Goodbye my Sweetheart

 Although I had intended to keep all posts here and at FB focused on Danny for the full 49 days after his death, we can't always do exactly what we intend. Last week something happened that devastated me and this household, and I have to speak about her here because she was so cherished and with me for so long - a couple of months longer than Danny.

My sweet, precious, unassuming, beautiful, slightly feral cat Evita, died.

 

 

She developed oral cancer - a truly awful bleeding, ulcerated lesion in her mouth - a few weeks after Dan left us, and we had no choice but to let her go, at her age, and given the gruesome nature (and lack of viable treatments)  of this cancer.

I am struggling greatly with loss, stress, PTSD, and more right now so this will be a brief entry. I have Evita stories and they will be told. Right now, I need to prioritize work, staying upright,  healing - and every blog entry takes me half the day (yes, I am that tired). So this entry will acknowledge the passing of my sweet girl, and more of her stories will emerge overtime.

I bought Evita on impulse, in the summer of 2006, when in  Ottawa to pick up animal supplies in a store I frequent - her mom, as I recall, was a feral/rescue - the kittens were for sale and I was taken with Evita right away. I remember the staff called her "The Wolverine" because of the tufts of greyish fur behind her ears. I remember that the big haul of animal food, treats,  and chewies cleaned me out financially, so I had to ask them to put her on hold for a few days...lean times, 2006. I drove back in a few days later and picked her up. She was  very small and attached herself to me right away. She used to sit  right by my computer every day - I wish I had better photos of those times.

                                  One of my favorite pics of the Veets, as a kitten

                            Here you can see the ear tufts a bit...she was just a little baby

Evita  got out of the house when she was very young, under a year (it was always hard to keep cats in, back in Rupert) and predictably, came home pregnant. Her first pregnancy, all she wanted was to lie with Danny, who, sweet darling that he was, happily obliged. That litter produced just two kittens - Tyler, who vanished one day never to be seen again and Amidala the Faerie, who was to become one of the great heart-connections of my life.

                                        The Faerie Amidala

Evita, pregnant with Amidala and Tyler, and a very young (and sleepy) Dan Dan.

A month after I brought Veets home, I lost my heartdog Luke to hemangiosarcoma - no warning, just a catastrophic bleed in the middle of nowhere, and he was 130 lbs -  and 7 weeks later I brought Danny home. They grew up together - and I lost them both within weeks this year.

Today I just wanted to acknowledge the passing of my beautiful, affectionate, undemanding, lovely lovely girl - part of my life for so so long - and say to the Universe, or whoever might actually read this blog - Evita was here, she was so so loved, and I will miss her and remember her always.

Goodbye, my Darling. I will never forget you.

Saving Grace

“What does it mean to practice the spiritual life?  When we embody practices, we live into them and they shape our habits of being.  We have to practice being present to the moment, because our tendency – and the world around us conspires in this – is to be distracted.  The monk practices contemplation so that in her whole life she can become conscious of the sacred presence beating through the heart of the world.”

Christine Valters Paintner

Although I am neither Christian nor a monk, I do strive to embody my spiritual beliefs with practise. Much of this practise is simply in how I live my life, striving to be a kinder person,  interact with humans compassionately (it is not a struggle for me to do so with animals)  and live contemplatively, which for me means using my intellect to sort through the emotions that can dominate us all in a negative way if not understood. Head and heart in balance, a great message of the Tarot (by which I mean the Waite/Smith Tarot, not the SilveryMoon-Unicorn- Positive Messages-Instagram versions, which are fine if they work for you, no judgement!  I have a few of those decks myself... but the Tarot I know and actually work with is the  Waite).

 

I strive for understanding and for embodiment of my highest goals, spiritually. I seldom if ever make the mark. I was allegedly a great Mom to Dan, despite canceling that Barkbox and being unable to walk after my injury- I struggle with wishing I had been more perfect, when in fact the unwavering and souldeep love I have for him is in itself, perfection.

I have been struggling so much these last few days. SO much. How do I move forward, will this depression ever lift - do I even want it to lift, if despair is all I have left tying me to Dan? And then I talked a long time to him this morning, and felt a lifting, a clarity (the head balancing the heart). I wrote in my grief journal the following lines: 

"With Danny, there was always so much love focused on me and from me and through me, I was able to grow, spiritually, able to live through all the difficulties of my life with grace and a sense that I am valuable,  more than that - indispensable.  And that was a sacred Gift at that time - this needy little boy who basically adored me from the moment we met.

I cannot betray the Gift by half-dying now. I need to carry the fruit of all that love forward. The... better me, the incredible amount of learning I did, the groundedness I found. He is physically gone, forever, and his absence is everywhere, but he can live in my heart 'as teacher and mentor' to quote Kent Nerburn. By going forward despite incredible pain, I honour the magic, mystery and beauty of Who We Are to each other...not "were" but are and always will be.   The Gift of Love, and his own special gift of sweetness and joy."

The grieving heart is not rational - but that said -why would I want despair to be my lasting link to this beautiful soul? I am a long way off the ultimate goal of "metabolizing grief to praise" as Martin Prechtel puts it, but recognizing that I am holding tight to my pain as the last thread connecting me with Daniel, that is very helpful. So, today at least, I come to the following....

....me feeling happiness is not a betrayal. Me finding my way forward is not a betrayal. Me looking back with gratitude is not only not a betrayal, it is the ultimate praise, the very best tribute to all that Danny was to me, all that those Golden Days were to me, all that the temple built in my soul means, and would never have been possible without him.

 

 The Inner Temple, by Autumn Skye

 So...this is the Practise I need to embody right now. Moving into a sense of gratitude, of his beautiful legacy,  knowing that what his love facilitated in me was a Divine Gift, and those who sneer "but he was just a dog" are of no account at all, in this. He was so much more.  He was, in all his sweetness, devotion and love, the saving of me, no overstatement there at all.

And I was not gifted with this Saving Grace to throw it all away once his earthly body had worn out. That, would be the ultimate betrayal... would it not?

At six weeks past his death I am still in the first shockwave/acute pain stage, there is a long journey ahead - but I can make a little start, can't I.

 

 

Scrambled Egg Day, and a whole bunch of antioxidants

  Saturday around here has long been "scrambled egg day". It's one of my cherished little routines I always did with the dogs - first, Zeke and Amara and Danny, then Zeke and Danny, and finally no one, because Danny is gone from this material plane, and Zeke decided he doesn't really love  his eggs scrambled anymore.

I got teased about this, with Alex saying they get eggs anyway (boiled) and dogs don't really care about different modes of preparation...he is sooo wrong about that!

But he came to see how excited the boys were, when I made their lunch on Saturday. This is a pic with Amara, bless her heart, and it was likely a cookie time, but these were the expressions at lunch on Saturday.

Yesterday I was in tears half the day missing Scrambled Egg Day, even though Danny decided to stop eating them last summer, along with all his veggies, period full stop.

I often think of his cancer, how I missed it (there was rationale for missing it, not any kind of  wishful thinking on my part) but I also have to remember that he didn't get it till he was 13 1/2 (ish; we don't have an exact date or anything, but I first saw the blood in February of 2020) and he lived another full year. We have very good studies linking vegetable consumption (and hence, flavonoids that provide anti-cancer benefits) with a lowered risk of TCC (the type of bladder cancer he likely had - transitional cell carcinoma).

Here's one: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16013542/

 "Scottish Terriers who consume vegetables three times per week in addition to regular dog food have a 70% reduced risk for TCC "

So although Danny did have herbicide exposure at the old house, we fought it off a long time, didn't we.

A few of Dan's meals, prior to summer 2020 when he started to get picky.

All meals were  part of his NRC balanced home made diet. 

Assorted meat and veg; I spy a little pile of herbal powder on the top

Egg, lean beef, turkey, grated apple, kale, pumpkin, supplements

Chicken, beef, beef liver, winter squash, rosehips, calcium, beets

Ground turkey, broccoli, celery, red cabbage, sweet potato and I see blueberries in there, which were certain to be licked clean and spat out, every.single.time

 quickie lunch of egg, beef tripe, sardines and sweet potato

I always added cruciferous veg to Dan's bowls and he liked broccoli well enough to eat bites right from my hand. Beets became important after his heart disease diagnosis; happily, he enjoyed them.  https://www.ornish.com/zine/dont-skip-a-beet/

Chicken, bone broth, spinach, sardine, diced chicken hearts, sweet potato. He loved some warm stew after a chilly winter walk...

Shredded beef, salmon chunks, beets, winter squash and carrots - pile of calcium etc in the middle

 

 

 

Red cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, carrots, lean roast beef, chicken breast and hearts

Chicken breast and gizzards, sweet potato, kale

My favorite pic of all, because his dear sweet little nose is in there. Turkey, beef, kale, rosehips, shredded apple and carrots.

So instead of beating myself up because he eventually developed a cancer no doubt related to where we lived, I think I can focus on the fact he still lived well past the breed's typical lifespan and was in pretty good shape until close to the end. We got 14 1/2 years, Dan! If only it were more.

I miss him oh so desperately. I don't need to call myself a bad mom, really, do I?