Day 142

Today I’m having the car detailed to remove Cody’s hair and scent. The girls are sure he is in there. I took his bed out immediately and washed his favorite rugs. There was a pile of his hair under the bed and I find it now and then. He broke his food dish the day before he went away. Was that an omen? The quality- of- life conversation with his vet was when I let go of him.

Personal essay

Anyone who studies Nature has an understanding of the cycles of life and death. It is profound learning that guides the way we live our lives. Each day can be seen as a lifetime: the birth of the day, its full maturity at noon, its waning power toward evening, and its death at dark. Like seeds waiting underground for Spring, the Sun rests until it must burst forth in the next dawn. A deep connection with Nature fills us with the sense of rightness about beginnings and endings. It’s supposed to be that way. Nothing is intended to last forever but just for its span of potential. Everything on Earth has a birthday, and adulthood, and the inevitable waning of strength. Even mountains fall and rocks become sand.

When Hollie and I watched Cody sleep into the mystery of death, I realized for the hundredth time that we are here to learn to love, lose, and love again. Nothing we love is ever lost from memory. I can still replay Cody and Dido running in the park. My spirit ran with Dido and Cody circled to keep it safe. Cody paid for his herding instinct late in his life with arthritis as Dido paid for her exuberance with an enlarged heart. I miss them. I miss Buddy, my Golden girl, who came at the perfect time for both of us. I was in physical and emotional pain from the injury that cost me my job and she was homeless for an unknown reason. We bonded instantly and for five years, we were companions in a way I had not experienced before.

I feel for my plants when they are done with their reason for being. I give them a good place to recycle themselves for later use.

The day my sons were born in 1955, the doctor and the nurses were talking about a new china pattern with blue flowers. It was impersonal. I was simply a job. As I listened to them, I wanted to say, Hey, you are missing it all. Two human beings are coming out of my body! It is a miracle and much more important than your new dishes. Hollie was born when I was alone and the event was marked forever in my being as the meaning of life. This tiny person came out of my body. It is a miracle. I held her for an hour before her father arrived to find us. In that hour I felt a deep primal sisterhood to all women and a connection to life that was timeless.

In the natural order, I would not have outlived my son. I gave birth to him and watched him grow into a man. He had problems, physically and mentally. He wasn’t able to fulfill his potential. I nurtured as best as I knew how but was not qualified to make a change for him. The last words I said to him, “I love you.” I hope he heard me.

I hope my soul is recyclable too. I value all the opportunities that I have taken, the mistakes that have led to wisdom, the many I have loved and know I was loved, the millions of brain cells that have filled up, been used and filled up again, and my unquenchable thirst for Spiritual connection.

I am not being as graceful about aging as I think I am. Laughing at myself helps when I forget a word or name, or realize I have forgotten something. Then I know that I am in my late Autumn season, nearing Winter and that’s Nature for you!