Latest Journeys - Page 9 of 18 - Paths I Have Walked

September 29, 2018

The Gift of a Morning

For Cookie

I thought Cookie
was being stubborn, contrary,
when she wandered away
into the overgrown garden
sauntering at her own pace beneath the stems
of fallen burdock and grasses
and through the forest
of tall goldenrod and asters
where I couldn’t follow.

She sat calmly among grasses and blooming beggar’s ticks
and when I arrived at her side, irritated,
skirt prickly with stickseed and burdock pods,
I reached to pick her up, bad girl,
and turned to see what she studied,
and saw my garden awash with sun
majestic tufts of goldenrod backlit by beams of light
humming with hungry bees finding
the sweetest autumn nectar for their final meal,
white poofs of sow thistle holy in their radiance,
and the first calico asters, my favorite
dappled with passing drops of sun
against the backdrop of dark silhouetted trees;
so much to love in a sweet autumn morning
so much I would have missed.

Cookie gave me many gifts in all the years she was with me, including the visual discoveries from this particular morning in September 2011 which led to a poem and insights beyond what I wrote that morning, and remembering that morning and other mornings I came to the end of a stage.

I have also recorded this poem with a slideshow of photos. You can listen and watch it here or on YouTube.

Memories From That Time

My sincerest wish as I remember Cookie is that all of you who read what I write, each of you who has a relationship with one or more animals, that your relationship is as deep, complex, satisfying and, if your species or breed allows it, as long-lasting as was Cookie’s and mine. I could never feel that I have any regrets, that Cookie and I “missed” anything but we lived as full a life as a human and cat could do. It depends on many things often beyond our control, but I wish those things for everyone who loves an animal, now and always.

I first published this poem on September 26, 2011, right after I wrote it, inspired by a morning much like today, and these September mornings with Mimi and her explorations have reminded me very much of those mornings with Cookie, when we knew her time was finite. We had been together at that time 19 years, and it was a wonderful 19 years of memories.

Shortly after I lost Cookie in February 2012, to honor her I followed through with my idea of recording some of my poems along with slideshows of photos and art. Below is the text I had included with this poem when I first published it with the recorded version.

The last weeks have been working through a series of “never agains” as I remember and let go of the unique things Cookie did—stepping into a warmed pasta bowl while my back was turned; quietly climbing her way into any spot in the house despite her disabilities; loving every cat who was in the house when she came here and all the ones who came after; greeting everyone at the door with sincerity and making them feel welcome.

I have also been resuming everyday activities I had been intentionally avoiding somewhat or completely, those that Cookie and I enjoyed together and I now do alone or without her—sitting in the kitchen after dinner to crochet or read with all the cats around, where you see so many photos of her interacting with my crochet materials; visiting the deck and back yard each morning regardless of weather to feed the birds, drink coffee and take photos; and gardening, from starting the seeds in the basement to getting dirty out in the soil.

Much to the joy of the household, I’ve begun to take a break after dinner again so everyone can walk on me and test my crochet projects. Until yesterday I totally avoided my deck except for the first few days in February when Mimi joined me, only filling the feeder outside my office window, and yesterday I spent my first full afternoon in the yard without a cat in many years.

And this morning I sat outside on my swing with coffee and crochet, a Sunday morning ritual whenever the weather was nice enough (nice to me and Cookie was anything above 40 degrees and no heavy precipitation) as I remembered all the years she had gone off to explore the yard then come back to climb up on my lap and have a nap, just Cookie and me doing things we enjoyed and each other, best friends.

We knew

I’ve been sharing daily photos and stories from previous years because so many more readers have found The Creative Cat in the past few months. We see a lot of Cookie from last year, including a number of photo essays of her adventures outdoors. I photographed her excessively all through the years, but the extra postings were intentional. I knew what was coming. I knew because Cookie knew, and let me know.

You're not going anywhere. — You’re not going anywhere.

From January 2011, around the time my mother died when Cookie grew weak and lethargic for no apparent reason, we presumed it was because she, as usual, was carrying part of my stress. She recovered, but I saw in her expression a realization. She kept slipping back every month or so, losing a little ground in between and even having a few close calls with her kidneys, and we decided we’d treat every symptom we could and enjoy the rest of our time together.

She stole her last month, January 2012, right out of the jaws of death as after Christmas 2011 she was again lethargic and anorexic, and worst of all suddenly lost use of her hind legs, her body temperature kept dropping and her heart rate increased; her blood tests were frightening. That truly was to be the time but she fought it off, a little adjustment in medications helped but mostly it was her working very hard for just a little more time. We saw her in January looking and acting like Cookie, but I saw she had little control of her hind legs, her body temperature remained depressed, she had increasing difficulty breathing as her heart grew more enlarged and her heart rate slowly increased.

Cookie checks the "cookie jar", an old canister I used for outdoor plants this year. — Cookie checks the “cookie jar”, an old canister I used for outdoor plants this year.

Cookie needed a little help getting started each day, but once she was going she was Cookie again, until that last day. The previous afternoon, warm for February 1, we went outside, a treat since that was usually reserved for mornings only during the week, perhaps we knew. She had no interest in exploring but got herself onto my lap as soon as I sat down, curled up and purred. We went in with the memory of that warm sunny afternoon. The next morning I had to carry her outside for the first time in her life, and as I sat with her on my lap she did not revive as usual, ready to explore even just a little, just remained curled on my lap purring.

The song sparrow in the forsythia (it really did sing as Cookie and I sat there).

Though it was still winter the birds were singing their spring songs, our friends the chickadees and cardinals and wrens who we’d fed and watched all winter. During a brief silence a song sparrow landed in the forsythia just a few feet away from us and sang its familiar three-note-then-warble melody several times, and I knew it was singing to us, and I knew what it meant. It was February 2, that magical cross-quarter day when winter finally begins to turn into spring, a time of transition where death falls away and new life begins. They were singing her home.

I am so grateful that I could just drop everything that day and spend her last hours with her, monitoring her condition and managing her discomfort with the advice and materials given to me by my veterinarian, sitting with her on my lap in the studio, our favorite room, ready to call my veterinarian or run her to the emergency clinic at a moment’s notice if the need arose. In the course of that last month there were many things I wanted to do for her but simply could not afford and tried not to be regretful in those last hours, thinking they would have made any difference or bought any more time; they were superfluous in her condition, and likely would only have made me feel better, not Cookie. What she wanted was me, and that I could give to her.

At 3:00 the next morning, February 3, lying next to me on the floor with all the other cats around, she opened her eyes and found my face, put her paw on my hand and held my gaze for several seconds, comforting me, thanking me and saying goodbye; she stopped breathing about an hour later.

Always with us

Loss is never made easier or less painful by any amount of experience or knowledge, but the long, slow goodbye of that last year was sweeter than words can describe. Relationships like Cookie’s and mine are rare but we who have experienced them know they never end, not even with death. Cookie has visited me in spirit, but she is always with me as well, just as she was for 19 happy years.

Cookie guards the front of the shop from the chair behind the counter.

For two years I maintained a shop room in Carnegie Antiques owned by my friend Judi Stadler, and Cookie was my shop cat there. The shop was difficult to manage with other things at the time, and I was holding on to my shop in the last few months because of my memories there with Cookie while she was too ill to go with me, and then after she had died. On the day, at the moment, when, I regretfully and emotionally decided to close my shop and take it all home, the back door of the room lightly blew open and I felt Cookie enter, could see her hobbled little gait as she walked a circle around my feet, one of her lifetime habits, and her tilted face looking up at me half orange and half black, her green eyes with gold flecks; she was with me as I walked all around the building remembering all the places I’d seen and photographed her in the times she’d been there with me. As always, she appeared at just the right moment with her comforting and practical manner. I should only hope to meet a human with half as much wisdom and willing compassion as that little tortie cat.

We haven’t seen the last of Cookie. She will still show up in new postings of prior daily photos, and I’ve had a few paintings of or including her that I’ve been planning for a while. (And it’s true, I still feature her photos both old and ones I’ve since found in my archives, and I’ve created new merchandise with her images.)

And the passing of an animal companion like Cookie has always meant for me the coming of a time of transition and personal growth. Cookie led me to the door and opened it, it’s up to me to walk through and do something when I get there.

. . . . . . .

Enjoy other poems about my cats on The Creative Cat.

Listen to other recorded poems about my cats.

Visit my YouTube site for all my recorded poems (so far).

Read more: Essays ♦ Short Stories ♦ Poetry

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September 25, 2018

The World Turned Upside Down

In the misty habit of a rainy afternoon
a single, ponderous drop of rainwater hangs tenuously from the curved tip of a leaf
holding within it the world turned upside down
and a moment later falls into eternity.

Occasionally I design images with text to express my poems. This poem was one of those that worked well for such a treatment. Please copy and share!

Read more: Essays ♦ Short Stories ♦ Poetry

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September 23, 2018

Love Your Library, I Love Mine

In my life as a commercial artist I’ve worked hard to find customers whose work I support and believe in. One of my happiest finds has been my own public library, Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall in Carnegie PA. This is the one I’ve been going to all my life, and my mother and her generation before me; there are even deeper connections as well. In 2016 the executive director who also became a good friend, Maggie Forbes, asked me to write up the story with a liberal spread of some of the many, many photos I’ve taken of the place for one of the newsletters we put together.

September is “Love Your Library Month”, but any month of the year is a good time to love your library.

Fine artist, poet, photographer, graphic designer and Carnegie resident Bernadette Kazmarski has been the ACFL&MH’s “secret weapon” as her artistry has helped tell and document the Library & Music Hall’s story over the last ten years…though her love affair with the ACFL&MH began much earlier.

Though some of my earliest memories are of bi-weekly visits to the Library with my parents, my relationship with the Library reaches back to before I was born. My mother and her brothers and sister attended Carnegie High School; the connection between the Library & Music Hall and students from the high school at the bottom of the hill was fond and deep. At family gatherings the siblings would exchange stories of stopping at the Library after school to study, and the fear of turning a page too loudly and receiving the stern glare of the librarian. My mother often mentioned how happy she was to sing in the chorus of high school musicals that were performed in the Music Hall, and commencement ceremonies were staged in the Music Hall as well.

But I’ll take a step even farther back. My mother’s parents emigrated here in 1912 as very young teenagers. Both were orphans, and both were illiterate in their native language, Ukrainian, and knew no English. Relatives who were here had already found them work and taught them enough English to get started. My grandmother cleaned houses and my grandfather worked at Union Electric Steel and learned to speak English well enough, though not to read and write. But during the Depression their scholarly daughter, my mother’s older sister, taught them to read in the Reading Room of the Library, using newspapers and books that no one could afford to have at home. Their experience confirmed Andrew Carnegie’s vision of the public library giving the working class opportunity for advancement. My grandfather became a shift manager at Union Electric Steel.

When I graduated from college in 1983 I found an apartment two doors down from the Library, and began visiting all over again after a four-year hiatus. I found books in the collection to refine some fine art and crafting interests that have become part of my professional life.

I also bought my first camera in 1983. One of my first subjects was Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall and views around Carnegie. I was practicing with black and white film and the ACFL&MH’s massive, elegant building surrounded by tall trees was a feast for my eyes. I read every book on photography I could find in the stacks. I also began wandering into as many rooms as I could gain access to, peeking into the darkness of the Music Hall, imagining myself on the stage and remembering my mother’s stories.

As the years passed and I developed as a visual artist, I discovered recorded books, listening to stories as I worked. I also discovered Stage 62’s performances in the Music Hall. What a thrill to have a theater within walking distance of my home!

In 2001, my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer and was housebound. I remembered her love of reading, now lost to cataracts and macular degeneration, and introduced her to recorded books as well. Later I brought her to the Music Hall to enjoy opera performances in new comfortable seats. She and I remembered the sad days of the ACFL&MH’s decline. When she died in 2011 I asked family and friends to donate to the Library & Music Hall in order to “purchase” one of the new seats in the Music Hall with her name on it.

New leadership arrived at ACFL&MH in 2003. Renovations began and I became as involved as I could be, all the while wishing I could add the Library & Music Hall to my list of clients for my commercial art business as well as all the other things I enjoyed about the place. In 2006 Executive Director Maggie Forbes asked me to design the ACFL&MH newsletter. As events and activities at the place became more frequent I undertook more and more design projects to promote the events and began photographing them on my own as well. These projects give me great satisfaction.

In February 2006 I held an annual solo exhibit featuring wildlife and nature artwork in the Reception Hall (now the Lincoln Gallery). In December, 2006, two of my poems were chosen to be published on a section of the Prairie Home Companion website entitled “Stories From Home/First Person”, submissions about the place we feel most familiar. Maggie invited me to read those poems and others and display my art as well. February 2007 was the first of five annual poetry reading/art exhibits at ACFL&MH.

The Library has always been part of my life, but even today looking at the shelves of books interspersed with the tall Corinthian-topped columns, I can remember feeling very small standing in the quiet of the big room and thinking it was the grandest place that could ever exist.

Read more: Essays ♦ Short Stories ♦ Poetry

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September 22, 2018September 22, 2018

Poem for Saturday: Like A Tree

Birches 1: Autumn Showers, 16 x 23, oil pastel, 1998

To live my life like a tree,
to grow steadily from small beginnings,
fervently when possible, and quietly adapt when necessary,
stand in peace and harmony with my neighbors,
bear my fruit appropriately,
bring shelter and comfort to others indiscriminately,
and when my season is over
graciously give my gift to the earth
for the benefit of myself and all around me,
and without fear
patiently wait for my moment to return
in spring.

I came home from work one day when I still worked my day job, but was heading for working freelance at home, within the year. On my deck enjoying dinner and feeling expansive in the late summer lushness of my yard I faced my wild black cherry tree, my favorite, big, mature, graceful and beautiful in all seasons. This poem came to me line by line as I scrambled for something to write on and write with. I tweaked a few words, and included it in my very first solo art exhibit in June 2000.

Autumn has arrived as usual, and each day the colors of the season appear in new places. Here in Western Pennsylvania with our miles and miles of tree-covered hills, more brilliant reds and yellows stand among the deep olive green as if someone had stippled a single wide brush stroke here and there on the hillside, just for effect. Because I am compelled to photograph and paint these colors I know that while we see some colors even in September, the leaves don’t begin to turn in earnest, in that big wave of change, until mid-October, yet many hillsides are already halfway there. This year our warm and wet summer is said to produce a spectacular autumn leaf show.

Because I paint Western Pennsylvania, nearly every one of my landscape paintings contains a tree, usually more than one, and often the trees themselves are the subjects. I have gigabytes of photos of trees, just for the trees’ sake, not to mention ones where the trees are the supporting cast. The other day I ran an errand entirely on winding back roads so that I could drive 10 miles per hour and photograph the beauty unfolding at every turn, even if they weren’t particularly good photos; the change had come so quickly that I was completely distracted and it was either that or have someone drive me or I’d wreck my car.

This weekend many leaves have fallen, the light has changed and I see more sky through graceful or gnarled branches.

I think of the trees around me as I think of my friends, those constant presences that are more a part of us than we know. The tree that actually inspired this poem almost 20 years ago has fallen, and I sincerely miss that huge old wild black cherry tree, but she lives on in my memory.

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September 20, 2018

Innocence and Experience

Laughing pink innocence of summer phlox,
Mottled grape leaf glowing with gold,
hold shadows of each other.

The photo included in this post is the very one that inspired the poem.

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September 18, 2018

After the Flood

Dedicated to the people and places of the Chartiers Valley after the flood of September 17, 2004

After a day of rain
the creek has been rising
and by night it thunders down its channel
writhing around its curves like a medieval dragon,
pulling at its banks and anything overhanging,
carrying whatever it can grasp along the way,
and I have seen this creature before
in the creek’s rise and fall,
now tamed by engineering,
filling its channel to the brim, then receding
each spring and summer
and not felt threatened but fascinated
by its power, power not of humans,
power to change absolutely to a form
unrecognizable from its usual character,
yet always returning to the quiet,
sleepy nature which I had explored from childhood.

But I am remembering another night
when the creek refused to stop at its brim
but spilled over and over and over,
thundering down all the hillsides came its sustenance
tributaries filling their valleys as never before,
rushing to join with the writhing creature,
mixing and turning and thrashing and smashing anything in its path
so drunk with its own power
that it forgot all those who loved it,
who lived on its banks and in its valleys,
listened to its soft murmuring voice in the darkness of a summer night,
but even as I pleaded with the creature to stop, it had gone too far,
my friend, my refuge, how could you betray me,
I knew that the creek would not listen,
it was no creature gone on a rampage
it was simply following its nature, and this one time
it defeated our intelligence with its simple power
and all our homes, possessions, lives
were nothing in its path.

The next day the beast no longer raged,
the sun shone and the air was mild,
and the autumn continued like any autumn before,
but we were changed, all of us,
the long journey ahead, longer than we knew
and our place here will never be the same.

September 17, 2004

On September 17, 2004, Hurricane Ivan stayed a little too long in our valley, dumping torrents of rain on our hillsides, already sodden from the visits of three other hurricane remnants in the month prior.

I’d watched Chartiers Creek flood from the time I was a child, and not only did I go to the Catholic school just blocks from the creek but my father’s family lived in the flood plain and nearly every spring there was water in the basement and in the streets, and we would drive to the bridge over the creek at Carothers Avenue and watch the thundering brown water writhe just below our feet on the walkway of the bridge.

When I was young, I was near enough to a bend in this creek to leave our house on the hill and run down through the old pasture to the valley below, along the road and the railroad tracks and to the creek, walking alongside its rippling path or even in the creek bed in the dryness of midsummer. In the late 70s an engineered solution to control the floods dredged and widened the channel, and for 35 years, there were no floods at all, the pollution in the creek from all the industries along its banks cleared up, and we watched the native flora and fauna return as we canoed the channel. Those ramblings with my friend, the creek, have been the inspiration for much of my creative efforts in landscape painting and photography, my poetry and stories, and became the theme for my series of poetry readings and the title of the very first, as well as the folio of my poetry, Paths I Have Walked.

So this flood was a huge shock. We heard later the flood control plan had protected us up to a “100-year flood”, and many of these had passed with no flooding, but the flood we’d experienced was a “500-year flood”, and indeed in all the memories and records of floods in Carnegie, the water had never been this high, rising in a matter of hours in the afternoon and into the night to fill the first floor of some homes on low ground, and as high as eight feet in some areas of Main Street, wiping out nearly every business along Main Street for up to three months.

The flood changed us all. Many people and businesses took years to recover, and some of them never truly recovered at all. My godparents lived in the family’s fine house that had weathered so many floods but floodwater had never entered the first floor, and at their age they were trapped on the second floor with no power, their portable oxygen running low. Though they were rescued and lived with a daughter for a month while we cleaned up the house for them to move back, it was temporary as they realized the house was difficult for them, and they moved to an apartment a few months later.

Read more: Essays ♦ Short Stories ♦ Poetry

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September 15, 2018September 15, 2018

Poem for Saturday: A Waning Moon at Daybreak

A waning moon at daybreak
awakens, slips sleepily over the horizon
begins her transit when the day is new
left our nighttime dreams unilluminated
fading, undistinguished, into the wakening day.

Venus, sparkling alone in the blue, knows
it’s only a phase;
soon enough Sister Moon will wax
full over the horizon before
Brother Sun has bid goodnight
and fill our dreams with amazing stories.

I first posted this as a poem-in-progress with my daily photo on my photo blog Today in July 2017 and knew I’d end up drafting a poem. I shared it here, and let it sit until it spoke to me again. Here is the finished poem.

Read more: Essays ♦ Short Stories ♦ Poetry

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September 13, 2018September 13, 2018

As Beautiful

Had I not chanced by
as setting sun
reached deep into the autumn woods
to touch your face,
you would still have been
as beautiful.

If the sunlight illuminates a flower in the woods but no one is around to see it, is it still beautiful?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but if no eye beholds it, is it still beauty?

I photographed this scene for the obliquely backlit combination of bold yellow coneflower and delicate wormwood with all the varied patterns and shades of green in the background, silhouettes, shadows, blurs and bokeh, and titled the photo “Backlit Bouquet”. But the image had more to say.

I walked along the trail as the sun set and could see as it moved that features were randomly highlighted—a cluster of leaves, a flower, the bark on a tree, and in watching the process it almost seemed intentional, as if some force or the sun itself wanted me to notice these things. As each thing was featured it did appear beautiful to me, but the one coneflower in the group that was highlighted gave me a new perspective. I would not have noticed them otherwise, and the one that was highlighted indeed seemed more beautiful than the rest because of the highlight of its graceful fall of petals, bold yellow color and soft rounded center, and all else seemed to be a backdrop to its special prominence.

When I shared the photo I scribbled the first draft of a new poem.

Your beauty
delicate, ephemeral, eternal;
had I not chanced by
as setting sun journeyed deep into the autumn woods
to touch your face
you would still have been
as beautiful.

I knew it wasn’t quite right. “We’ll see what it develops into some time in the future,” I said then.

A few weeks later the poem was still with me. Once I’d written the rest, I found I just didn’t need those two first lines, they felt heavy and formal, and without them I found I could reorganize the lines of the poem, especially that really long one that I couldn’t split before. I also changed the word “journeyed” to “reached” because it was more of what I’d intended, remembering the sunlight that day as it moved down toward the horizon and reached and touched different spots deep in the woods. Added a comma too, and it became the finished poem above.

September 11, and September 12, 2001

September 11

Aside from being in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, I am nowhere near New York or Washington DC. I am, however, barely an hour away from Shanksville. On the hot sunny morning of September 11, 2001 I was just finishing early morning work in my garden and yard when the first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Thinking it was an unfortunate accident I continued listening to the radio for details and shortly thereafter heard that a second plane had hit the South Tower and knew instinctively, as I’m sure we all did, that it was no accident.

My radar for tragedy was sensitized; just a few months before my mother had unexpectedly nearly died after lung cancer surgery, held on for six weeks then miraculously awakened from a near-coma one day and gone on to recover, rehabilitate and return home. The previous year my brother had suffered a traumatic brain injury in an accident. I was integral to their recoveries and care, and my carefully-planned self-employment was unraveling.

When I heard the news just before 9:00 a.m. that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, I was out on my garden patio by the basement door, putting another coat of paint on some vintage wooden chairs I used on my deck before winter would peel the last of it off. I always worked in my garden and did small projects early in the day to make sure they got done before I hit my computer, and to make sure I didn’t hit the computer as soon as I got up and stayed on it all day long. It was a hot, sticky late summer morning, my verdant garden a green jungle, birds twittering everywhere stocking up for migration and winter, and work waiting for me indoors. The first report was that it was likely an accident, planes had hit buildings in the past. Then the second plane hit the other tower, and even though we had no proof it seems we all knew it was intentional. Everyone in the area was looking at the towers at that point and saw the direction, the turn, the increase in speed prior to hitting the tower, and suddenly a perfect morning had turned unreal.

After the plane hit the Pentagon, I put Moses, my garden cat, inside the basement, much to her consternation, as if she needed to be protected from what might be happening, and as the story grew I thought of my mother and brother and if I should get them and put them somewhere just to make sure they were safe too. Everything seemed suddenly slightly askew.

Jets fly overhead all the time. I have lived in the flight path for Pittsburgh International Airport all my life and close enough to an Air Force base and not only do they fly overhead, they circle and slow down and make noise and fly at crazy angles as they come in for a landing. A noisy plane flying low overhead is something I didn’t even notice. But two planes had just hit the two towers of the World Trade Center and a third had hit the Pentagon. I suddenly noticed that the sky was very quiet for that time of the morning.

Then in the growing quiet, in that empty perfect clear blue September sky, a single plane went overhead and my hackles rose, a cold tingle running to my fingers on that warm morning as I watched it seeming to struggle through the sky overhead. Shortly thereafter we heard about the crash in Shanksville and I imagined the comforting familiarity of perfect green rolling hills of my Western Pennsylvania home bathed in morning sun, now wrenched open and strewn with the wreckage of violence.

I hurried inside, no longer feeling safe under that warm blue sky. I thought of my mother in her home about a mile and a half away, just back from several months in various hospitals after lung cancer surgery that unexpectedly nearly killed her. She was still weak and needed daily assistance for most activities, many prescriptions and home oxygen. If all this was suddenly disrupted, what would I do? Should I go to her house now? Should I try to get her to a more secure place, like a hospital?

And my brother was in a nursing home 30 miles north of me, continuing his recovery from a traumatic brain injury the previous year, also requiring a lot of daily care, medications and supervision. Should I try to move him closer? What if I couldn’t get to him?

And my sister a few miles away with her younger daughter and grandchild? And my niece and her three babies, one of them just six days old, a few miles in the other direction? Should we all find a place to go?

Anyone else would have run for the television, but I didn’t have one then, and I don’t have one now, so I never got to see the very first images that showed up on CNN that morning, heard the fear in the newscasters’ voices. I listened to the familiar voices of the local and NPR reporters describing the events on my radio, feeling calmer listening to their words and being able to move around my house than I would have being trapped in front of a television.

Did any of us know what to do in those first hours and days, even those of us so far from the terrible scenes of death and destruction more horrible than we could imagine?

It wasn’t until the gentle, perfect beauty of September 12 that the effects of what had happened became reality. I live very near Pittsburgh International Airport and at the intersection of two interstates right outside of Pittsburgh, and hear the noises of all this traffic every day, especially in the morning. The next day, with travel restricted on land and in the air, was so eerily quiet. The beauty of the warm sun and clear blue sky, the peaceful twitters of birds and hum of bees we could rarely hear with traffic and daily noises, the clear views of the tree-covered hills made the morning seem like paradise at first but became unnerving as the hours of daylight passed and we had no more of our questions answered, nor know the extent of the damage and death as it was still unfolding in all three areas.

Perhaps those perfect September days were given to calm us before we learned how our lives had changed.

September 12

Today looks no different from yesterday
but forever against the backdrop of a blue September sky
we will now remember the loss of our innocence.

September 11 was a blur of images and fears and unknowns, and for me it wasn’t until September 12 dawned and brightened into another seemingly perfect September day, blue sky and all, that what had happened, and the permanent change it brought, really settled in.

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September 9, 2018

Adopting Again After Loss: Why and How We Adopt Again

I spoke on the topic of “Adopting Again After Loss” at the 2018 Pet Memorial Sunday ceremony hosted by Chartiers Custom Pet Cremation. I first presented this talk in 2016, refined it a bit in 2017. This year I decided it’s an appropriate presentation to use from now on. We three speakers found that our presentations had information that overlapped each others’, and that works well. This is the transcript of my presentation.

In the early 90s I painted a portrait of a petite black cat resting on pillows on a wicker chair. Samantha’s owner had rescued and adopted and lived with families of cats all her life, but Samantha was her only cat at that time. After Samantha passed following a long treatment for renal failure, though she volunteered at a shelter and met and considered many cats to adopt, to this day she has never adopted again. She is happy with the memories of all the cats she’s loved, especially Samantha, and still helping cats by volunteering.

Another friend recently lost an elderly member of her dog family, but Trixie’s loss was sudden and unexpected, and painful in a way that’s particular to an unexpected loss. Though seeing any dog reminded her of her loss, she went to the Humane Society the next day and adopted an older dog who had been surrendered because she had a list of old dog issues. Within weeks Belle was in better health and integrated with her canine family. She doesn’t replace Trixie by any means, but rescuing a dog helped ease her grief, and caring for another elderly dog helped ease the suddenness of Trixie’s loss, especially when she responded so well.

Just as grieving a loss is different for each of us, and different for each loss, so is the decision to add another animal to our lives after a loss. The first thing you might say is that you never want to suffer that pain again, and it’s just inconceivable that you’d adopt ever again in your life. Of course, in time, you let go of that fear of pain because with 150 million or more pets in American homes right now it’s clear that we do adopt again.

Whether or not you have other pets in your home, sometimes the pain of grief is so intense the thought of another animal companion is actually upsetting, and yet sometimes the need to fill your arms again and hold an animal close is so strong it’s all you can think about. No decision is right or wrong in itself, and only you and your family know for certain.

Adopting a new animal companion at any time is not a small decision. You’re making a lifetime commitment to love and shelter and care for the new companion, and so you hope your choice whether or not to adopt, and the animal you choose, is the right one, and right for all involved, both human and animal family members.

But when your emotions are in such turmoil, how can you know for sure? One way, even though it may seem even more painful, is to put yourself in the presence of a number of animals in different situations, which not only gives you choices but helps to temper your reactions. And when one of the strongest pieces of advice in managing your grief is to find people who understand your grief at the loss of a beloved pet and stay away from people who don’t, deciding to look for a pet puts you right into a sympathetic audience with other pet lovers, most of whom have no doubt been in the same position as you.

One way you can start is to not even consider adopting, but to help animals in some way, volunteer with a shelter or rescue for pets, or even for wildlife or farmed animals in a sanctuary for instance.

Contact your shelter about walking dogs or playing with cats in their care, because those animals can never get too much attention from people, and generally they are even more adoptable, and adoptions are more successful, the more attention they get.

Offer to foster for a rescue or shelter so you can bring an animal into your home and get to know the animal without the pressure of keeping them forever because the shelter or rescue, and possibly even you, are looking for a home for the animal.

If you want to start looking for a pet, sometimes a shelter is too intense, too many animals and people and public enough it may be intimidating or frightening, so instead you could start on the internet where you can look at pictures all day long on shelter and rescue websites and sites like PetFinder and Pet Harbor, in the privacy of your own home. You can then follow through with meeting one or more of the animals who caught your eye.

You can also look into a local rescue, which is usually smaller and more private and often without a shelter at all but using a series of foster homes for the animals in their care. This way you get to meet animals face to face, but in a more private setting, and may be able to interact more naturally because of it.

Shelters and rescues also have adoption cages and adoption events at local pet stores, and if you’ve been shopping for pet supplies at a particular store, and may be shopping for other pets in your care, you might feel just as comfortable in a place that’s familiar where you may even know the staff. Of course, visiting places that remind you of your pets may be painful as well, so be sure you are ready to face some memories too.

And just as with any other adoption, make sure you ask yourself what you expect from this adoption, and when you find a pet who catches your heart, ask yourself why you want to adopt that animal. Try to look at the long road and picture the future for a moment. Rebound adoptions are like any other rebound relationship, they may be the perfect fit, but just as often they don’t represent a whole relationship and don’t last. Don’t hesitate to stop and ask yourself some realistic questions. You’ll find answers for the moment and for the future.

Sometimes well-meaning friends will address your loss with the offer of a pet who needs a home. We who rescue are always offering pets for adoption because that’s the only way we find homes for them, so it’s a natural and friendly thing for many people. This can be a blessing from a friend who knows you well, or it can be a mistake from someone who doesn’t. Because a friend, or friend of a friend, has approached you it’s more personal and it may be difficult to turn them down if you’re not ready yet, or you really aren’t interested in the pet they are offering you. Don’t ever feel pressured by someone else’s desire for you to have a pet. The decision is always yours.

And there are times when an animal simply shows up in your life, either literally in your back yard or in your life somehow, and there’s an immediate connection. Many of us would swear the pet we’ve lost, knowing what a loving human companion you are and how your heart is searching, has sent us an animal companion to either care for and love while we find a new home for it, or to keep forever. I’ve no doubt this happens and can relate dozens of stories, including my own, but maybe another time.

One thing for certain, even if you had never had a pet before, once you have, there is a pet-shaped space in your heart with room for more. Don’t decide not to adopt because you fear being hurt by loss. Remember that nearly all your time with your pet was the simple happiness that comes with everyday unconditional love, and someday that memory will outshine the memory of the loss.

My sympathies on your loss, and love and light in your journey to healing your grief.

I frequently write about pets and pet loss on my daily blog The Creative Cat, the blog is set up to encourage myself to write more. This presentation was originally published there. Below I refer to a number of other presentations. I’ve been intending to catch up with adding my essays and stories about animals here but never seem to find the time. I reference a number of other presentations below, so I think I’ll start with getting those up here while I’m at it.

Loving Again After Loss

I’m always happy to speak on this topic. It’s focused on why we choose to live with animals, especially after a loss. Deb, the owner of the business, is one of my customers for graphic design and PR as I am one of her customers for cremation when I lose one of my cats. She watched me over a period of years lose a number of cats, then gain a number of cats, then lose again, and decided I would probably have something valuable to say about loving and losing and loving again, and I always draw from my own experiences:

In 2011 I spoke about losing all my senior cats in one year, and then losing Lucy, but that she brought me Mimi and her children.

In 2012 I spoke about losing my two oldest kitties, Cookie and Kelly, in one year and though I’d just lost Kelly a month before I knew it had changed my relationship with cats forever.

In 2013 I spoke about taking in Lakota and Emeraude knowing my relationship with them would be brief, and losing Lakota after six weeks but loving him nonetheless ( I didn’t realize I hadn’t shared this here, but had had it published in Pittsburgh PetConnections in September 2013. I will probably share this article again this coming Sunday as its own feature).

In 2014 I mentioned that our relationship with pets is not all about us, but about both of us, we and our pet and what each of us feels and gives and takes to and from each other, and pointing out that fosters, Emeraude, Kennedy and Basil, then named Smokie, had each been abandoned and even grievously injured by humans, and yet let go of that pain and turned around to love and trust another human who was a complete stranger.

In 2015 I spoke about animals being healers, and how they can soothe our grief without us even knowing it.

In 2016, 2017 and 2018 I gave the presentation above.

Why do we take animals into our lives? Because we need them, and also because they need us, and we can’t fear to love for fear of loss.

For more on the topic of pets

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