Hissing Ball of Fury: Losing Diana
The cat hated everybody. Everybody, that is, except me. And Sarah, of course--but she had owned Sarah for seventeen years, so that was to be expected. I only knew her for five months, and I didn't really expect her to warm up to me. More than that, I never expected to warm up to her. So when we helped her to her final sleep on Monday, the last thing I expected was to feel what I felt and react how I did.
First of all, I am not a cat person. I had a cat once, and I despised it. Yes, my cat-loving friends will be shocked at that. Kitty was part Siamese and was mean. Worse than that, she caused me to lose sleep every night. If she was outside, she wanted in; if she was inside, she wanted out. Day in and day out. Why didn't I just leave her in or out, you might ask? Well, I believe if you ask that, YOU are not a cat person. She would come to my bedside and claw at the blinds until I was awake. If I shooed her away, she'd wait till I lay back down and begin again. When she was outside, she would come to my bedroom window and claw on the screen, which is not a sound conducive to sleeping, especially as I lay there envisioning a trip to Home Depot to replace yet another screen. When I moved from Louisiana to Georgia, I gave the neighbors a bag of cat food and $20 to take care of the cat. I drove the U-Haul truck away as fast as I could so that Kitty couldn't somehow attach herself and hang on for the cross-country trek. I was free of cats. Until Diana.
Sarah called her Hissing Ball of Fury because that's what she turned into whenever anybody tried to touch her. Over the months, as I met Sarah's friends, they all asked, "And how are you getting on with the Little Cat?" Only they don't say "Cat." They had learned the hard way. "Oh, she'll like ME," they had said, one by one. "I'm good with animals," they had said, one by one. And one by one, they had approached Diana talking softly and reaching to pet her, only to have her turn into Miss Fury. Diana had been banned from veterinary practices in two states because she bit. I witnessed this myself when we took her to the vet three months ago. Two young techs had assured us, "Oh, she'll be fine with us," only to bolt from the room to fetch the doctor to do this first-year vet school procedure himself. "Diana bites" was written in bold red letters across the top of her chart. And so she did.
So what was my secret? I think it was that I let Diana be Diana. I let her come to me. When she sat with her back to us, which was her usual position until she got ready to be petted, I let her be. I only spoke to her when she looked at me, and never reached out to touch her. Then one day when she came to Sarah for her evening head-butts (Diana was a head-butter), she walked right into my hand. Then one morning I awoke with a cat sleeping on my head. On my head. She only hissed at me once. I had reached down to pet her as I walked by the couch where she was lying, foolishly thinking that we had bonded over the head-sleeping. "Don't get to comfortable with me, old gal," she seemed to imply in that hiss. "I come to YOU." I only picked her up once. It was the day before she died. That is how I knew it was over.
The vet must have felt the same way when he picked her up on Monday morning and said, "This is the first time I've really gotten to examine her completely." He gently felt her frail body and asked Sarah if she was sure of her decision. She was. We had set up what Sarah called "Kitty Hospice" at the bungalow over the weekend, administering IV fluids and concocting what looked like an awful mess but was evidently a cat delicacy Sarah called "duck soup." Diana would take a little, then lie on a pile of Sarah's clothes and her old teddy bear, Ted, until we took her outside to lie in the grass warmed by the sun. The fluids never pepped her up as Sarah had expected; she was that far gone. So we fed her duck soup and let her be outside as much as she wanted. She even hissed at a stray cat once. We had one brief second of hope, then watched as she turned away all but a bite of food. I am glad we had that weekend. As we watched Diana, I watched Sarah say goodbye to her friend of seventeen years.
I think things happen for a reason. Like finding an abandoned kitten two weeks ago--one that has pretty much taken over our lives by blessedly taking up our attention during the last week. I've heard the old saying that we don't find pets--rather, pets find us. This one was put in our way at precisely the appropriate place and time. Just like Pastor Kim's prayer in church on Sunday. As I sat there in the choir loft during the service, the words startled me out actually praying, hoping that it might in some way bring Diana's human some comfort. Give us the courage and grace to live through the dying season, was the prayer. The grace to understand death, as well as life, even though the dying--the perpetual winter--dims a light in our souls.
As we sat outside with Diana Saturday, Sarah told me that she had chosen her name from Edith Hamilton's famous book Mythology. It is appropriate--and somewhat ironic now--that her name had come from that book. In it, Hamilton quotes from Aeschylus's Agamemnon:
Drop, drop—in our sleep, upon the heart
sorrow falls, memory’s pain,
and to us, though against our very will,
even in our own despite,
comes wisdom
by the awful grace of God.
Aeschylus describes the process by which we come to the understanding for which the pastor prayed. Drop by drop upon the heart by the awful grace of God. How profoundly simple that it might come from the great blessing of being owned by a pet. But, if you are a cat person--like I am now--that is no surprise.
Kim has graciously shared Sunday's prayer, below.
As trees molt their leaves, as hostas and other flowering shrubs go to ground, as grass turns brittle and pale, as mosquitos go wherever it is they go (thank goodness!)...we are reminded of the vital role dormancy, rest, and death play in the cycle of life. In autumn, days shorten, vegetation rots, all nature begins its inward turn so that--from death-- new life can emerge come spring.
Holy One, we confess that we don’t always enjoy the way things shut down in autumn--or any season of our spiritual lives. The riot of color that comes with spring, the full-on joy of playing in summer? Those are great! Spring and summer are easy to love. Even winter’s not so bad… everything looks dead then, but we know that Spring is just one season away. With autumn, though, we have to watch things die...and that’s not easy.
Here’s what we ask today, Holy One, give us the courage to look at our lives and--as honestly as we can--identify what is in the process of dying. Whatever that dying thing is, show us how new life will someday emerge from it. And give us the grace to be patient in our waiting for that new life.
We have other concerns to lift into your care today--concerns for ourselves, for our friends, for those who live in a perpetual winter with seemingly no hope of spring. In the quiet of this moment, we lift all our concerns into your care.
First of all, I am not a cat person. I had a cat once, and I despised it. Yes, my cat-loving friends will be shocked at that. Kitty was part Siamese and was mean. Worse than that, she caused me to lose sleep every night. If she was outside, she wanted in; if she was inside, she wanted out. Day in and day out. Why didn't I just leave her in or out, you might ask? Well, I believe if you ask that, YOU are not a cat person. She would come to my bedside and claw at the blinds until I was awake. If I shooed her away, she'd wait till I lay back down and begin again. When she was outside, she would come to my bedroom window and claw on the screen, which is not a sound conducive to sleeping, especially as I lay there envisioning a trip to Home Depot to replace yet another screen. When I moved from Louisiana to Georgia, I gave the neighbors a bag of cat food and $20 to take care of the cat. I drove the U-Haul truck away as fast as I could so that Kitty couldn't somehow attach herself and hang on for the cross-country trek. I was free of cats. Until Diana.
Sarah called her Hissing Ball of Fury because that's what she turned into whenever anybody tried to touch her. Over the months, as I met Sarah's friends, they all asked, "And how are you getting on with the Little Cat?" Only they don't say "Cat." They had learned the hard way. "Oh, she'll like ME," they had said, one by one. "I'm good with animals," they had said, one by one. And one by one, they had approached Diana talking softly and reaching to pet her, only to have her turn into Miss Fury. Diana had been banned from veterinary practices in two states because she bit. I witnessed this myself when we took her to the vet three months ago. Two young techs had assured us, "Oh, she'll be fine with us," only to bolt from the room to fetch the doctor to do this first-year vet school procedure himself. "Diana bites" was written in bold red letters across the top of her chart. And so she did.
So what was my secret? I think it was that I let Diana be Diana. I let her come to me. When she sat with her back to us, which was her usual position until she got ready to be petted, I let her be. I only spoke to her when she looked at me, and never reached out to touch her. Then one day when she came to Sarah for her evening head-butts (Diana was a head-butter), she walked right into my hand. Then one morning I awoke with a cat sleeping on my head. On my head. She only hissed at me once. I had reached down to pet her as I walked by the couch where she was lying, foolishly thinking that we had bonded over the head-sleeping. "Don't get to comfortable with me, old gal," she seemed to imply in that hiss. "I come to YOU." I only picked her up once. It was the day before she died. That is how I knew it was over.
The vet must have felt the same way when he picked her up on Monday morning and said, "This is the first time I've really gotten to examine her completely." He gently felt her frail body and asked Sarah if she was sure of her decision. She was. We had set up what Sarah called "Kitty Hospice" at the bungalow over the weekend, administering IV fluids and concocting what looked like an awful mess but was evidently a cat delicacy Sarah called "duck soup." Diana would take a little, then lie on a pile of Sarah's clothes and her old teddy bear, Ted, until we took her outside to lie in the grass warmed by the sun. The fluids never pepped her up as Sarah had expected; she was that far gone. So we fed her duck soup and let her be outside as much as she wanted. She even hissed at a stray cat once. We had one brief second of hope, then watched as she turned away all but a bite of food. I am glad we had that weekend. As we watched Diana, I watched Sarah say goodbye to her friend of seventeen years.
I think things happen for a reason. Like finding an abandoned kitten two weeks ago--one that has pretty much taken over our lives by blessedly taking up our attention during the last week. I've heard the old saying that we don't find pets--rather, pets find us. This one was put in our way at precisely the appropriate place and time. Just like Pastor Kim's prayer in church on Sunday. As I sat there in the choir loft during the service, the words startled me out actually praying, hoping that it might in some way bring Diana's human some comfort. Give us the courage and grace to live through the dying season, was the prayer. The grace to understand death, as well as life, even though the dying--the perpetual winter--dims a light in our souls.
As we sat outside with Diana Saturday, Sarah told me that she had chosen her name from Edith Hamilton's famous book Mythology. It is appropriate--and somewhat ironic now--that her name had come from that book. In it, Hamilton quotes from Aeschylus's Agamemnon:
Drop, drop—in our sleep, upon the heart
sorrow falls, memory’s pain,
and to us, though against our very will,
even in our own despite,
comes wisdom
by the awful grace of God.
Aeschylus describes the process by which we come to the understanding for which the pastor prayed. Drop by drop upon the heart by the awful grace of God. How profoundly simple that it might come from the great blessing of being owned by a pet. But, if you are a cat person--like I am now--that is no surprise.
Kim has graciously shared Sunday's prayer, below.
Prayers of the People (9/21/14)
September 21--the first day of autumn.
September 21--the first day of autumn.
As trees molt their leaves, as hostas and other flowering shrubs go to ground, as grass turns brittle and pale, as mosquitos go wherever it is they go (thank goodness!)...we are reminded of the vital role dormancy, rest, and death play in the cycle of life. In autumn, days shorten, vegetation rots, all nature begins its inward turn so that--from death-- new life can emerge come spring.
Holy One, we confess that we don’t always enjoy the way things shut down in autumn--or any season of our spiritual lives. The riot of color that comes with spring, the full-on joy of playing in summer? Those are great! Spring and summer are easy to love. Even winter’s not so bad… everything looks dead then, but we know that Spring is just one season away. With autumn, though, we have to watch things die...and that’s not easy.
Here’s what we ask today, Holy One, give us the courage to look at our lives and--as honestly as we can--identify what is in the process of dying. Whatever that dying thing is, show us how new life will someday emerge from it. And give us the grace to be patient in our waiting for that new life.
We have other concerns to lift into your care today--concerns for ourselves, for our friends, for those who live in a perpetual winter with seemingly no hope of spring. In the quiet of this moment, we lift all our concerns into your care.
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