Sug

In the summer of 2006, my little black hellion Calpurnia died, leaving me with just Boo, the little flea-and-worm-infested kitten who'd grown into a gorgeous panther after I'd brought him home from work at the request of a student because kids were trying to stone him to death. (You can read Boo's story here.) Boo and Cal were never what you'd call close, but after a few months I wanted to make sure he had another cat around, so I walked into my local Petsmart, went to the cat condos, and saw a small black cat I assumed was a kitten or at least a juvenile. I called the number for the rescue (H.O.P.E. or Helping Out Pets Everyday [sic]), and the conversation went (I kid you not) like this:

ME: Hi, yeah, I'm looking for a female black cat. I see you have one here--

HOPE: She's actually the only black cat we have, but she's missing half her tail, she's stunted, and she was living on the street when we brought her in with two kittens, so she's semi-feral.

ME: I'll take her.

HOPE: Well, we'd like you to meet her first....

A meeting was set up, but honestly, I'd heard enough ("We think it was a human who chopped off her tail, since she won't let anyone touch it") to know I'd be bringing her home. When they let her out of her plexiglass prison cell, she strolled over to me and hopped up on the bench next to me, then settled down in bread loaf position and began to purr. "Wow," the volunteer said, "we've never seen her do that with anyone before." Well, of course not. She wasn't anyone else's cat.

She settled in just as quickly at home (after hiding behind the dryer for a couple of hours). From the first night, she jumped on the bed and slept by my feet, just as if she'd always enjoyed the comfort of human companionship. She and Boo had a conversation about who slept where, but it didn't last long, and there was plenty of room for all of us.

A few short months later, it was time for the three of us to move to a cabin high in the wilderness in Mt. Baldy, and that's when our adventures began.

For six months, I kept the cats inside so they would learn that, first, this is our new home and second, this is a dangerous place.

We'd only lived there a few weeks when we saw our first bear. It wandered up onto my back deck at just after dawn one morning, and as I leaned on the kitchen counter to stare out the window at it, I became aware of a puffy little body beside me--Sug sat beside me for twenty minutes, growling and twitching her tail at the beast as it plundered the wild bird seed I'd put out. Some years later, I would receive a call from a neighbor as I was dressing for work, warning me that a bear was in the vicinity. I descended the loft stairs moments later to see Sug standing at the French doors which led to the back deck, her body puffed up to twice her size as she faced off with the three-hundred-pound black bear on the other side of the doors. Oh, for a photo of that encounter!

The cats saw enough of bears, raccoons and coyotes through the windows to make them realize they had to be on alert always when I gave them brief time outdoors (only when it was broad daylight and I knew we were safe from visitations). Sug was always the leader in the slow sneak out the door.

And that was a problem at times; I had to watch the door constantly or she would dart out behind my back. Her curiosity often got the best of her, even at night... in the snow.

Sadly, our Boo passed away in the second year we lived in Baldy, and I am ever so thankful little Sug was there with me. Boo was a fine gentleman of a cat whose habit had always been to climb onto my chest at night just before I fell asleep and kiss my face with his purry wet kisses for a quarter of an hour before he finally climbed down beside me and went to sleep. The first night without him, I cried myself to sleep. On the second night, Sug came up to curl into my armpit. That would be her sleeping spot for the next decade....

She loved flowers. Often on special occasions, my son would visit with a bouquet, announcing as he entered the cabin, "I brought your cat some flowers."

And she loved to hear me sing. There is a short piece in a Chicken Soup for the Soul book about how, when we moved to Baldy and she was frightened at first, I sang to her and it calmed her. She loved "Sugar Pie Honey Bunch" by The Four Tops, and she would roll onto her back every time I sang it to her. Every time. Click here to see that phenomenon.

After Boo died and it was just the two of us in Baldy, I sang to her often when we were cold or worried. She would curl into my side as I sang her to sleep, setting her chin into the palm of my hand and purring along with whatever song I chose.

Eventually we left the mountain, and I bought a temporary home in Ontario. I'd been without a dog for the six years I lived in Baldy, and I couldn't wait to bring one home. But then a friend posted a photo of a scraggly gray kitten on Facebook, pleading with someone to take her. Gray? We don't do gray cats. But something about that little ball of feistiness spoke to me, and I brought her home. As soon as Sug heard her crying in the carrier, her maternal instincts kicked in. She watched out for Purrl and cared for her--until Purrl grew to twice Sugie's size, and then the two girls were like jealous sisters, swatting at each other daily but always huddling close to each other under the bed whenever they sensed danger.

A month ago, Sug experienced an episode of hyphema (hemorrhaging into her eye), and we sped off to an emergency veterinary clinic where the kind young vet and I slowly clicked off causes until we landed on "probably kidney failure." I brought Sug home and set about loving and spoiling her for the weeks she had left in this world. I took lots of pictures. I cried a lot. I recorded her purring.... Watching her decline was so, so hard, but even as she grew weaker and endured more episodes of hyphema, she maintained her loving sweetness toward me, still purring me to sleep at night, even when she must have felt awful.

She passed away yesterday. And for the first time in 28 years, there is not a black cat in my household. But there is a gray one... and a big red dog. Purrl and Thomas have been a comfort, as have all my dear, dear friends who have met Sug and know of our bond. Twelve years is a long time to companion with a cat, but not nearly long enough.

When I first met Sug at Petsmart, I noted that the rescue had named her Sugar Plum, and I thought, "That's the stupidest name for a cat in the history of cat rescue." But... no other name was forthcoming in my mind, even after she'd been with me for weeks, so Sugar Plum it stayed. Here's to my sweet little girl--Sug, Sugie, Sug-Sug, Sugar Plumpkin, Itty Bitty Kitty, Bitty, Bit, Bijou, Sugie Pie Honey Bunch. Go find Boo, my dear little girl. Play nice with him until I see you again.

Joy

Joy is ascendant. It is the other-worldly experience of the dove that appears suddenly, floats down to you and with its beak gently pulls away the bonds that tether you. You feel yourself rise and only then realize you’d been bound.

Joy is transcendent. Whatever else was happening on that day or at that moment falls away. You are transported. You are caught up in this thing, this event, this announcement, this realization, this sight for beleaguered eyes as you feel your heart wrapped in warmth, your face alight with the glow of it.

A colleague I worked with years ago used to say that life, to him, was mostly a series of mundane days filled with work, responsibility, and the cares and problems of the day-to-day routine, with occasional moments of great joy, such as the birth of a child. But these moments, he said, were extremely rare, so we should simply soldier on, getting through life as best we can, grateful for those rare opportunities in which to find happiness—though that happiness was fleeting indeed.

I found his cynicism dismaying in light of the fact that he often reminded his circle of friends that he was a man of God, an evangelical Christian who knew exactly what would happen to him when he died. Then, at that time, he would experience true joy.

Well. I guess he’s more patient than I am.

I’ll take my joy now, thank you very much, in this morning’s slow and steady sunrise that was accompanied by movie-trailer-perfect birdsong which rose to a steady crescendo as Thomas and I stood, looking down to the lake, a great blue heron just waking. The first rays of sun hit his wing feathers and lit the copper highlights there. He was so beautiful I nearly cried.

Last week, as Thomas and I hiked in Bogart Park at the same hour, just after sunrise, we took a left instead of a right on a trail we’ve often walked—and we discovered a new trail we hadn’t tried before, one that led up a ridge, then down into a canyon, then around a large meadow. Wildflowers—blue and yellow and red—dotted the sides of the trail as we walked together. I could have brought home an enormous bouquet… but I let them live, as I was living in that moment, able, still, to walk two miles with my dog at dawn, to breathe deeply, to sense the sun’s warmth on my back through my jacket. On our return, we came upon a small herd of deer. As we strolled silently around a shaded bend in the trail, there they all were, heads up, looking at us as we looked at them. No one moved. The air was still and quiet. Their enormous dark eyes showed only curiosity, not fear, so Thomas and I lingered (as he leaned into my leg, unsure of what these creatures were). Finally, we inched carefully away down the trail, and the deer dropped their heads and went back to grazing.

Thank you, Universe, for the sheer joy in that moment of tranquility.

It has been my experience that these moments of joy are not few and far between. They’re right out there, waiting. We simply have to make ourselves available.

Grief

Grief takes you. It grabs you by the heart, reaching in with long, cold fingers that wrap around your heart and hold, daring you to move or breathe or look away just for a moment. It takes your undivided attention.

And you live like that. Waiting. Waiting for the feeling to pass, the clutch to release even the tiniest bit so you can shift your stance, avert your eyes… see beauty in the world once again.

I have been so, so, so lucky in my life. I was still a teenager when my first child was born, and the others all came along before I’d even reached the age of 30. We’ve had some scares… a few car accidents, a broken arm, always the trips to the E.R. with the youngest boy for stitches. That one surgery on his eye. But I’ve never had to drop to my knees and beg the Universe to please take me instead of my child. I’ve only barely flirted with the horror of what it’s like when a child doesn’t show up, doesn’t arrive home safely.

At the moment I am writing this, all four of my children are well and safe, to the best of my knowledge. Lucky, lucky me.

Because how do you ever get out of bed if you lose a child? I don’t know. I couldn’t.

Before I ever graduated high school, my best friend, who was a year older, was happily on her way to college classes one beautiful spring morning when she was hit by a drunk driver, sustained massive head injuries and died a few days later. That moment. That phone call. Hearing that she was undergoing surgery on her brain, but they didn’t expect her to survive… that’s when I first felt that cold hand of grief on my heart. And it took me. It dragged me around my room, not allowing me to lie down or sit or get comfortable in any way or even kneel. And it taunted me. “You’re losing Becky. She’s dying. She’s leaving. You wanted to be the one to leave, but she talked you out of it, and now you’re staying here and she’s leaving without you.”

Each word was a punch to the gut. And they just kept repeating until my stomach ached and I couldn’t breathe and I was absolutely overwhelmed with the feeling of complete and utter helplessness. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t even sit beside her and hold her hand.

Did I pray? I tried. Back then, I thought I had to work at being a spiritual person. I became proficient at parroting. We would spout off with this rhetoric about God’s will and things happening for a reason, words that roll off the tongue so easily until your best friend has been senselessly run down by a man who’s had several prior DUIs and has once again gotten behind the wheel of a car after spending the night drinking. How is that “God’s will”?

I didn’t know how to reconcile it.

To whom do you go for comfort when the person who has always been the one to comfort you has died?

Grief is relentless and merciless.

Cosby

LORD: I want you to make me an ark.

NOAH: Riiiight. What's an ark?

LORD:  Make the ark out of cubits.

NOAH:  Riiiight. What's a cubit?

From Bill Cosby's comedy routine entitled "Noah."

I have such wonderful memories of sitting on the couch with my kids watching The Cosby Show in the mid 1980's. The kids were young, but they understood most of the humor, and if a one-liner went over their heads, they could at least appreciate the antic faces of Bill Cosby as the loveable Cliff Huxtable. Since a father figure had been missing in our household for some years, we adopted him as our TV dad, and we hung on every word of sage advice he handed down to Sondra, Denise, Theo, Vanessa (and later, even little Rudy), whether his intentions were silly or serious. During those years, my daily schedule was exhausting as I tried to keep up as a full time college student while simultaneously raising four active kids as a single parent. That weekly time on the couch, laughing and nodding with Cliff's wisdom, were a precious respite from the stress of the week. In our house, we loved Cliff Huxtable so much I used to joke that if anything ever happened to Cosby's wife, Camille, I'd be first in line to snatch him up.

Of course, I had fallen in love with his comedy many years before, in the 1960's, when he was a frequent guest on Johnny Carson and other variety shows. His routines were hilarious (you can still find them on YouTube), and I laughed along with my own siblings, just as my children would laugh along in the same way a couple of decades later.

Having said that, I knew in the back of my mind that Mr. Cosby had another side to his personality. In the late 1960's, he played a sidekick character to Robert Culp in a series entitled I Spy. On rare occasions, an episode was written with his character as the lead, and it gave Cosby the opportunity to be more than just the cool guy making wry quips. His serious roles were played with such a hard edge to them it made me wonder, even back then, what this man was truly all about in real life.

I guess we've found out over the past year or so. Last week Cosby was convicted of sexual assault. He is currently wearing an ankle bracelet on house arrest as he awaits sentencing.

At best, this is a cautionary tale. It seems clear from the number of women who have come forward to accuse him--with nothing to gain beyond justice and validation--that his criminal behavior extended back over decades, all the way back to those idyllic days of The Cosby Show. Of course it was his character we loved, not the man himself. We can see that now. But back then... Cosby the man was lauded and applauded, given honors, asked to render up commencement speeches that were hilarious and yet stellar in their sage advice. Even after the show was cancelled, we continued to love the man we saw as the real life personification of Cliff Huxtable. How completely we were blind to the man he truly was. And how disturbing this should be to us.

Just how easy is it for a man to appear upon the stage of life, smiling in a jovial way and saying things that people want to hear, remarks that make audiences feel less fearful about the current world we're living in, only to be, in truth, slowly and deliberately pulling the wool over their eyes?