My elbows were propped on our kitchen table, as my hands held a warm cup of coffee. I relished the quiet, until my slow awakening was hastened. "I love our new kitty." My head jolted to where my husband stood over the stove, "You love our new kitty?"
"Yes," he replied sheepishly. "I think you really mean it!" Having endured a few months of ridicule for bringing home a stray, my heart swelled with pride. I knew God led me to Eggs, Our Calico, Tabby cat, even if I found her in the open wild of an apartment complex. It had taken time, but my husband caught on. Eggs is not an "oh, pet me please" kitty. She loves attention and greets me every morning by stretching out on the carpet, on her side, waiting for me to play "bat hands".
Most of the time, she doesn't use her claws. However, she inevitably goes in for the bite. As I yelp in pain and growl, "No biting! No biting!" she maintains an air of innocence. We definitely have some training yet to do, but her wild side adds such a diversion in our home that we enjoy her anyway. She runs with abandon when the mood hits. Up and down the stairs. From our living room to our bed and back again. She rolls around on three kitchen chairs, placed side by side, chasing her tail. When we first left her upstairs for the night with our bedroom door open, she jumped on us at five in the morning, ready to play. Having never been ambushed by a kitty in my sleep, I found it quite amusing.
She threw toys around in the middle of the night, walked all over us, and even stared at us for a while, making sure we wouldn't wake. Fortunately, she now sleeps under the bed till morning. At least for this week. After enduring four days of a cat in heat (another story for another time), a vet took care of things. As Eggs healed, I filled a bird feeder outside our large picture window for her amusement. She spent hours on our kitchen chairs, staring out the window.
But the birds dropped seed on the porch and the squirrels came looking. And when the squirrels lingered too long, Don pulled out his pellet gun. Who knew feeding the birds would lead to dead squirrels. I didn't grow up in a family of hunters, so the city girl in me gets antsy when the country boy in my spouse rises up. When he showed me a picture last week of a skinned squirrel cooking on our grill, my insides twirled. I had been away for the day so he'd killed and grilled and eaten the creature before I arrived home. All evidence discarded, I had no idea I'd slept next to a man digesting squirrel. When he confessed, I felt conflicted. I knew Don grew up on a big farm where they hunted a good majority of their food. But I didn't. I grew up the daughter of a Delta pilot, vacationing in far away places, dressed in fine linen and silk... well, not really. We vacationed in far away places on a budget, but that budget never involved eating backyard squirrel. When I used that term as we lay in bed, Don chuckled, "There's no such thing as backyard squirrel. There's just squirrel." "No," I replied, "You ate backyard squirrel - suburban Atlanta backyard squirrel. There's a big difference." In case you're wondering, according to Don, they taste the same as country-born squirrel. Bottom line, after a long night of sleep, I woke singing this song. Why I woke singing this song, I can't explain. But after a few heavy weeks, where loss tangled deep with life, I celebrated resurfacing. Cause I could only wake up writing this kind of song, if I'd finally come through to other side. So if you're in need of a rich, meaningful blog post end, check out last weeks post: Part of Me. Cause this week, I'm closing with a politically incorrect video of my latest song. Please don't be offended. It made me laugh at myself and our differences. And I just needed a laugh. Happy Thanksgiving! Please know I'm very grateful for all of you, for the fact you take time to read my posts and comment. You mean a great deal to me. Now, on to Backyard Squirrel: photo credit: Margherita is Coffeeholic.... Just Like Me via photopin(license) photo credit: goldfinch at feeder, 29 Jan 2015 via photopin(license) photo credit: Breeze Playtime 2, 12 Aug 13 via photopin(license)
My coffee sat on the nightstand as I perched comfortably in bed. Ready to work, I opened my laptop only to stare at a dim screen. Confused, I rechecked the plugs and found the problem. Eggs, the cat, chewed my power cord.
Several computer glitches have slowed progress this month. Most of them have bogged down the completion of my manuscript. But it's almost done and Don fixed my power cord. So I'm up and running again today.
That said, while I started a blog post last week, I never finished it. My thoughts wouldn't come to a close. I'd promised a friend I would keep it light, but lived a weeks worth of heavy instead.
Unable to surface in time for an encouraging end, I let the new week start and figured I'd try again.
But even as I start to write tonight, the heaviness lingers. My friend, Bonnie, is nearing the end of her ALS fight and has been making plans as the end draws near.
When I went over to feed her dinner last Wednesday, she asked if I would sing at her funeral. Of course I agreed, especially since I'd started writing a song for the service a few days earlier.
The timing proved providential when Lu, her caretaker, later mentioned they had plans to visit the funeral home the following day to pick out a coffin and fill out necessary paperwork. Knowing I'd be close by at the designated time, I decided to try and finish the song and surprise them at their appointment. It worked. The song flowed Thursday morning. So after we picked out the perfect blue coffin and the paperwork was done, we went to the chapel where I sang Bonnie her song. It was surreal. I've written several songs for funerals and though it's a rather odd talent, I simply hold my breath and swim to the thin place where a lifetime flows into lyrics. While I've gone under more than once in search of words, I've never performed someone's song for them before they died. Until last week.
As we crossed the funeral home lobby on our way to the chapel, a grown man's sobs bellowed from behind a closed door. Family members stood pensive in the lobby.
I avoided eye contact, wanting to just get through the special moment with Bonnie. But as we left the chapel, a middle aged woman thanked me for the music and I learned her husband's father had died unexpectedly.
I was thankful to know they hadn't lost a child. But if I close my eyes, I can still feel the reverberations from the man's heartfelt cries.
Many others have had reason to cry this week. The suffering is immense. All over the world. Multiply that mans' sobs by the number of lives lost in Paris, and the emotion starts to sink me.
I can't make sense of it all. I can only trust the love that died to set us free.
Thus I wrote Bonnie's song to capture the beauty of a life well lived; a life that has touched mine and many others as she's drawn near to heaven's shores.
My nose is itching - like crazy. Another reminder that it's not been a normal week. Is it an allergic reaction to our cat? Or the three pieces of gluten-filled pizza I ate last night? Or the instant coffee I drank every morning this week?
I don't know. But it's not normal so I'll refuse to sleep until at least a fresh brew is available for the Sabbath.
While several unexpected events contributed to this week's version of oddness, living through another November 3rd provided an undercurrent of emotion that effected everything else.
The date has meaning for several reasons. A middle school comrade, Stacy, celebrates her birthday on the poignant date. A high school friend, Bobby, honors his baby sister on the same date; a sister who died years ago, but would have turned 44 this year. Another dear friend, Reva, grieves the day she gave birth to her first born son who would have turned 38 this Nov. 3rd, had sinus cancer not taken his life several years ago. I watched the parade of acknowledgments fill my Facebook news feed but couldn't write my own because I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do anymore. Regardless, I'll post it here. 19 years ago, on November 3, 1996, my first husband left this earth, and my life took a drastic turn. The journey has been amazing in many ways.
But it's also been really hard. Through it all, when the reality of loss has nipped at my heels, the comfort from Heaven has astounded me. The odd tangle of emotion has lead to breathtaking views from the depths - a direct result of the internal fissure that almost split my heart in two.
But it didn't.
For when divine beauty and earthly loss intimately entwine, the Creator whispers love in a ways that only the truly broken know.
Ironically, I read about a young woman this week, Essena O'neill, who gave up her massive social media gig and started a web site encouraging others to be real, to be vulnerable, to be the person behind their image. As I perused her new site, I noticed she was born on November 3rd, 1996, the exact day my husband died.
In the nineteen years since his death, an entire generation of young people have grown up with technology, the likes of which we never imagined. Jason died before cell phones and email became the norm. He even drew pictures for a living without owning a Mac computer.
Fast forward almost two decades, and today we're caught between the reality of our lives and the online images we uphold. The chasm between what's real and imagined has grown deep and wide.
So while I truly value connecting with others online, when capturing the perfect photo and gaining the most "likes" ranks high on our daily to-do-list, we descend into a selfie-land that harms more than it helps.
I'm guilty. Are you?
When I think back to 19 years ago, I remember simplicity, quiet, actual phone calls, and face to face relationships.
No texting. No FB status' to consider. And no phone alerts to waken me in the middle of the night. Just crying toddlers. But don't get me wrong. As a writer and story teller, social media matters. I will continue to use FB and indulge in the cheap therapy called, "blogging".
But I'm also going to keep fighting to maintain a healthy perspective.
Because no matter how many of you read this - or not, I matter. Even though I'm home alone on a quiet Saturday, feeling a little upside down from the hard things in life, I matter.
You matter.
Jesus died because we matter. Do you get that today?
I lost my footing yesterday. So I wrote to remember today.
