September 20, 2005
Today, one of our cats died. His name was Christmas Hope, but we called him Hopey/Hopi - I 've never really thought about how to spell it before, but you get the idea.
He came to us by complete accident, as several of our animals have, one day about 12 or 13 years ago. I'd heard the dogs outside, making a racket - they seemed to be fighting over something. When I went out there, I found a tiny ball of mud that turned out to be a kitten. When we got him inside and washed up, he looked like a purebred Russian Blue, but we had no idea where he came from, or how he got into our yard. We never saw any signs about a lost kitten, and so we ended up keeping him. David was living with us at this time, and David and Hopey kind of bonded, and he basically became Dave's cat. What was funny was how what was happening in Dave's life seemed to be mirrored in Hopey's. It was around this time that David decided to go punk and shave his head. Hopey, we found out, had ringworm, pretty bad actually, and ended up having to be quarantined for three months away from the other cats. And he had to be shaved wherever he had a ringworm spot, so that he could be treated. After he got better we then had to keep the room closed to the cats for another year. Anyway, I forget all the little incidences now, but Dave and Hopey really mirrored each other in a lot of ways. Dave ended up leaving our house under difficult circumstances, but Hopey stayed with us and became part of our menagerie. All the meds he had to take the doctors said might affect his kidneys, and apparently they did, since he died fairly young.
When we got back from Hawaii and I gave him a hello pet, I noticed that his fur didn't quite feel right. Two days later he definitely was showing signs of dehydration and deteriorating health, like a slight unsteadiness on his feet. Tried to paper him with some really good canned food and some space away from the other cats, but he was on his way down. Two more days, and he was no longer really able to move. Knew this morning that he was going. Sat with him for a while, there on the floor, petting him and talking to him. As always, when I know it's coming (I've seen death many times), I prayed it would be as quick and as painless as possible. Every once in a while he would let out a little mew, or sometimes a yowl, but it would take his strength and he would immediately put his head back down. I'm sure he didn't understand what was going on.
I had to take a break and went upstairs for a little while, and when I came back to him I knew it was not going to be much longer. Putting my hand on his side I could feel his breaths becoming shallower and more infrequent. Then they became difficult. Still keeping the contact between us I counted the time between breaths…ten seconds…ten seconds……twenty……there was a long pause and I thought he was gone, but suddenly at fifty seconds there was another open-mouthed gasp……I started counting again, still touching him, waiting, hoping for and dreading another breath. I counted out a slow minute, but nothing. At two minutes I stopped counting.
It was time to put him in a box. Funny how small a box it takes to contain a body, once the life has gone from it. Funny how different it feels, heavy and still in your hand, when the breathing stops. I gently curled him up into the chosen container, on top of soft fabric and with some flowers. He looked like he did when he slept in the chair sometimes - legs slightly akimbo, head angled to one side - almost like he was waiting for a pet under his chin. I left the worn purple collar he wore on him, a pale contrast against his silver-grey fur. A second cloth I tucked in around him, and then some more flowers.
The digging came next, a task since the earth around our place turns to sandstone after less than two feet. The digging is a difficult part, but it can be good also - a chance to work off some of the emotions that death brings. Finally I got it deep enough, and went back inside to get the box. It's the strangest sensation, carrying the box. You start to doubt yourself - “Was he really gone? Maybe I should check. I don't want to bury him if he's still alive. Maybe he's still alive.” But the weight of the box is a dead weight - somehow it just feels different than anything else.
So Hopey was buried, actually just a couple feet from where I first found him. From the dirt he came, and to it he returned.
I wonder about myself sometimes - I've seen death so many times with pets, family, and friends, I feel that I've become numb to it. I've had to roll up my sleeves and take death right in hand, like when I was 16 or so and had to bag the dog I'd had for eight years in a garbage sack, so we could take her to the vets to be cremated. She'd passed while we were gone and rigor mortis had set in. Dealing with that was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life. I wonder if I am still able to feel sometimes, or if I've just shut off my emotions too much, just to be able to cope. I wonder about Dave, also. After he left us we only saw him sporadically. I still consider him a brother, but I haven't seen him for several years. Last rumor I heard was that he was in Tennessee and had a child. I don't know, and I don't know how to find out.
It's not only the physical death I've seen that I've shored myself up against, but also the relational. Dave is just one of many people, many friends that lived with us when I was growing up. A couple we still know and keep in touch with occasionally, but most of them have scattered to the wind, to one degree or another going back to whatever they were trying to get away from when they came to live with us. It's not easy to change.
I loved all of them, but some of them especially - they were family - my brother, my sister. I didn't just feel love for them, I chose to love them. And once I choose to love someone, that love is forever. Love is way more than just a feeling. It seems though, for whatever reason, be it the real or the relational deaths I've experienced, I've not been able to completely let myself choose to love someone for a while now. Love is pain, and in choosing to love them you are accepting the rewards that it will bring as being greater than the pain it will end in. It seems to even be the same thing in a marriage, that the joys of your life together will be worth the soul-wrenching pain and loss that will occur when one of you dies. Choosing to love someone is choosing to be vulnerable to the pain that not might, but *will* occur in the relationship.
This all brings me around to Christ, to God, to thinking about how He loved us, and before we were even made knew that He would die for us. Yet still He made us, still He gave is the freewill to make choices, to choose not to love Him back - still He died for us when so many that he loves will never choose to love Him in return. God knew the risk - rather, He knew the pain that would come. He was “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8) - He not only chose the chance of love, He knew the price of it before He chose it, and accepted it still.
Today, Hopey's death was a difficult thing, but it has made me think, on a lot of things. I wanted to have some profound and pithy statement to end this with, but I don't. I started out just wanting to say something about Hopey's death today, but it became larger than just that one event. But I guess that's life - nothing, not even death, is as simple as it seems at first glance.
Rest in Peace
He came to us by complete accident, as several of our animals have, one day about 12 or 13 years ago. I'd heard the dogs outside, making a racket - they seemed to be fighting over something. When I went out there, I found a tiny ball of mud that turned out to be a kitten. When we got him inside and washed up, he looked like a purebred Russian Blue, but we had no idea where he came from, or how he got into our yard. We never saw any signs about a lost kitten, and so we ended up keeping him. David was living with us at this time, and David and Hopey kind of bonded, and he basically became Dave's cat. What was funny was how what was happening in Dave's life seemed to be mirrored in Hopey's. It was around this time that David decided to go punk and shave his head. Hopey, we found out, had ringworm, pretty bad actually, and ended up having to be quarantined for three months away from the other cats. And he had to be shaved wherever he had a ringworm spot, so that he could be treated. After he got better we then had to keep the room closed to the cats for another year. Anyway, I forget all the little incidences now, but Dave and Hopey really mirrored each other in a lot of ways. Dave ended up leaving our house under difficult circumstances, but Hopey stayed with us and became part of our menagerie. All the meds he had to take the doctors said might affect his kidneys, and apparently they did, since he died fairly young.
When we got back from Hawaii and I gave him a hello pet, I noticed that his fur didn't quite feel right. Two days later he definitely was showing signs of dehydration and deteriorating health, like a slight unsteadiness on his feet. Tried to paper him with some really good canned food and some space away from the other cats, but he was on his way down. Two more days, and he was no longer really able to move. Knew this morning that he was going. Sat with him for a while, there on the floor, petting him and talking to him. As always, when I know it's coming (I've seen death many times), I prayed it would be as quick and as painless as possible. Every once in a while he would let out a little mew, or sometimes a yowl, but it would take his strength and he would immediately put his head back down. I'm sure he didn't understand what was going on.
I had to take a break and went upstairs for a little while, and when I came back to him I knew it was not going to be much longer. Putting my hand on his side I could feel his breaths becoming shallower and more infrequent. Then they became difficult. Still keeping the contact between us I counted the time between breaths…ten seconds…ten seconds……twenty……there was a long pause and I thought he was gone, but suddenly at fifty seconds there was another open-mouthed gasp……I started counting again, still touching him, waiting, hoping for and dreading another breath. I counted out a slow minute, but nothing. At two minutes I stopped counting.
It was time to put him in a box. Funny how small a box it takes to contain a body, once the life has gone from it. Funny how different it feels, heavy and still in your hand, when the breathing stops. I gently curled him up into the chosen container, on top of soft fabric and with some flowers. He looked like he did when he slept in the chair sometimes - legs slightly akimbo, head angled to one side - almost like he was waiting for a pet under his chin. I left the worn purple collar he wore on him, a pale contrast against his silver-grey fur. A second cloth I tucked in around him, and then some more flowers.
The digging came next, a task since the earth around our place turns to sandstone after less than two feet. The digging is a difficult part, but it can be good also - a chance to work off some of the emotions that death brings. Finally I got it deep enough, and went back inside to get the box. It's the strangest sensation, carrying the box. You start to doubt yourself - “Was he really gone? Maybe I should check. I don't want to bury him if he's still alive. Maybe he's still alive.” But the weight of the box is a dead weight - somehow it just feels different than anything else.
So Hopey was buried, actually just a couple feet from where I first found him. From the dirt he came, and to it he returned.
I wonder about myself sometimes - I've seen death so many times with pets, family, and friends, I feel that I've become numb to it. I've had to roll up my sleeves and take death right in hand, like when I was 16 or so and had to bag the dog I'd had for eight years in a garbage sack, so we could take her to the vets to be cremated. She'd passed while we were gone and rigor mortis had set in. Dealing with that was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life. I wonder if I am still able to feel sometimes, or if I've just shut off my emotions too much, just to be able to cope. I wonder about Dave, also. After he left us we only saw him sporadically. I still consider him a brother, but I haven't seen him for several years. Last rumor I heard was that he was in Tennessee and had a child. I don't know, and I don't know how to find out.
It's not only the physical death I've seen that I've shored myself up against, but also the relational. Dave is just one of many people, many friends that lived with us when I was growing up. A couple we still know and keep in touch with occasionally, but most of them have scattered to the wind, to one degree or another going back to whatever they were trying to get away from when they came to live with us. It's not easy to change.
I loved all of them, but some of them especially - they were family - my brother, my sister. I didn't just feel love for them, I chose to love them. And once I choose to love someone, that love is forever. Love is way more than just a feeling. It seems though, for whatever reason, be it the real or the relational deaths I've experienced, I've not been able to completely let myself choose to love someone for a while now. Love is pain, and in choosing to love them you are accepting the rewards that it will bring as being greater than the pain it will end in. It seems to even be the same thing in a marriage, that the joys of your life together will be worth the soul-wrenching pain and loss that will occur when one of you dies. Choosing to love someone is choosing to be vulnerable to the pain that not might, but *will* occur in the relationship.
This all brings me around to Christ, to God, to thinking about how He loved us, and before we were even made knew that He would die for us. Yet still He made us, still He gave is the freewill to make choices, to choose not to love Him back - still He died for us when so many that he loves will never choose to love Him in return. God knew the risk - rather, He knew the pain that would come. He was “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8) - He not only chose the chance of love, He knew the price of it before He chose it, and accepted it still.
Today, Hopey's death was a difficult thing, but it has made me think, on a lot of things. I wanted to have some profound and pithy statement to end this with, but I don't. I started out just wanting to say something about Hopey's death today, but it became larger than just that one event. But I guess that's life - nothing, not even death, is as simple as it seems at first glance.
Rest in Peace
September 10, 2005
It's amazing how quickly two weeks can flow by without causing even a ripple. But, I'll be coming back from Hawaii in two and a half short days. Seen and done so much here, met all kinds of people (again, the smallness of this world has been proven), and shot a ton of pictures (I only need a few more to break the 2,000 mark) - this vacation has been a full one. I'm not quite sure what I'd say was my favorite moment was (I'll reserve that decision till we're actually back - possibly the sub ride, or maybe just shooting the sunsets), but there have been a lot of good times here. Some strange ones also. For instance, running a gauntlet of hookers while pushing my mom in a wheel chair - totally surreal. Meeting someone here who is a friend of a friend back at school was a strange coincidence (but cool, and fortuitous also, because of...well, long story). As usual, something strange happened with mom (the hotel lost her oxygen tank) - but it turned out well because they've treated us like royalty and we've gotten to stay in amazing suites for less than the rate of a little room - like, more than 500 dollars less than the room usually runs. They staff here is great, the locals are wonderfully friendly (one woman had us follow her to a great spot to watch a sunset after we talked with her in a local bakery), and the weather, though a bit muggy, has been nice. The food - well, I'm going to be doing some extra work when I get back to lose the pounds I've enjoyed putting on. Buffets can be evil things - they look so good, but you pay for them later. It seems half of the meals around here are buffet style, and with really good food - I like the long rice chicken, and the standard Hawaiian pasta/potato salad with every meal, and the heavy Japanese influence in the cuisine, and...I could go on for a couple of paragraphs.
Couple more things to see and do before we leave Monday - going to visit a botanical garden tomorrow, possibly the Dole plantation, then to Germaine's luau in the evening. Sport fishing is still an option, or possibly just driving around the island again - and Queen Emma's palace probably. So many things I'd still like to do - another time though. Going home is like ending this blog - it's just something I have to do.
Couple more things to see and do before we leave Monday - going to visit a botanical garden tomorrow, possibly the Dole plantation, then to Germaine's luau in the evening. Sport fishing is still an option, or possibly just driving around the island again - and Queen Emma's palace probably. So many things I'd still like to do - another time though. Going home is like ending this blog - it's just something I have to do.
