Days like these I'm jealous of other professions where it's a little easier to muddle through; most other professionals don't have a 35 person audience watching as they bumble through the spelling of big words & have complete brain farts. I might be unique in my exceptional brain-farting abilities; when I get really tired, I lose my train of thought mid-sentence. There was a lot of that yesterday.
Why so tired? I had a sick kitty. Without getting into the details, she had been deteriorating for a while. I was sure on Thursday when my husband took her to the vet that they'd put her down. She was obviously, actively dying. But the vet said 'you never know...,' so instead they drew blood, gave her some IV fluids, and sent her home. So that night, we watched and worried. She didn't eat, she didn't drink, and she never settled. Friday afternoon she was gone.
My husband had Mischief for nearly 20 years, so she has been a part of our family as long as we've been a family. It's not so much her passing as much as it was the watching and worrying that took a toll. She was old and rickety and arthritic; I think we were all astonished at how long she held on.
And it wasn't so much managing my own feelings of loss that hurt, it was trying to explain it to my 3 (almost 4!) year old. She loved Mischief, too. So as we were walking to Starbucks this morning, I likened the passing of our kitty to the falling of the leaves. I tried to make her understand that everything dies. That every season the leaves fall; each of them dies, but when spring comes around, the tree makes more. She seems to be making sense of it.
But the leaves got me thinking. The beauty that we see in the fall leaves - I wonder why we revel in it so much. Really, what gives them their beauty is the process of dying. I watched Mischief through this process of dying, and there was no reverie. It wasn't beautiful, but then, I suspected she had pain. Perhaps we can be free to celebrate the death of those leaves because pain and suffering isn't part of the equation. We feel comfortable celebrating, photographing, and enjoying because we don't perceive the tree to be suffering.
I know that we appreciate the colors of fall mostly based on the aesthetic appeal. But also, even if we never really ponder it (I mean, only me and a few other miserable philosopher-types ever do), I think on some level we see in those gorgeous reds & yellows, reminders of summer: plants bursting forth fruit, flowers blooming & reaching for the sun, bees buzzing. And the reminder that winter is coming. And it is for all of us, really.
I was honest with my daughter about Mischief's death. I want her to understand death as a part of life. Sure, it's tough. Sure, we never want to see loved ones pass, but we have to recognize it as an inevitability. I just had a student of mine, and honors student, come to me in tears, devastated because her grandmother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She wanted to drop my class & take a much easier class because she just didn't think she could handle the rigors of honors with the emotional strain she would have with her grandmother's impending death. I told her no.
I don't doubt that she was genuinely hurting. I don't doubt that this kid probably will have a hard time getting her work done. What I doubt is the wisdom in allowing death to overwhelm & destroy her entire year. I'm certain that, like the changing leaves, her grandmother's body has been displaying the colors of death for some time. All of us, to a certain extent, we fight the colors, we ignore the colors, we hide them. We're obsessed with staying in the spring and summer of our lives, and I feel like that obsession makes fall and winter so much harder.
If we could just give ourselves permission to celebrate the passing, even through our pain. I'm not saying it'll be less painful; I doubt much of anything could make it easier. But the perspective matters.
We all struggle with loss. Even with quite a bit of experience with death, I still had a hard time teaching last week with the loss of our little furry companion. But I'm working on perspective, and next week will be better.
But the leaves got me thinking. The beauty that we see in the fall leaves - I wonder why we revel in it so much. Really, what gives them their beauty is the process of dying. I watched Mischief through this process of dying, and there was no reverie. It wasn't beautiful, but then, I suspected she had pain. Perhaps we can be free to celebrate the death of those leaves because pain and suffering isn't part of the equation. We feel comfortable celebrating, photographing, and enjoying because we don't perceive the tree to be suffering.
I know that we appreciate the colors of fall mostly based on the aesthetic appeal. But also, even if we never really ponder it (I mean, only me and a few other miserable philosopher-types ever do), I think on some level we see in those gorgeous reds & yellows, reminders of summer: plants bursting forth fruit, flowers blooming & reaching for the sun, bees buzzing. And the reminder that winter is coming. And it is for all of us, really.
I was honest with my daughter about Mischief's death. I want her to understand death as a part of life. Sure, it's tough. Sure, we never want to see loved ones pass, but we have to recognize it as an inevitability. I just had a student of mine, and honors student, come to me in tears, devastated because her grandmother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. She wanted to drop my class & take a much easier class because she just didn't think she could handle the rigors of honors with the emotional strain she would have with her grandmother's impending death. I told her no.
I don't doubt that she was genuinely hurting. I don't doubt that this kid probably will have a hard time getting her work done. What I doubt is the wisdom in allowing death to overwhelm & destroy her entire year. I'm certain that, like the changing leaves, her grandmother's body has been displaying the colors of death for some time. All of us, to a certain extent, we fight the colors, we ignore the colors, we hide them. We're obsessed with staying in the spring and summer of our lives, and I feel like that obsession makes fall and winter so much harder.
If we could just give ourselves permission to celebrate the passing, even through our pain. I'm not saying it'll be less painful; I doubt much of anything could make it easier. But the perspective matters.
We all struggle with loss. Even with quite a bit of experience with death, I still had a hard time teaching last week with the loss of our little furry companion. But I'm working on perspective, and next week will be better.
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