Difference

I believe in diversity. In difference. In yin and yang. Look at those faces - the friendly, loyal, loving companion on the left and the assertive, ever so slightly feral hunter on the right. They both fill(ed) a need in me. The one who's gone filled my need for effortless, unconditional love. The one left behind fills me need for a challenge. I like to be kept on my toes, but I also love balance. Balance is stability.

Some differences are obvious. On the left we have future eggs. And on the right? Future chicken dinner. Pretty apparent who's who if you ask me. They both hatched on the same day, but it's pretty obvious which role each will play around here in the future. Not every difference is as obvious. We moved the meat birds into their official chicken house this weekend. They'd been living in my recycled pond form that Gene got at the dump. I kind of wanted to put my pond in, and they kind of outgrew it faster than I had anticipated.

As a nurse my favorite roles were at births and at deaths. It sounds to some ears very strange to hear me say that attending a death was a favorite role. The truth is we all get born, we all live for a while, and then we all die. None of us should make such a big transition alone, and it is an honor for me to be present at either. 

I am still stinging from Boo's death, and will be for a while. I reflect a lot when my denial slips. Today my thoughts run a bit like this: As painful as losing him may be for me, having him in my life was a gift without price. I knew it the minute I first saw his face in the Delta cargo area at Bradley. One look and it was all over. I saw him, he saw me, and that was that. He was Boo, and I was Momma. Watching him grow, loving him, him loving us, the obstacles we crossed, trips to the emergency vet for ingested foreign objects ranging from rocks and hairballs to large quantities of butcher paper, playing in the snow (because trust me when I say no one played in the snow like Boo!); every second of it was a matchless gift.

For a while now I had worked to separate myself emotionally from him, just a little. I was still here, still momma, still petting that head and loving those ears, but on the inside a little wall was building up to shield the depth of me from the depth of him. I knew what was coming and I knew what my role would be in his end. I needed to get some space emotionally, I needed to get ready to do my job. I did the same thing with my mother. I've done the same thing with anyone I knew was dying, human or animal, makes no difference. Maybe I don't love enough or maybe I love too hard, either way I know what I need to do to get through. A little comfortable distance, a little self-protection against what comes next. After, when it's all over, you can come out of the shell you made for yourself, and you can bleed and cry and hurt like nobody's business. But Boo needed his Momma, and Momma doesn't get scared, or cry, or bleed.

So I held his paws and rubbed his head and cooed lovingly and comforted him until the last moment of his life. I did it competently and comfortingly. I used every ounce of strength inside of me to support him and ensure that he was not afraid; he left the world unsuspecting, unarmed, and welcoming of the peace he was about to receive. "I am safe, because Momma is here." I breathed it, he knew it, and we made the transition together. He moved on and I stayed here - but a part of me went, too. I know, because there's a piece of him where that bit of me used to be.

And then, when he was gone, I collapsed on his head and left a puddle that felt more like a torrent when it poured out of me. I lifted my head, kissed the top of his, and left him behind. 

Gone forever, but never, ever gone. There's a difference.

One last difference - I love dirt, and always have. Stick me outside in a pile of dirt, add some water, and I am lost and joyful for hours. At 4 years old, mud puddles are small, untidy affairs. They disappear almost as soon as you've made them, washed away by the hose or the rain or the tide. 

But at 46? Mud puddles get BIG! They are solid, stable things with strong sides and a base filled with sand and rock. If you'll excuse me, I need to go play in my mud. Hear it calling? I can!

Guest Blogger, With Fur, Of Sorts

I am gearing up for teaching at Webs this weekend! 2-at-a-Time Socks and Toe-Up 2-at-a-Time Socks on Saturday and Sunday. There's still time to sign up if you haven't yet. I'd love to see you there!

Yoshi blogged about Boo today. It's easier for him than for me. Click through to read his post. I probably won't write about it. Feels like way too much for me to talk about.

I still remember silky head and puppy breath and when I think about it for long it takes my human breath away, and I have to get tissues and take a moment. So for now, read what Yoshi has to say, and read this, which is my official dog grief poem:

THE POWER OF THE DOG

Rudyard Kipling

There is sorrow enough in the natural way

From men and women to fill our day;

But when we are certain of sorrow in store,

Why do we always arrange for more?

Brothers and sisters I bid you beware

Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Buy a pup and your money will buy

Love unflinching that cannot lie--

Perfect passion and worship fed

By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.

Nevertheless it is hardly fair

To risk your heart for a dog to tear.

When the fourteen years that nature permits

Are closing in asthma or tumors or fits

And the vet's unspoken prescription runs

To lethal chambers, or loaded guns.

Then you will find--its your own affair

But--you've given your heart to a dog to tear.

When the body that lived at your single will

When the whimper of welcome is stilled (how still!)

When the spirit that answered your every mood

Is gone--wherever it goes--for good,

You still discover how much you care

And will give your heart to a dog to tear.

We've sorrow enough in the natural way

When it comes to burying Christian clay.

Our loves are not given, but only lent,

At compound interest of cent per cent.

Though it is not always the case, I believe,

That the longer we've kept 'em the more do we grieve;

For when debts are payable, right or wrong,

A short time loan is as bad as a long--

So why in Heaven (before we are there)

Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

There's Not a Stitch in This Post.

I just posted this on Facebook as a status update, and so much more started to come out of me that I decided to come here and share a bit. I know from the comments I have received since I first "came out" (as it were) about my mother's mental health issues and passive suicide plans and ultimate success, that this can help someone out there who is struggling and drowning in the sickness of someone they " love, but don't, but do, but wish they didn't, ok, maybe love,  but can't trust or love safely" and so forth.

"Each day that passes makes me more and more aware of how small my life had become, and how much I just want to LIVE now. There's some guilt with that, but when an unhealthy person dies, if you allow it, the relationship that held you in bondage can die along with the person. It's unbelievably liberating. I feel closer to God, closer to me, closer to life. I had expected to feel like part of me had died, and expected there to be more guilt and struggle, but instead I feel like now I can really live."

This got me considering things in a different way. I am so grateful to be alive. There was a part of me that thought I would die with her, as if it would be impossible for me to be alive without this unhealthy extension of my soul. The truth is that in her death is my beginning. I remember the time when, for a while, we did not speak. It was so peaceful. No drama, no chaos, no constant stress; but in the back of my mind I always knew she was alive. And then that ended and we - I really, I am pretty sure Mr. Wonderful would have given this disaster a miss - allowed her back into my life. And true to form she detonated like a nuclear missile in the midst of everything. I started to slip away from me and enmesh more and more with her. For every success I had there was an equal and opposite detonation of drama or danger or fear. I delivered the manuscript for 2-at-a-Time Socks as I was on my way to the hospital to fetch her from her cardiac catheterization for the heart attack she had on the weekend we had set aside to celebrate my success at writing a book. I delivered the manuscript for Toe-Up 2-at-a-Time on the way to the hospital to check in on her after a major spinal surgery had left her unconscious. She had been on the verge of being admitted to a nursing home due to what was beginning to look like a nearly vegetative disaster. Four days later she woke up and asked for french toast, and the telephone so she could call her daughter. You want drama? We had it! 

It felt as if every potentially celebratory or joyful moment had to be accompanied by some stage-stealing drama that made me unable to enjoy my successes. I remember griping about this to friends. I started being cagey about where I was going and when, about what my plans were, what my teaching or traveling schedule looked like. I slipped up when I told her I was going to New York to present at Lion Studio, and she ended up in the hospital that morning forcing the cancellation of my trip, and the event.

I was always very aware that something bad was happening, that I could choose to walk away from her if I wanted to. But for me, for my own sake, I needed to allow some kind of connection, to continue to try to care for her, to try to support her choices without insinuating my own beliefs and thoughts and feeling onto her choices. For a mother/daughter, that's pretty foreign. Most daughters can speak their mind  and their feelings with their mother. I didn't really get why until now.
For me, now as an adult and no longer a child easily made to feel guilt or shame or responsibility, it was imperative that her choices not be a result of anything I said or did. I consciously chose not to control her when I knew very well that I could have. She wanted me to make choices for her, wanted me to be the decision-maker I had always been (although she routinely disregarded my advice) so that the outcome, should she take my advice, would not be her responsibility. I needed the freedom, at some distant unseen point in time, of knowing that I did not force her choice. That an extension or a shortening of her life had nothing to do with me, it was all on her.

Borderline kids very, very often get caught up in feeling responsible for their parents in a way that I don't think even a spouse or parent of a person with Borderline Personality Disorder can understand. It was essential to my healing and liberation that I discover, before her death, that we could be two separate people. 


I still have a long way to go in healing myself, and not every day is wonderful, but inch by inch I begin to feel joy again. Deep, real joy. I am still taking it very, very slowly as I promised myself. I deserve a year of my own. 

I guess the point of my coming here and sharing this is that right now you're out there, readers, and some of you are struggling and feeling like it won't ever end, and feeling guilty for the choices others make, and responsible for people who are not your responsibility. It can and does get better, I promise you. 

At Peace

I don't have a lot of space in me for words right now, so this will need to do. They are my mother's words, the obituary she wrote for herself nearly a year ago:

Priscilla Avery Morgan, 68, of Greenfield died Sunday, November 13, 2011 at Charlene Manor Extended Care Facility after a long illness. Priscilla was the daughter of James and Eleanor Avery. She grew up in Leyden and Greenfield. She attended Greenfield schools. For many years Priscilla worked at Crocker Communications and The Franklin Medical Center as a switchboard operator, both jobs she enjoyed very much and took great pride in.

 She is survived by her daughter, Melissa Morgan-Oakes and her husband Gene Oakes of Bernardston; a grandson, PFC Daniel Adams and his wife Sarah of El Paso, Texas; a granddaughter Megan Oakes; a very beloved great-granddaughter, April Ann Adams of El Paso; two sisters, Patricia Haselton of Swanzey, NH and Prudence Carnahan of Greenfield, and several nieces. A brother, Francis Avery pre-deceased her.

At the request of the deceased there will be no services. Disposition of her remains will be at the discretion of the family. In lieu of flowers, it is asked that donations be made to Hospice of Franklin County; 329 Conway Street; Suite 2; Greenfield, MA 01301 and the activities fund at Charlene Manor; 130 Colrain Road; Greenfield, MA 01301.

The "long illness" was a lifetime battle with depression, suicidal ideation and borderline personality disorder. If you or someone you know struggles with suicidal thought, PLEASE CALL the Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or visit http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org