A SpotsBug’s World

a good woman

Spring is wonderful, the time when the earth wakes from its dark and dreary slumber.  When the grasses grow and flowers bloom.  When the world comes out of hibernation and the birds start to sing again.  It is such a beautiful and miraculous time of year, a time of new life and rebirth… but this time last year instead was a time for me to say a sweet goodbye.

My last-living grandparent, my 86 year old grandmother passed away on April 8, 2009.  And as I approach the one year anniversary I wanted to pay tribute to a remarkable woman.  At her precious homecoming I remember thinking what a beautiful person she was and how blessed I was to have known her and to have been loved by her.  I still absolutely believe this, however, in the year since her death I think I have come to realize and understand the deeper level of what she was to our family and what she sacrificed for us.

I could write a novel about how she had a hard life, I would have no shortage of material.  I would write about how she, like most her age who lived through the Great Depression, lived through hard and desperate times.  How she grew up in a textile town and married the boy down the street.  How she worked as a seamstress to feed and raise eight children while dealing with a difficult husband.  How she watched her father, mother, sister and brother pass away one by one entirely too soon.  How she watched helplessly as her husband and later two of her sons went to war for this country and how she worried day after day over their safety and whether she would see them again.  How she cared for her husband after a detrimental stroke until his death in 1993 while also battling her own health problems.  How she aided in caring for her children as they also started having severe health problems of their own.  How she took on raising some of her grandchildren.  And how she then watched as four of her children passed away, something no mother can ever be prepared for.

I say all this to paint a brief picture of everything that my grandmother would have never mentioned.  She never complained, rarely outwardly grieved.  She was neither an optimist or a pessimist, she simply focused on the task at hand and took life for what it is.  On the exterior she may have seemed hardened by years of these difficult challenges, but underneath that toughened shell was a good woman.   Simple, caring…

You see this was my father’s mother and many of you know that my father passed away nearly four years ago.  In the years that followed his death, my beloved grandmother became my connection, my lifeline to the side of the family that I felt slipping from my grasp.  Without the presence of my father, and with the deaths of several others in the years prior, the family that shared my name started to become a distant memory to me.  But with Grandma, I was able to continue to feel like a part of the family and she provided me with a sense of belonging and helped me to keep my dad’s memory alive.  I can only hope I was the same comfort to her as she grieved for him too.  That by staying in touch with his child, she in turn, also had the gift of continuing to feel her son’s love.

But she was great about keeping me up to date with the happenings of the family.  The aunts, uncles, and cousins that a busy life often prevents me from visiting with, well, I could always count on the family roundup session with my grandmother when I would visit her.  She would fill me in on all the details of everyone.  She had an amazing memory.  Never failed to remember a birthday or anniversary, who was married to who, which children belonged to which parent, which child had their first basketball game or lost their first tooth, who changed jobs or went to what doctor for what ailment, etc…  and this was no small feat because our family is quite large.

Even more amazing was the fact that not only could she recite the entire play-by-play of any event in her own life or the life of anyone in our family, but she could do this for any other person or family group that came across her path.  Her neighbor down the street, the lady that styled her hair, the man she met at the grocery store while picking out oranges… she could tell you anything you wanted to know about these people.  And it wasn’t in the way that a nosy gossip would be, she simply was interested and was genuinely concerned about other people’s lives.  I suppose that’s how you are when you’ve dedicated your life to caring for other people.

The fact is, my grandmother loved people.  She loved taking care of and checking on others.  She loved talking to people.  I can’t ever remember a time when she did something simply for herself that wasn’t out of necessity.  She would have given anyone anything she had to give if she thought they needed it or if they asked.

She was a good woman - a good-hearted, hard-working, strong, Southern woman.  She wasn’t emotional or affectionate, she didn’t shower anyone with compliments or gifts but she had a way of making you feel loved and fiercely protected.  She was, after all, the truest definition of a mother – she would fight to the end for any one of her family.

Though she was not one to give gifts she did bless me with a few – probably without even realizing it.

On the days leading up to her homecoming, we had some sweet moments of small talk there in the quiet hospital room – just she and I.  Nothing major, nothing earth shattering, just simple and sweet.  Quite reflective of her personality.  But as she ventured in and out, between this life and her next, for a moment, as she’d done so many times before, she made me feel connected.  This time she brought together my world with the one in which my dad now resides.  I know he was in that room with us those days, I could feel him.  And I know he was eagerly waiting to welcome his mother with a warm embrace.  Though it was quite sad and a reminder of everything I’ve lost, it was one of the sweetest moments of my life.

I am so blessed to have been her granddaughter.  To have learned from her, to have witnessed her grace time and again through life’s joys and most difficult challenges, to have been loved by her so freely and abundantly.  These have truly been some of the most precious gifts I will ever receive.

There are countless things I could write about my Grandma but today I will just simply say that she was filled with goodness.  A goodness that felt like home every time she was in your presence, a goodness that helped sustain me through one of the most devastating losses of my life, a goodness that reaches beyond the grave and will live on in my heart forever.

I can only pray that I have somehow absorbed a little of that goodness because if I have, I will be better for it.  I am a better person because of her.

The Little Ship

I stood watching as the little ship sailed out to sea. The setting sun tinted her white sails with a golden light, and as she disappeared from sight a voice at my side whispered, “She is gone”. But the sea was a narrow one. On the farther shore a little band of friends had gathered to watch and wait in happy expectation. Suddenly they caught sight of the tiny sail and, at the very moment when my companion had whispered, “She is gone” a glad shout went up in joyous welcome, “Here she comes!”

~ Author Unknown

a cat and her rat

Most children, when they are young, have a specific item to which they cling.  One they carry with them everywhere, sleep with, dine with, play outside with, take on road trips.  Sometimes its a stuffed animal, sometimes its a doll or a toy, and sometimes it’s simply a blanket.  The latter was my item of choice as a kid.  Typically the two become inseparable and if ever the two should part, screams and tears are sure to follow.

I have, however, never seen this same reaction duplicated in any other species… until now.  Bella, the gray and white feline that resides in my home, has an unhealthy attachment to a toy rat that I gave her when she was about three months old.  This little catnip-filled, tan-colored, plush toy has definitely seen better days.  It now just reminds me of the tattered velveteen rabbit with its missing eyes and whiskers, the cloth covering that’s been rubbed shiny, the long-lost tail, with punctures abound with streams of stuffing pouring out.  But no matter how ugly or smelly that thing becomes, Bella loves it.

She totes it around in her mouth all around the house, curls up to sleep with it, and even enjoys trying to provide it with food and water as evidenced by the many times I’ve had to bail the thing out of the food and water dishes.  She growls if her sister Callie tries to chase it or take it away from her.  She will even, get this, fetch this toy like a dog chasing a frisbee.  She and I have spent countless hours with me throwing and she diving after it over and over again until she becomes exhausted and, instead of bringing it back and dumping it in my lap for the millionth time, decides to carry it to a corner in preparation for a nap.

Tragedy ocurred two weeks ago when I arrived home and Bella came timidly peering around the corner of the hallway and proceeded to stare a hole through me while filling the air with the irritating shreaks of her whiny meows.  I knew something was up.  She wasn’t acting herself.  She was loud and annoying… much like one time a few months ago when she managed to drop her beloved rat into my upright piano.  Yes, that’s right, inside the piano.  She whined and cried and ran hopelessly round and round the base of the piano trying to figure out how to retrieve her precious friend.  I ended up having to dismantle a portion of my beloved instrument to save Bella’s one true love.  So I had seen this behavior before.  The difference this time was that I had no idea where she had put her rat. 

So began the search.  I searched corners and baskets, shelves and counters, bags and boxes.  I checked behind doors, and under couch cushions and furniture.  Nothing…  I thought to myself how I hoped she had not dropped it in the piano once again.  But I let the search and rescue effort take a brief hiatus to be continued another day.  Really I was hoping she would remember where she’d left it and eventually find it herself. 

But I continued to worry a little for her.  I thought maybe I accidently tossed it out with the trash or kicked it out the door and wind blew it away.  I came up with so many scenarios all the while Bella just looked lost.  Days passed and the poor thing just wasn’t the same.  The joy in her life had been vacuumed out and what was left was only a depressed, quiet shell of what she used to be.  She wasn’t eating, she wouldn’t cuddle with me.  She seemed scared of everything (totally unlike her).  I mean it was truly amazing the effect this loss was having on her. 

I tried everything.  I tried giving her special food and more treats, showing her new toys she could adopt, and spent more time with her trying to comfort her in my lap.  She wasn’t having it.  I seriously considered cracking open my 30 year old piano again to see if by some chance she had made that mistake a second time.

I was at a point where I was ready to take her to the vet and see if there was something else we could do when as luck would have it I decided to do one final sweep of the house just to make sure I didn’t miss anything the first go around.  I pulled the yardstick from the closet and took a swipe under the furniture, then the stove, then the washer and dryer… BINGO!!  The dryer had kept that smelly, unrecognizably horrific looking rat captive for nearly two weeks.  What a miracle!  The relief I felt is indescribable.  I know this sounds crazy but you animal people will understand my worry.

I came around the corner, looked at Bella, threw the rat across the den and she immediately tore across the room in such a haste of which I had never seen before.  A joyful reunion followed and she played with her rat the rest of the evening, the old Bella had returned.  It was an incredible transition and beyond my understanding of how a feline could form such a strong bond with something that she would actually grieve for it when it was gone.  All I can say is that I’m ecstatic that the cat and her rat have been reunited and balance has been restored to the household.  Surely she won’t lose this thing a third time but I’m being more proactive now with a rat check everyday when I get home.  Next project –  to figure out what to do when the rat eventually disintegrates to a small pile of old, nasty cloth and stuffing… anyone know how to sew?

2 1/2 worth having around

It’s been a long time since I provided an update on the cats.  The last time I spoke of them I had mama cat (Casey) in the back yard with her second litter and was missing the two from her first litter, Bogey and Audrey.  Well, unfortunately, sweet, timid Bogey and Audrey never returned.  It has been nearly a year since they disappeared.  I do miss them.  I spent months looking for them, taking several trips to the animal shelter, putting flyers out in the neighbors’ mailboxes, and wandering through the woods with food calling out for them.  Never a response.  I am hopeful that they are together and have happily relocated to a quieter home where someone is taking very good care of them.  Maybe I was just their stepping stone, acclimating them to domestic life and then sending them on their way to their final home.  Whatever the case, doesn’t change the fact that I would take them back in a heartbeat if they ever returned.

On a happier note, the second litter (containing four kittens) lived on my back porch for about seven weeks.  I was successful at finding the two boys a home together.  It was hard letting them ago as it is so easy to get attached to the cute little furballs.  But I knew it was best.  It just wasn’t feasible for me to keep all the kittens.  They do eventually grow up and become cats.  I was still looking for homes for the two girls when I decided that Bogey and Audrey simply weren’t coming back, so I took the opportunity and kept the two girls.  I have named them Bella and Callie.  So I am currently a house with 2 1/2 cats.  Yes I count Casey (mama cat) as a half because I think I share custody of her with another neighbor down the street.  She’ll come, stay a few days, and then go on her merry way until she’s ready to visit again.  Important note however was that this time I was able to catch her and have her spayed… no more litters for her, or me!

As for Bella and Callie, I really couldn’t ask for better cats.  Since I was able to round them up at such a young age, they are totally cool with me and anything I do or noises in the house.  Big change from Bogey and Audrey who after a year still had major issues with noises, fast movements and anything out of the ordinary.

Bella and Callie are like night and day – literally.  Bella is a fluffy, gray and white and Callie is a dark, slick tortoiseshell.  Even their temperaments are different.  Bella is calm, cuddly, sweet and Callie is high-energy, feisty, and curious.  They are both smart.  Bella has learned she can fetch her toy rat like a dog and I’ll throw it the 75 times she requires until she gets tired.  (She has misplaced this rat the last few days and so I’ve had a small break – don’t know if we’ll find it again or not).  Callie is investigative.  She wants to check out everybody and everything.  This gets her into quite a bit of trouble because it leads her to places and into things where she, as a cat, shouldn’t be… she has become very familiar with the squirt of the water bottle as disciplinary action.  Callie also has a trick of her own.  She enjoys sitting on my shoulder like a parrot often times to my detriment.  You see, claws are sharp and don’t feel so great when she loses her balance or misses my shoulder altogether.

But they are precious, furry friends and provide lots of company and entertainment.  Yes they’ve scratched up the furniture a little, I have to vacuum more frequently, food and litter can become quite costly, the litterbox sometimes creates an unpleasant odor throughout the house, but it is so worth it to have these 2 1/2 around.