The Glitch

I used to have an incredible memory -- I could recite conversations verbatim.

Maybe age or stress or both have dulled my memory. Nonetheless, there are certain things my brain always refuses to remember. Or maybe it's just a glitch.

I'll see something and think, "Oh. Grandmom would like this. I should call Grandmom; it's been a while. I'd love to see Grandmom -- maybe this weekend."

I would love to see Grandmom. The problem is that she died in 2005. Maybe 2004. (glllitch) I saw her the evening she died, and I had no idea that the next day my father would call me at work to tell me she was dead. I planned to visit her after work. I told her I would. I didn't know she was a DNR. God, that's so fucking clinical, but that's what we call people who do not want extraordinary means used to prolong their lives. A DNR has had enough.

Would anything have changed if I had known she was a DNR? I think so. I think I would have stayed with her that night. I was so fucking clueless. So clueless. So clueless.

People experience grief differently, their expressions of grief are even more varied. Can you how grief has cut their skin? Can you smell grief in their sweat? Do they weep, scream, run, shutdown? Business as usual? It's unusual business if you haven't experienced profound inexplicable loss, loss for no reason, just being lost.

I've been glitching all day. I forget the cats are gone. I forget that they won't come running when I go outside. They won't call me when they hear my voice inside the house. I forget that they don't need food or fresh water anymore.

My grandmother was very ill. Before she was ill, she was ready to die. I'd known for a very long time. 

She believed she was going to heaven. 

She was lucid. 

She was in extreme emotional pain. 

Her life was so incredibly hard. 

She loved deeply.

I've heard that she was a mean, nasty person to some, and I don't doubt the veracity of that claim. But she was never mean to me. She loved me more than anyone else did. She loved me. I never doubted it. She loved me. She loved me. I've never felt secure in other attestations of love, but I never doubted hers. Most are protestations, but she loved me. She loved me.

And it was time for her to die.

I'm trying to read. It's light -- it's Terry Gross's All I Did Was Ask. It's not bad. The interviews are good (of course), and they're short.

I finished the one with Johnny Cash, and I put the book down and rolled on my side, and I glitched. And then I thought about going to the shelter to visit my cats or breaking them out. Putting all three in two carriers and fleeing on a bus, a train and another train like I did during Hurricane Irene. But I don't have any money. So. Hitchhiking. Yes. Hitchhiking 

with three cats.

Just like I never doubted that my grandmother loved me, I never doubted that these animals loved me. I never doubted it. I never doubted it. I never doubted it.

And they weren't sick. And they weren't ready to die. And I put them in the carriers, and I sent them away.

Cleaning House

They're gone.

Anything and everything that bothers her is gone.

In time

She'll find something new.

When it grows,

When it is no longer cute,

When it asserts itself,

She'll make some discard it.

Then she'll find something new.

Repossessed

I'm sitting in the living room. My three cats have just been taken by Animal Control. They were living in my mother's backyard, around the corner, and I took care of them.

I fed and gave them clean water. I played with them. They had their shots. They were wormed and de-fleaed, de-ticked, de-earmited -- I did the best I could for someone who can't have cats where she lives. I live here by the grace of a family member. I look after her schizophrenic brother who speaks with Jesus.

I had each cat because of an act of my mother.

She wanted them gone.

They're gone.

I wailed.

They loved me even when I put them in their carriers. They loved me even when they were put in the van. 

She did it fast. It's hot. They need to be in the air conditioned van.

I wailed.

I told my neighbor that he'd better not tell my mother that I cried. She wins when I cry.

I walked home, and I wailed.

I'm watching a car getting repossessed.

It's a clinical distraction.

Stories Tall

I love weaving a good story over drinks or during a sunrise, through a blog, or in bed. My stories are not exaggerated truths. Neither are they peppered with lies. My life is exaggerated and dishonestly led.

I don't know that it means anything to lead an exaggerated and often embarrassing life, a life that does not seem to be mellowing as I enter middle age. Maybe it means that this is who I am, and this is how I will always be.

I've spent enough time trying to hide my odd nature, my strange mind.

The tale weaving begins now.

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Reveille occurred at Oh-three-hundred hours prompted by a full bladder. It was an unwelcome wake-up call, as the troops came close to mutiny the previous evening.

"Look, pretty kitties! I have a surprise for you," I announced while shaking the heart-shaped toy. They approached cautiously. "Is this an enemy trick? She feeds us and releases us from confinement on occasion, but we are Troop Kitteh, and we do not fall for hoomin wile."

Lily, the bravest of the bunch, came closer, sniffed, rubbed her face on it, and turned away. Boop sniffed it, adopted a bored visage, and went about other important business like licking his tukas. But Princess, surely Princess who loves all things jingly, would be enticed. 

She hid behind some boxes.

Saddened that my present was rejected with the particular apathy only felines can muster (if they feel like mustering), I realized that I skimped on the catnip. I retrieved my knitting materials and began to create something that might be pleasing to human and cat alike.

As I pulled the catnip from my knitting basket, the troops double-timed it back into The Room of Confinement and stared at the container of catnip. I stared at them, amazed by and wary of their moxie. And then, I caved, fearful of the damage they are capable of inflicting on both animal and inanimate objects.

I sprinkled catnip here. I sprinkled catnip there, and yet their appetite for catnip did not diminish but grew exponentially. They meowed. They swatted me with claws retracted, reminding me that should they choose, they could claw up my face. They have tasted blood.

Catnip they wanted; catnip they received. They commandeered my bed and slept the sleep of victors.

I quietly knitted another heart, determined to get it right this time.