The Cat Came Back

The orange cat returned himself to us the Thursday evening before Easter, two and a half weeks after he went missing. We had the windows and back deck door open all that day as the air conditioner was broken, and maybe the smell of our sweat and the sound of our voices led the cat home. Or perhaps it was just that he was suddenly free from whatever garage or crawl space he had been trapped inside, as Walnut came back to us two and a half pounds lighter than he left, dehydrated and dirty, but without a single flea or injury. We all were so happy to have him back, even if he did cry all night the first two nights he was home. The orange tom still fought when I and the oldest daughter shoved him into a carrier for a vet visit the next day - it had been this type of visit that had prompted his disappearance, after all - but the doctor only drew some blood and had a vet tech help me shove a deworming pill down his throat. Because the cat’s system had been so stressed, the vet decided to wait on vaccines until he gains at least a pound back and his labs came back clean. So Walnut’s attempt to avoid the vet by running away in March has only netted him double vet visits in April.

Because of the sudden vet expense, for the first time ever I had to borrow some money from the oldest child to fix the AC, a point of shame for me. I was able to pay her back in just a few days, at least. The money to cover everything eventually came from a state tax refund, our first in years as the husband is no longer self-employed. Our financial problems that started during COVID and culminated with losing the Lake Claire house are slowly abating, but like my grief are doing so in waves, a tide that is rolling away from us even as the water pushes back and forth on our fiscal shores. I hope I never have to ask the kids to cover anything, even for just a few days, ever again.

I missed writing last week again after one of those emotional waves crashed over my head from the shame of short funds. The weight of memories and anger and financial depression worked against the progress I felt like I’ve made recently. I want to write about all the practical skills I picked up during COVID, how I taught myself basic masonry and expanded my foraging abilities and refined red clay right out of the ground and more, and attempt to write about these things in a positive way, but I don’t have the right words or framing yet to do so. Trying to force the thoughts and memories into type doesn’t work yet no matter how many times I want to approach the positive stories I could tell about the last three years. I don’t know how long it will be until I’m really ready to write about our COVID years. Everyone sane says you can’t will yourself into emotional recovery from loss, but of course I’m irritated that I’m not the exception, that I’m not some sort of grief prodigy. I always think I’m supposed to be better at everything, and of course that’s part of the problem.

So I’m going to try to continue to write about the good things, even if I have to reach back in time to do so, but this week I don’t have to go backwards too far at all. The youngest started her orthodontia this week and I’ve had to feed her soup and scrambled eggs and soft things as the pain of positive movement began in her mouth. I helped the oldest child with a problem in her workplace, and felt good about that, proud of her completion of her first year of employment and her modest savings account. I had my first new prescription for lenses in nearly four years come to me this week as well, and I made the jump into bifocals for the first time in oversize frames.

My new glasses are the kind of frames the grungy 1990’s teen me would have been appalled by, real Pokerface 1979 throwbacks in style. The frames are rose gold in color, a dramatic departure from anything I’ve ever had before. I normally stay away from both gold and pink, and this style shift in my daily wear wasn’t planned, but I was determined to push out of my normal habits and try something new. Friends have complimented me and it’s a big swing, fashion wise. I have to believe that if I don’t like the frames in six months or a year I will be able to buy another pair. I have confidence in my own ability to keep changing. I know that even though the waves keep hitting me, the tide of grief is going out. Eventually I will be able to clearly see what the destruction of the high water has left on my shoreline and handle the clean bones.

There are beaches full of beautiful sea glass, smooth fragments of green and blue and brown worn down and now used for beads and decorations. People forget sometimes that all that reflective beauty is there because once we dumped all our trash in the water, and that the sea glass was once broken beer bottles. You couldn’t walk on some of those beaches when I was a kid barefoot, because you’d cut yourself on the sharp refuse and get bad infections. Now older women collect the smoothed out pieces. I look like an older woman in my new giant glasses. I am an older woman, but not old enough yet that the recently broken things in my memories don’t still cut me when I try to handle them.

I’ll get to the place where I can talk about the last few years without hurting. It’s just going to take more time.