catelin

The worst part was the waiting. Waiting for the night to be over, waiting to get home, waiting for the vet to show up. Watching the clock until the phone rang with the receptionist calling to tell me they were running late. A reprieve of sorts. Another half hour for him to lay across my chest, purring and nuzzling my chin. I didn't know what else to do but lay there with him and be quiet. When I heard the car door outside I wanted to run and tell them I'd changed my mind, but I knew I couldn't. I could, of course; but it would only get worse and he would only get sicker. The end would still come and it would still hurt just as much.

It's an odd thing to know that a life is going to end. I can't get used to it. No matter how much I wrap my head around it, my heart takes so much longer to follow suit. I didn't cry until I told them that I wanted to be where he could see my face. I want my face to be the last thing that he sees. I don't want him to be afraid. And the beautiful thing? The thing that makes me certain that there were angels or whatever you want to call them there with us? He wasn't afraid. He looked at me and purred, he nuzzled the clippers while they shaved his little leg, he didn't make a sound when they put the needle in the vein. Then he was gone. In an instant. It was so fast that it took me a while to realize it and I just kept petting him and talking to him, even though I knew in my head...but it was my heart that still had things to say to him.

I buried him in the back yard next to the apricot tree. I felt relieved that it was all over. It was the right thing to do; but as is often the case, the right thing is sometimes the hardest of all things. Today I just feel the spaces where he used to be, along with all the other spaces of loved ones that I still miss. I get the impression that all the goodbyes over our lifetimes slowly turn us into honeycombs.

I was just interviewed the other day by the Texas Bar Journal and they are coming to the bout on Sunday. It gives me immense satisfaction to know that all the stodgy old coots I deal with will soon be reading about my derby exploits in their...ahem... professional journal. Nothing like a subtle, subversive finger to the establishment's face--love those!

The rest of my news is the usual mix of awful sad and giddy happy. My dad is coming to town for our exhibition bout, and tonight we will all be taking in Wurstfest for the first time. I've never been in all the time I've lived here, so I'm looking forward to it. I have made the decision to put my oldest kitty to sleep next week. I'm having the vet come here so he won't be scared. It's time, and there's no way for me to keep telling myself it isn't. He's almost 20, but suddenly it seems like a very short time, even in cat years. Love is treating me nicely these days, making me feel like I won the lottery. I'm always happy for that sort of thing. Lawyering stuff is hard again...still struggling with people who can't see me as anything but a prosecutor, even though I've been gone for a little over two years. One of my clients, a man who was arrested on his stepson's say-so that he threatened him with a knife and forced from his home with a protective order that was based on the same thing...his daughter is dead now--murdered yesterday by the stepson. A 14-year-old girl butchered to death. His only child dead by the hand of the person he was most worried would hurt her. I'll be drinking beer and listening to polka bands tonight. Life works that way, and thank goodness for it. Bitter and sweet, as my grandmother would say. We couldn't survive one without the other.

Bout Sunday in San Antonio, for those of you close enough to make it over there. Doors open at 6:30 and all the info you need is on our website, which is in my user info.

Hope everyone has a good weekend, a spectacular weekend. We could all use that, couldn't we?