Big-Girl Pants

I am not yet ready to pour out my sorrow over yesterday's elections here.  But I will at some point. 

Some days, the world makes you put on your big-girl pants and just deal with it.  And not always in the ways that you expect.

I seem to have a lot of those days lately.


Yesterday was election day, and as I alluded to in my preamble, I was deeply unhappy with the outcome.  This will, of course, result in many more days of wearing big-girl pants in the future.


However, that's not what made me put them on yesterday.  


My cat, Hoover, is getting rather long in the tooth.  As is common in cats he has developed high blood pressure and resultant kidney failure.  We hospitalized him 10 days ago, and he's been on IV fluids since then.  He was OK while he was hospitalized, but each time we took him off the IV, he stopped eating again and declined quickly.  The vet and I talked Monday and it became pretty clear to me that it was time to say goodbye.


I arrived at the office yesterday, having played out the events in my mind and having cried my eyes out for several hours.  Hoovie has been my buddy for 14 years.  I had screwed up my courage to say goodbye to my little buddy.  But then the vet surprised me by saying that Hoover rallied overnight, started eating robustly, and seemed to have decided to stick around.  I was flabbergasted.  I was not prepared for this.


Once I left the vet's office, kitteh in hands, I surprised myself by completely falling apart.  Having lost my adrenaline, I sobbed harder than if I had actually lost the cat.


Last night at 7:00 was the All Souls Day mass to honor everyone in our parish who passed away in the last year.  They planned to light a candle for Kiersten and I planned to be there to receive it and take it home.  I saw this as an important part of my grieving process.  Due to a lot of things going on here in the Land of Bean, I was to be the solitary representative from our family.  As I have discussed here before, grieving is a very active process for me.  In the interest of remaining functional for the rest of the world, I am careful about making time for rituals and other "safe" opportunities to grieve in an acute way.  I was prepared for it to be hard, but I was almost looking forward to the emotional release of the evening.


And then Daisy Mae came home from a shopping trip, clutching her side.  Shortly thereafter, she dropped to her knees, sobbing with pain.  It was 5:30.  


At 7:00, I was still at the hospital ER with Daisy, awaiting the results from the CT scan that would later reveal her debilitating pain was the result of too much teen-ager fried food and not enough fiber.  


She looked miserable, "Mom, I'm so sorry you're missing mass.  I know it was important to you."


I took a deep breath.  "It's OK, baby; I don't need a mass to remember Kiersten.  She's in my heart 24/7.  Your health is more important than any grieving ritual at this point."  I meant what I said, although inside, my heart was breaking in yet another small way.


Yesterday, I was reminded anew that life is for the living,  It's not for the faint of heart, however, so bring your big-girl pants.