Author: Rebecca

is the way life should be . . .

. . . ’cause they’re right: we may only have tonight, right now, this minute ~ relax, just be,  serene and happy in this moment ~ play the music low and sway to the rhythm of love.

Two days into spring break ~ I’m working on it . . .

An hour ago, I did one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. James and I held my cat, Jake, while our vet stopped him wasting away and sent him on to where I know Wills was waiting for him

When Wills passed on last year, I wasn’t there, and I took comfort in the idea that he had just passed in his sleep, his heart just slowing and stopping as he slept there at the vet’s office. Jake missed him, and looked for him for weeks after he was gone, and then he settled into being an only cat, for just about a year. Then he fell victim to the same renal failure that had called his litter mate away.

If you read this blog, you know that it was at a time when I didn’t think I could take anything more, and with the treatments I gave him and the medicine, he rallied for just about a month ~ long enough to stay with me through my husband’s surgery, long enough to see him strong enough again. Then this week, he stopped eating and drinking again, and I knew we’d have to let him go this time.

I know it’s the best thing. I know that it was better than letting him waste away and die an ounce at a time. I know it was the responsible thing to do. But it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, and I don’t think I could ever do it again.

Goodbye, Jake. Godspeed. I love you ~

“I need a sign to let me know you’re here”

Last night, I went from emotionally compromised to full out emotional melt down. Why? because it’s been a long December in several different directions. Some of you know some of the things that have been going on recently, some of the blows life’s delivered in the last few weeks and months, things that have happened, things that are going to happen, that have been piling up like stones against my heart ~ and last night, I felt another stone drop onto my heart, because our cat, Jake, was displaying all the same symptoms and behaviors that his litter-mate and life-long pal had displayed this time last year, just before he passed away. It was just one stone too many.

With some difficult days just ahead, it was just one stone too many, until at last I stood sobbing in my beloved’s arms at the kitchen sink ~ where he had followed me and, noodge that he is, wouldn’t let me just stand there and weep and wash dishes (I know it sounds weird but for me, the easing of many sorrows is work in my hands). So, I sobbed and sobbed, about everything, this last stone having opened a damn somewhere in me, letting everything flow out, all the fear, and sadness, and anger ~ not just because of Jake, not even mainly because of Jake. His illness was just the one stone too many.

At the end of it all, I determined that, if he survived the night, we would take Jake to the vet this morning and, if he had to go where we couldn’t follow, he would go lying in our arms and with our love to speed him on his way to where I know Wills waits for him.

When I woke this morning, having gone to sleep with that decision made, I woke with a headache and more tears backed up behind and leaking out of my eyes, and, coward that I am, I waited until James went downstairs and I could hear him talking to Jake before I got dressed and tried to prepare myself. And a song which I had only previously heard once, a long time ago, I don’t even remember where, was playing in my head: singing “calling all angels.”

Because that’s what you do when you don’t know what to do anymore. Your heart calls to you all your angels.

And I knew then that I would be writing this blog post with that title after we came back from the vet, having said good-bye to our friend. And so I am ~ but with an entirely different intent, an entirely different perspective, because Jake didn’t have to go yet, we didn’t have to send him. We got to bring him home with medicines and therapies to apply, to which he’s already responding, and I’m so very grateful that my heart knew to call all my angels ’round us.

When I sat down to write this, I searched for and found a video of the song ~ and it is the right song, though I had heard it in a woman’s voice in my head. I could tell when I heard the first words: “I need a sign to let me know you’re here . . . ”

I got my sign that lets me know my angels are here ~ and “that things are gonna look up” ~ and he’s sleeping in his makeshift bed right now.

I won’t give up, and I will be that “hand to help build up some kind of hope” for others, as my angels have done for me.

Here, let me share them with you.

I won’t give up. Ever. Just in case you need to know it someday . . . .