The day before Christmas Eve I got a phone call from my mom saying that something has to be done about that cat.
“She’s over there all alone, and I’m afraid she’s going to just curl up and die.”
Here’s the story of that cat. She started out as my cousin’s cat, when my cousin lived next door to my parents’ house. When my cousin moved out of state, that cat was then passed on to my brother. Then when my brother moved back in with my mom to help take care of dad, he somehow managed to pass that poor cat on to my mom. The cat is about sixteen years old, is missing some teeth, is widely unpopular because she hisses at anything and anyone that moves, and is kind of stinky. That’s an understatement. She’s a smelly cat. (“What are they feeding you?”) She didn’t even have a name or if she did, it had long since been forgotten. Everyone just called her Kitty. The one good thing about Kitty is that she loved my grandma and would lie at the foot of the bed when grandma slept. Ever since grandma died, the Kitty had been tolerated in the house, doing her own thing, and coming in and out as she pleased. She wasn’t really an accepted member of the household but she wasn’t awful enough to be taken to the APA or the Humane Society. She was pathetic. Old, unwanted and stinky, she was our very own cat squatter ala Holly Golightly. Nobody had the heart to take her anywhere. And nobody really wanted to bother.
When we moved my mom over to her new house, we left the cat behind. We checked in on her every couple of days and made sure she had food and water and that the house was warm enough for her to survive. There just wasn’t enough room in the new house for a stinky cat. Of course having my own cat problems, there was no way I could take in another cat that pooped on the floor. For weeks we wrestled with all of the options on what to do with that cat and who was going to be responsible for her. Somehow, once again, I was stuck with a responsibility out of sheer default. I called the Humane Society and told them Kitty’s sad story and they suggested I call Animal Control. Animal Control came that very day, the day before Christmas Eve, and picked up the cat from the old, empty house. My mom met them over there to let them in. By the time I arrived to the house they had picked up the cat and were gone. My mom’s eyes were full of tears when I walked in. She stood in the middle of her old, abandoned house and said, “I told them that I just couldn’t take care of her,” and I felt like we weren’t talking about the cat anymore. The cat was a symbol. Those tears were meant for someone, or something, else.
I guess on one hand it seems silly to be sad over having to get rid of a cat that you didn’t really want in the first place. But on the other hand, it was just one more thing my mom had to say goodbye to this year, one more thing that she couldn’t save. It was a sad way to begin our holiday, to be sure.
Still, after that, our Christmas actually turned out to be not so bad. Sure, there were moments here and there when I’d think of my dad and miss him like crazy. I held back the tears when I heard on the radio, “I’ll be Home For Christmas.” I watched White Christmas by myself one night and cried practically the entire time, remembering my father singing along to “Gee, I Wish I Was Back in the Army.” If there was one thing my dad knew how to do, it was celebrate. So celebrating without him didn’t quite feel right this year. When the family got together we tried our best and managed to laugh a lot, sing a few songs, and cry only a little. I guess that’s how the holidays work after you’ve lost someone close to you. Since this was our first, it was probably the hardest. I imagine next year when I watch White Christmas I might cry at first but then smile, remembering silly old dad.
Apart from some of that melancholy, I bet that our Christmas was probably no different than all of your Christmases. We rushed from my family’s house to my husband’s family’s house on a snow filled Christmas Eve, trying to keep our son awake so he could share in the excitement of opening of all of his presents. He was overindulged this year by the family and he was actually able to appreciate it for the first time. He learned quickly how to unwrap, going faster and faster with each present. He said, “Santa!” every time anyone asked him who was coming to town. He said “Baby Jesus” every time anyone asked whose birthday it was. It was an exhausting pace and by the end of the night we were ready for the excitement to be over with. On Christmas morning we told him that Santa had come and there were presents waiting for him under the tree. We saw the ever emerging personality of our terrible two year old, who that morning traded in his stubbornness for sweetness and officially became the world’s cutest child. He literally ooohed and ahhed over every gift he unwrapped.** We realized later that day that we’d forgotten to take pictures or record any of it. We kicked ourselves for being so caught up in the moment that we forgot to capture said moment on film. And, after all the presents were opened and all the food was eaten and all the families were visited, we experienced the same Christmas hangover that I assume every family experiences. The tree that looked so magical when you first put it up becomes an intrusion in your living room. The snow on the ground turns grey. Some of the lights on the outside of your windows burn out. Oh well, we thought, there will be more Christmases. We found ourselves looking to the future, planning next year’s Christmas, wondering how to top this one. That’s how it is when you have young kids. We thought, next year. We can’t wait to do it all again next year.
Next year is a strange thought for me. Now if you’ve followed my blog up until now, you’ll know fully well that I am entitled to say that I’m glad this year is coming to an end. I feel like I should look to the New Year with hope and anticipation, surely a year like the one I’ve just had deserves to be followed by a year of peace and blessings. A year where no one gets sick, dies, or needs to be moved into a nursing home. No more sad, anthropomorphic cats. No more trying to take on more than I can handle. But friends, I have to say, while I’m relieved that this turd of a year is wrapping up, I would be lying if I told you I wasn’t a little afraid of things to come. Is it possible to have an even worse year? Would God allow it? These are some things I think about, you know, when I’m feeling a little sorry for myself. It sounds selfish, I know, but I’d like to be able to focus on my budding family, dedicate my whole attention to my brilliant son and not feel unbearably sad and lonely, burdened by the seeming weight of the universe. I’d like to be pregnant again, believe it or not. But here’s what I’ve learned this year. No matter what you want or what you try to accomplish, life has this way of happening. Things are going to happen that are simply out of your control. I don’t know about you, but it’s a pretty scary thought.
Let me just say that I’d be absolutely hopeless and fearful if it weren’t for this fact; that “now these three remain; faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” Love is what I witnessed when I kept vigil last New Year’s Eve on my dying grandmother. Love is what I saw when my family surrounded my dad on his death bed and sang to him. Love is what I witnessed for months when my mother in law stayed by my father in law’s side in the ICU and refused to leave him alone. Love didn’t let my grandma, or my dad, or my father in law down. Love didn’t fail me last year. I saw it acted out in so much abundance that I can’t even describe it all. I see love in the face of my son and I think there’s no possible way I could love him any more than I do right now. But I will. Tomorrow I will love him a little more. Next year I will love him even more. And the days will go on and on, and the love will grow and grow.
So bring it on, New Year. Whatever comes, I’ve got love on my side.
**I think it’s important to note that on Christmas morning, as he oohed and ahhed over it at first, after my son unwrapped the Singamajig doll he started to really examine it. My husband showed him how to squeeze the doll’s belly, and it opened its mouth into an O and sang a few notes. My son snatched it out of my husband’s hands and threw it on the ground. “No way,” he said. “It’s scary.”
I’m not making that up. Now that’s my boy.
No comments:
Post a Comment