To rewind the tape a little bit, Spring quarter went as well as any 18 credit quarter can. Serendipity got me into two of the classes and helped me decide what I (maybe) want to do with my life. When I registered for spring quarter I was already looking ahead to summer quarter, specifically, a class on J.R.R. Tolkien's imaginary languages. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to geek out and get three credits for doing so, I based my spring schedule around fulfilling the unnecessary prerequisites for the Tolkien class. I say unnecessary because I could have just asked for an instructor override, but taking the prereq class sounded like a good idea, you know, just to make sure. Poor research on my part led me to believe that the Tolkien class was a linguistics class with a linguistics class prereq. I later learned -- thankfully before registration -- that it was being offered through the Eurasian Studies department and therefore had one of two Eurasian Studies classes as a prereq. So, naturally, as any person wanting to take a class on Tolkien's imaginary languages should, I signed up for "Intro to Russian Civilization." The linguistics class I originally thought was the prereq still fit into my schedule, though, so I signed up for that as well. Then I got to thinking... Linguistics is cool. Majoring just in Computer Science doesn't sound stressful enough. What if I double majored? That's not enough, though! Oh no! I've always wanted to take some formal classes on Creative Writing so I'm not just some blubbering idiot talking to himself on the internet! Triple major? Heck yeah! Computer Science, Linguistics, and Creative Writing! It'll be great! I can be the modern Tolkien! ...
No.
I've contented myself with a double major in Computer Science and Linguistics. The linguistics and computer science classes I took were full of interesting material but the professors' inability to teach made things slightly less interesting -- unless you count that one time my linguistics prof left his lecture-microphone on when he went to the bathroom. Glorious moments of awkward hilarity aside, the Russian Civ class and my honors class -- a study of the Dominican Republic -- were the highlights of spring quarter. It was nice for a change not to be studying the Greeks or the Romans and actually learn something about a culture that I haven't known since the fifth grade.
As great as spring quarter was, it ended with a plate full of food and a piteous moan. The week before finals I got a text from home letting me know my cat wasn't eating or drinking. It's just a little blockage in her system. It'll pass through by the time finals are over. At least that's what I kept telling myself so I could make it through my finals without rushing home once a day to make sure nothing had happened. After finals were over, after staring in amazement at all the crap that had accumulated in my 183 square foot dorm room, after hauling it all down six flights of stairs and after somehow managing to make it all fit in the same car that brought a considerably less amount of crap nine and a half months ago, I sat anxiously in the passenger seat of the car not knowing what to expect when I got home.
I still hadn't gotten over the pangs of sudden emptiness that hit me every time I thought about my grandfather no longer being alive. I didn't want to lose the cat that had been such a large -- and I mean morbidly obese, large -- part my life for the past fourteen years; the cat whose every purr sounded like the soft hum of a motor boat on the other side of the lake, rushing to shore before the rain started to come down; the cat that in those early years (before she became old and cranky) would lick my ear -- inside and out -- until I squirmed away from her; the cat that I named "Frisky" but turned out to be not so frisky unless it was to make her escape and thunder her way back to one of her favorite hiding spots; the cat that had been with me through sickness and health, three moves and a divorce, the good days and the bad. And now -- at the end of a long school year -- I was faced with the prospect of losing her.
When I got home she was definitely thinner but beyond that she seemed almost herself, that is, arthritic and reclusive. Between unpacking and organizing my crap then repacking some of it for a trip to Seattle for my brother's college graduation I had very little time to find out what was actually going on with Frisky. I went to bed each night not knowing. In the morning, even before I cleared the sleep from my eyes, I'd go into the next room and check under the bed where she liked to lie. She drank very little and ate even less but hung in there, leaving me with a choice. Though choices are never as simple as we make them out to be, my choice boiled down to either believing she was in enough discomfort to justify putting her to sleep or leaving her with a bowl of water and a bowl of food and hope that when I got home in two days the house didn't smell bad. I chose the latter, clinging to the hope that she'd get better.
I left not knowing if when I got back my cat would still be alive. She was; my grandfather wasn't. My Grandpa Benson had been unwell for many months and his condition had worsened in the weeks leading up to my brother's graduation so we knew it was only a matter of time before the long, hard-fought battle with cancer and Alzheimer's ended. Perhaps it was because we knew it was close to the end or perhaps because I lost my other grandfather not seven months prior, but in that crowded, noisy restaurant where it's hard for my mom to hear her cell phone go off, I knew from the moment I saw my sister's eyes -- unblinking, fixed -- on our mother, that something had happened. My sister's white-knuckled index finger bending upward two times, beckoning towards fresh air, was merely confirmation.
I don't know if it was because I had already been through it once and became a stronger person or because I didn't have the stress of school looming over me or a combination of both and then some, but I never once cried for my maternal grandfather the way I cried for my paternal grandfather; I tell myself it wasn't for lack of love -- I loved them both equally as much -- but it certainly wasn't for lack of tears. After getting home and finding Frisky still alive but the bowl of food as full as when I left, I was yet again faced with a decision. I'd be leaving again in two days, this time for a five day trip to Minnesota so that I could spend time with my grandmother before I had to be back at school for summer classes. Still clinging to the hope that Frisky could get better, I took her to the vet. She hated car rides, trips to the vet, and anywhere unfamiliar to her, yet I wanted to put her through all three for a hope as thin as she'd become.
The vet said he couldn't be absolutely sure of anything without a $100 x-ray but said there was likely a blockage -- possibly a tumor -- that had obstructed Frisky's digestive system. Not wanting to spend $100 to know for sure, $150 on an operation if it was just a blockage and my last hope if it was a tumor, I left the veterinary clinic with a terrified cat and a nagging conscience. So later that same day I put Frisky through two more car rides to get her a $73 shot of steroids they said might clear the blockage.
That night, she drank quite a bit and even ate a little food. As I sat on the bed petting her, listening to her purr as loudly as she ever had, I was hopeful she would make a full recovery.
The next morning -- the morning of the day before I left for Minnesota -- I didn't go in and check on her first thing, as I'd done all the previous week. Instead, I ate a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats and even brushed my teeth afterwards. When I finally went to check on her I found her lying crumpled up on her side, out from under the bed -- away from her favorite spot. She was still breathing but nothing in all the world could have prepared me for what happened next...
By 1:20 that afternoon, she was gone.
A lot happened between when I found her and 1:20. After a great deal of muffled sobs so my suite mate wouldn't hear, I finally got it all typed out but then transferred it to a separate Word document. I may share the details one day, but not today. It still hurts too much.
After wrapping her diminished, limp form in a fresh towel, it was time to take her for one last car ride to the Veterinary Clinic I know she would have hated.
Was it the multiple stressful car rides to the Veterinary clinic? Was it the shot of steroids? Could it have been prevented if I hadn't done what I did? These are the questions that filled my mind on the car ride home and several hours afterward. The only answer that'll keep me sane is, "things happened the way they were supposed to happen." All her adult life I jokingly complained about how it sounded like a herd of elephants every time she galloped down the hallway. Well, she finally went on that diet I'd been talking about for the last ten years and I think it was all that reserve fat that kept her alive as long as she was. Had she been any thinner to start with, she very well could have passed away while I was still at school or while I was away for my brother's graduation. She didn't. Whether it was what I did in an attempt to save her that killed her, I don't know for sure, but what would I have done if she hadn't died? Could I have left her alone for five days while I was away in Minnesota? No. And I don't know if I would have felt better or worse if I had taken her to the vet to be put to sleep but it doesn't really matter because everything happened the way it was supposed to happen.
The only guilt I feel is that I cried so much (and still do, apparently) for Frisky -- a cat -- when I haven't shed much more than a few tears for my grandfather -- the man that taught me to hunt and where to find the best fishing, the host of the best Fourth of July weekend I've ever had and probably will ever have, the farmer that taught me there's so much more to life than a lucrative harvest and new toys or clothes. Life is playing with the old, faded toys your mom played with when she was a kid; it's hard work and dirt on your torn jeans; it's doing what you love with a dog (or cat) at your side; it's making popcorn balls on New Year's Eve; it's a plate full of homegrown corn on the cob and tomatoes sprinkled with sugar; it's family; it's flying the airplane you built through silver, opaque, occasionally turbulent clouds until you could touch the sun but then coming back down for a landing because that's where all the memories are.
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Once again, I wrote far more than I thought I would. I promise next week's post will be happier. I just have to slog through some of this emotion-y stuff before I can start writing about topics that are a bit more fun. Unfortunately I don't have a sonnet for this post but expect one with next week's blog, in which I (hope to) finally catch up to the present goings on in my life.
As always, thanks for reading! And have a safe and happy Halloween!
-NLD
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Liked my writing or blogging skills? Didn't like them?
Leave some feedback and let me know why! I'm always seeking to improve.
Thanks for reading!
Unpublished material, ©2013 Neal Digre
Was it the multiple stressful car rides to the Veterinary clinic? Was it the shot of steroids? Could it have been prevented if I hadn't done what I did? These are the questions that filled my mind on the car ride home and several hours afterward. The only answer that'll keep me sane is, "things happened the way they were supposed to happen." All her adult life I jokingly complained about how it sounded like a herd of elephants every time she galloped down the hallway. Well, she finally went on that diet I'd been talking about for the last ten years and I think it was all that reserve fat that kept her alive as long as she was. Had she been any thinner to start with, she very well could have passed away while I was still at school or while I was away for my brother's graduation. She didn't. Whether it was what I did in an attempt to save her that killed her, I don't know for sure, but what would I have done if she hadn't died? Could I have left her alone for five days while I was away in Minnesota? No. And I don't know if I would have felt better or worse if I had taken her to the vet to be put to sleep but it doesn't really matter because everything happened the way it was supposed to happen.
The only guilt I feel is that I cried so much (and still do, apparently) for Frisky -- a cat -- when I haven't shed much more than a few tears for my grandfather -- the man that taught me to hunt and where to find the best fishing, the host of the best Fourth of July weekend I've ever had and probably will ever have, the farmer that taught me there's so much more to life than a lucrative harvest and new toys or clothes. Life is playing with the old, faded toys your mom played with when she was a kid; it's hard work and dirt on your torn jeans; it's doing what you love with a dog (or cat) at your side; it's making popcorn balls on New Year's Eve; it's a plate full of homegrown corn on the cob and tomatoes sprinkled with sugar; it's family; it's flying the airplane you built through silver, opaque, occasionally turbulent clouds until you could touch the sun but then coming back down for a landing because that's where all the memories are.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once again, I wrote far more than I thought I would. I promise next week's post will be happier. I just have to slog through some of this emotion-y stuff before I can start writing about topics that are a bit more fun. Unfortunately I don't have a sonnet for this post but expect one with next week's blog, in which I (hope to) finally catch up to the present goings on in my life.
As always, thanks for reading! And have a safe and happy Halloween!
-NLD
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Liked my writing or blogging skills? Didn't like them?
Leave some feedback and let me know why! I'm always seeking to improve.
Thanks for reading!
Unpublished material, ©2013 Neal Digre
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