the thought of me kissin' that frog made me giggle with no radio on and just the sound of the rain hitting the windshield and the slow swish of the wipers failing to do the simple task required. Instead, my wheels keep rolling along and I imagine him making it to the grass and sitting there with his sides bloating and caving with each breath. And I smiled at this thought: life can feel so damn beautiful when you reach some place you're trying to get and the getting there can be enhanced tremendously with a little rainfall on your back in the autumn.

Next year is another leap year and I can't help but wonder where I'll land as I write this. Hope to shit I won't be flattened out by some tire in the middle of the goddamn night. I just want to reach that wet grass and breathe deep and crisp and even. Take it all in and feel heartened over the simplicity life can offer, traveling down this road...

Music: The Trapeze Swinger, Iron and Wine
This blog was originally posted on Nancy's Myspace profile on September 27, 2007.