One Too Many Goodbyes

 

It’s been more than a week since we sent our sweet Alvin back to the Spirit.  It was his time, I know.  And I know we’ll meet again, his spirit and my own…because we’re really just fragments of the same spirit.

But…I miss him SO MUCH.  Probably moreso because he was the last of our three orange boys—the two brothers who came to us as tiny babies in 2004, and the moon-faced foundling who adopted us in 2009.  All gone from us, now, within less than a year of each other.   

I try to express my gratitude to the Universe every morning—for keeping us safe and well and more or less financially solvent during these strange, difficult times.  For blessing me with a good, solid partner. For planting the urgency in us that drove us to downsize in time to meet this crisis. 

 But I can’t help but feel that the loss of our three boys in such a short period of time has been...perhaps, unnecessarily brutal.

Alvin.  The soft, round, roly-poly orange-and-white.  He and his brother were so tiny when we brought them home…barely five weeks old. 

  

 

They bonded with us so completely that we used to joke that they were “hand-tamed parakeets.”  They loved us, they loved everybody.  Guests or family, any hand was good for petting.   Alvin was so happy to be carried around that, when you tried to put him down, you had to make sure his feet were under him and would be the first thing to hit the ground.  He was so sure that you would carry him around forever, he never learned to “lower his landing gear.” If you just carelessly dropped him—like you might with any other cat—he was likely to fall on his butt or his back, then look up at you like, “Why did you do that?”

  

Alvin loved water.  He was the guardian of the water dish—any water dish.  He would climb up in the sinks—bathroom or kitchen—and suckle on the faucets as if they provided golden drops of life's most precious elixir. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He was good at consuming things that were not food.  All his life, we had to keep him away from toilet paper and paper towels. He didn't just unroll them and make a mess, he actually ATE the paper.  And ribbon!  One Christmas, he got under the tree and ate every piece of ribbon he could get his teeth into. He ate so much that I thought he might have killed himself.  Luckily, what didn't come back up as technicolor barf made its way out the other end eventually. But from then on, we watched him like a hawk on Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries...an day there might be presents around.

And, Alvin was always good for pitching in on home improvement projects.  

But most of all, I think, Al loved his brother Theo.  They were two halves of a whole for their entire lives.  When Theo died in June, I wondered how much longer we would be able to keep Alvin going.  As it turned, out, it wasn’t very long.

 

Sleep well, my boys!  Then romp among the stars until we’re together again!

Ow Goes to Join His Brother

 

The Fateful Day

Four years ago, I went out on a wildlife photography expedition to get away from the election day hype.  I was 85% confident that the American people were not stupid enough to elect an idiot snake oil salesman to the highest office in the land.  I went to Sauvie Island for the afternoon...it was a beautiful bright blue autumn day, and I was enchanted by an amazing up close and personal encounter with a very accommodating barred owl.

I only wish the owl encounter was the sole reason that day will be forever branded in my memory.   

Because, of course, I returned home that evening to witness the horrifying debacle of Trump's victory.

In that turbulent time, after the initial shock had worn off...as much as it was EVER going to wear off, we at least had the slimmest of hopes that it wouldn't be as bad as we thought it was going to be.  That Trump might actually rise to the occasion, and become, at best, a mediocre chief executive, rather than the dumpster fire his campaign performance indicated he would be. 

That hope was stubborn, and raised its demented head every time Trump faced a challenge that needed to be met with the temperament of an adult human being.  After about the sixth or seventh such incident within the first few months of his "reign," we all realized he was exactly who and what he displayed during the entire 2016 presidential campaign, and he was not going to miraculously change or learn or step up.  Quite the opposite, in fact.

And, we watched, horrified, as the rank and file GOP lined up and endorsed the Dumpster Fire President. The dumpster fire has raged unchecked ever since.

Now, it's four years later.  After a year from hell, an entirely fitting preamble to tonight's proceedings,  the moral fate of the United States of America will again be up for grabs.  And despite all the polls and all the hype and all the "resistance," I can't think there is one human being in the entire country who believes the result of the election is sure...in either direction.  We all saw what happened last time.  We have all witnessed the ever-increasing insanity of THIS campaign season. The only thing of which we can be absolutely certain is that shit is going to hit the fan tonight.  We don't know which way the shit is ultimately going to blow.  My guess is that a fair amount is going to fall upon both sides.

In contrast to Election Day 2016, I creaked out of bed late this morning.  Rose later than I have in, I think, years...because I spent two hours in the middle of the night tossing and turning and stressing about today's events.

The day is cloudy and still...like it's holding its breath against the events of the evening.

I won't be going out to the wilderness to seek solace and distraction.  I don't think I could do that if you held a gun to my head.

Instead, we are slated to be releasing the spirit of one of our sweet feline companions to join his lately-departed brother to soar among the stars.

I can only beg the Universe to let this horrible year, this horrible day, usher in a result that is also as completely opposite of that day four years ago.