Sometime in August, Bethany, my close friend of ten years, invited me to Hawaii. She and her husband and sons, plus her sister-in-law and SIL’s boyfriend, had booked a beach cottage on the MCCS Marine base on Oahu (where they have friends), and there was an extra spot. I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii, and this was a fantastic opportunity – super cheap lodging and wonderful travel companions. Plus, I had some discretionary funds from the new roof I no longer have to buy. I thought about it for two days and then I booked my plane ticket for a week in Hawaii in September. Best decision ever.

Our beach house had a large back patio overlooking the mountains, rainbows, and ever-changing waters of Kaneohe Bay. We had a beach across the street, and our own private tide pools at the bottom of the hill. I spent several afternoons clambering over the rocks, sometimes sitting quietly, sometimes playing chicken with the waves (spoiler alert: I lost), sometimes channeling Ariel.

PART OF YOUR WOOOORLD

Early on, when we struggled to sleep past 5 am, Bethany’s SIL Melody and I got up to watch the sun rise over the beach.

We ate Pineapple Whip at the Dole plantation in Wahiawa, malasadas from Leonard’s Bakery in Honolulu, ahi tuna and lilikoi popsicles at the Kailua farmers’ market, shaved ice at Matsumoto’s in Haleiwa, and moonfish at Duke’s Waikiki.

We hung out with Bethany’s friends at one of the world’s largest sandbars, in Kaneohe Bay.

We visited Pearl Harbor.

We went to the Paradise Cove Luau.

We puzzled over whether the little guy on the sign was really running toward the tsunami.

When I accepted Bethany’s invitation, I had no idea how much I would need this trip. It would have been a dream trip at any time, but it was especially restorative so soon after the loss of my cat and in the midst of other stresses and tough things. I’m so grateful.

Bethany is a fellow Floridian, in reality as well as at heart, but she says Hawaii is her true home. After being there with her, I understand and somewhat agree. The unrelenting beauty and peace of Hawaii are unlike anything I’ve experienced anywhere else. I can’t wait to go back.

Stay tuned for posts on our DIY LOST tour of Hawaii – and the story of the permanent souvenir I brought home!

6 Comments + Posted in: friends, ocean, travel

In the fall of 2002, my then-boss took in a stray, pregnant cat. When the four kittens were born, she offered one to me and Kathy, my roommate of five years. I’d never had a cat before, or any pet larger than a rabbit, but Kathy and I talked about it and decided we liked the idea. My boss told me the kittens were dark gray. Kathy and I, fresh off our first reading of Lord of the Rings, decided a cat named Gandalf the Gray would be the coolest thing ever. By the time we went over to choose a kitten and saw that they were actually black, it was too late. His name was already Gandalf.

I brought Gandalf home to the apartment on a pleasant October evening. He was old enough to leave his mother, but still tiny enough to hold in my palm. I had to do laundry that night, and worried about leaving him alone even long enough to run to the washing machine. But he adjusted quickly. By the end of the week, he was wrestling with us and acting like he owned the place. (Later, when his propensity to bite became a problem, we learned you’re not supposed to use your hand as a kitten toy. What did we know?)

pious cat

I was surprised at how much joy a cat brought to my life. He wasn’t super affectionate in his early years, but he was hilarious. He loved to stand to the side of the doorway that connected the bedrooms with the main living area, pounce on us when we walked through, wave his paws, then trot off clearly pleased with himself. He also perched on the high bathroom window while I showered, right where the steam leaked out around the curtain. When I turned the water off, his purring was deafening.

Kathy and I both got married in 2004. We’d long had a deal that whoever married first forfeited the cat. She beat me by five months, and her now-husband was weary of cats anyway, so everything worked out. I kept the apartment and Gandalf, who was friendlier by now, but still had a low tolerance for togetherness. So in 2006, my ex and I decided we needed a very affectionate second cat to socialize him. Enter Peach.

At first I was afraid I had ruined Gandalf’s life, but in time he and Peach grew to tolerate and even enjoy each other. More importantly, the plan worked, and continued to work after we moved to my current house in 2006. Gandalf remained skittish around strangers, but became much more affectionate with me, more tolerant of friends and family who were at the house a lot. Everyone but me had to present their hands, palm turned in, for him to smell. If he bowed his head after smelling, they were permitted to pet him (briefly). If not, they had to back off. Because of this ritual, my sister called him “Sultan” (although “Buckbeak” would have been more appropriate.)

As Gandalf got older, he became a wonderful companion. He followed me around the house, slept next to me every night, loved to “help” with house projects and craft projects, and kept me company while I wrote. At mealtimes, he often sat at the table like a person.

When I got divorced, Gandalf was one of the few steady bright spots in my life. His comforting presence in the house, and his excited greetings when I got home each day, helped me adjust to living alone. I also appreciated his meowy “talkativeness” on a new level. Maybe it sounds crazy, but when I talked to him, I usually felt like he got the gist of what I was saying. Anyone who knew him will attest that you could have a conversation with him. When my dad and handyman replaced my oven, Gandalf famously hopped up onto the counter to supervise their work and stayed there the whole time, meowing his commentary. He also had a repertoire of un-catlike noises – he could sound like a goat or a pigeon or even a sheep.

Of my two cats, Gandalf has always been the healthy (if anxious) one. Peach has a chronic disease, so I’ve been prepared for the possibility of losing her for a long time. But I fully believed Gandalf would live to be twenty years old. So when he had a distressing vomiting episode at the beginning of August, and the vet said he was fine and probably ate something bad, I didn’t question it. Nor did I get extremely concerned when he started losing weight and having what seemed like mini-asthma attacks. I suspected a hairball blockage, something possibly serious but fixable. When I got back from Miami two weeks ago and he was no better, I took him back to the vet. Before the exam, I said blithely, “I think it’s a bad hairball, or maybe something wrong with his teeth, you might want to check them.” But the vet returned with a drawn face and took me to see the X-rays that showed a lung full of fluid. Heart disease, he said, or cancer. (The tests confirmed cancer days later.) Either way, unless I wanted to take Gandalf to a specialist (which I didn’t, for many reasons), he would probably only last a few more weeks. He was about to have his twelfth birthday.

To make everything worse, I couldn’t just let this take its course. I had a personal deadline by which I had to make a decision about his life. He perked up slightly after his lung was drained, but I knew it was only temporary, he was still in pain and not tempted by any of his favorite foods, he was not going to get better. So after his diagnosis, I spent as much time as I possibly could at home with him, for a week and a half. Then yesterday, September 15, a mobile vet service came to the house, and I said goodbye to the best feline friend I will ever have.

I’m seriously overwhelmed by the love and support of my friends. Yesterday I received condolences of one kind or another from probably a hundred people. There are so many “it’s just a cat” people in this world, but most of my friends are not part of that number. They understand what he meant to me and that I’ve lost a member of my family. For years, I prayed regularly that I would at least be in a relationship whenever I lost Gandalf. It seemed unimaginably hard to handle that loss all alone. Well, I’m still as single as the day is long. The thing I specifically asked not to happen, happened. But I am not alone. The gift of this situation is the bone-deep knowledge of how not alone I am, and that means more than I can say.

Two of my wisest friends, independently of one another, told me they believe Gandalf was a cat of purpose. Like his namesake, he was sent into my life for comfort and guidance in times of need, and God took him sooner than expected because his purpose was complete. That gives me a weird sense of hope. Regardless, my Gandalf was without a doubt a “soulish creature.” If there are any animals in the next life or the new earth, I am absolutely sure that he’ll be among them. I believe I will see him again.

16 Comments + Posted in: cats, grief, memory lane

Psalms 27:14 caught my attention when I saw it in a blog post last week. While I’m familiar with the verse, I hadn’t seen it in this (unknown) translation, which illuminates its seemingly contradictory nature:

Wait patiently for the Lord.

Yes, wait patiently for the Lord.

It’s an ice cream sandwich of a verse. A matched set interrupted by something completely different.

I’ve done a lot of thinking (and writing) about waiting and being brave in recent months. While I’ve never sat around twiddling my thumbs, I’ve only been willing to go so far in pursuit of goals or adventures. Worried about somehow overstepping God or taking a stupid risk, I’ve always left room for His “will” and guidance. I’ve seen Him come through big-time for so many people who exercised this kind of passive obedience. But it hasn’t been the right method for me. When I realized I’m nowhere near where I want to be in life, while others are either having things handed to them or boldly making things happen, I finally got fed up. I do believe desert periods in our lives, while unfun, are helpful for our faith and growth. But I’ve had a tent up in the desert for a long time, and it occurred to me that maybe I could pack up the tent and find my own way out, instead of waiting for God to escort me via a pillar of fire. Maybe He’s been waiting for me to get frustrated enough to do it.

So, right now it infuriates me to be told to wait. I’ve spent my whole life waiting. I’m ready to be brave and courageous. But apparently I’m supposed to do both. How is that possible?

Most of us have a hard time accepting that we do not have the ultimate say over our own lives. Our most valiant efforts can come up dry. Our best attempts to control outcomes can fail. Even worse, we might never find out why. I abhor a vacuum. My brain practically short-circuits trying to accept mysteries that I can’t tie up in a neat bow of purpose, situations with no solution. But as I get more aggressive about living, I’m going to encounter more and more of them.

Being brave and courageous is not a guarantee that everything will work out. It means more opportunities to trust God while we actively pursue things. Our proactivity is good, but it doesn’t exempt us from waiting. It’s another mystery that I have to struggle to accept.

4 Comments + Posted in: faith, reflections

Lobster diving is a long tradition in my family. When my dad and uncles were kids, my grandfather took them out diving every weekend of lobster season. It’s in their blood. After my family moved to Memphis, we usually scheduled our annual pilgrimage back to Miami around the four-day lobster mini-season at the end of July. We gradually transitioned to August, after the regular season was open. Then, when my Uncle Mike moved to Marathon (the halfway-ish point of the Keys), we took the show on the road.

If lobster diving is a big question mark to you, check out my informational post from a few years back. Good now? Okay. Here’s a very typical day of lobstering with my family!

6:15 am: My parents, brother, Uncle Dave (mom’s brother), and I pack the rental van and depart my grandfather’s house in Miami Shores. As usual, my dad accidentally gets on the Palmetto Expressway instead of the Turnpike; panic ensues even though they both go to the same place.

8:00 am: Breakfast stop at the McDonald’s right at the entrance to the Keys. They now have fruit and maple oatmeal, but no fancy coffee options.

9:00 am: Get our lobster licenses at Kmart in Key Largo. We used to get them at the Yellow Bait Shop, until the owner started requiring passports. ??? The Kmart clerk remembers us from last year.

10:20 am: Arrive at The Compound – what we call the small apartment complex Uncle Mike and Aunt Claudia run – in Marathon. My other paternal aunt and uncle are also there, visiting from Texas. The three brothers haven’t dived all together in 28 years. Our longtime friend Dale, who’s basically family, is also joining us as usual. Load up the boat and head out to the Gulf of Mexico, armed with my uncle’s prized personal atlas of lobster holes, given to him by an old sailor after Uncle Mike earned his trust over many years (true story). He says it’s our inheritance.

11:25 am: The first lobster is caught! I’m not a good scout, so I usually don’t get in the water until someone establishes that there are multiple lobster in the hole. Spoiler alert: I am not in the water much this day.

1:00 pm: Despite not doing much actual work, my mom and I attack our traditional Dion’s fried chicken with the fervor of wild animals.

3:00 pm: After missing a lobster because I used up all my oxygen chugging down to get it, I decide it’s way past time to retire the fins I’ve had since I was ten.

6:20 pm: Fifteen lobster short of our limit, we arrive back at The Compound. I’m thankful the men were willing to hang it up. One year, they were still diving as the sun set and then we got caught in a huge storm, prompting my cousin Cliff to shout the instant catchphrase, “THIS LOBSTER DIVING’S TEARING THIS FAMILY APART.”)

The bros! (My dad is on the left.)

My brother with some lobster. (Ladies, he’s single!!)

7:00 pm: Head back to the only hotel in Marathon to shower and change.

7:45 pm: Drag all of our exhausted selves to the Marathon Grill & Ale House. Eat delicious food while watching the Dolphins’ preseason game. They win! Confer with aunts and mom about whether we ladies are really up for another day of lobster struggle tomorrow. (We decide we’re not. I feel wimpy and relieved in equal measure.)

10:00 pm: Collapse into bed, still feeling like we’re on a boat. Make lobster-catching motions in our sleep.

6 Comments + Posted in: family, florida, ocean

At the beginning of every marching band season in high school, we had to stand at attention a lot. Sometimes for more than an hour at a time. Standing perfectly still holding up an instrument doesn’t sound strenuous, but after five minutes, you’re very aware of every muscle you’re using. It was always painful, at first. But over the course of the season, those “attention muscles” strengthened and locked into the right place automatically. After a month or so, it was as easy as lying down.

I never thought I would get to a place where running came naturally to me. But after months on a treadmill, I’m starting to have that old attention feeling. Even if I’m running down the street totally zoned out, my feet keep a steady pace. I don’t have to think about it anymore.

This week, I found out that my favorite cat Gandalf, my companion of twelve years, has cancer. I’ve always felt sure that he’d live to a ripe old age. A month ago, he seemed fine. Now he’s declining so fast that he likely won’t see October. As I looked at an X-ray of his fluid-filled lung and heard the finality in the vet’s voice, I felt my old grief muscles snap into place. In that hazy moment of shock, before I even had time to process the situation, I instinctively knew how to brace myself for a painful reality. I didn’t park on “This cannot be happening”; I automatically moved into “Okay. What do we need to do?” Because when it comes to loss, I have a lot of miles under my feet.

This is the first time I’ve recognized the value of my experiences as training. Not only for general growth, or to encourage others, but also to build my strength and capability for all the losses and crises still ahead of me. To make an increasingly worn path for my heart to follow. To give me an autopilot. It’s never easy, but it gets easier. People like to say that hearts, like bones, are stronger where they’ve been broken. I believe it.

The night before I ran my 5K, I thought about all the times I’d had a cramp, or felt overheated, or my stomach hurt, but I ran anyway. My training gave me peace that whatever happened, I could keep running anyway. As I now care for my feline BFF in his last days (which have come much too soon), it’s both reassuring and depressing to look back over my life and think, I already know this. I’ve done it before. I can do it again.

I have more to say along these lines, but it didn’t gel with the rest of the post. So, part 2 to come next week.

6 Comments + Posted in: cats, empowerment, grief