Holidazed and Confused

 

My husband Chris died in February. My son and I are not Christian. He is agnostic / culturally Muslim and I am Sufi Muslim. Chris loved Christmas and its pomp and circumstance with all his heart, and made it a wonderful time for everybody who lived with, near or around him.  This time of year was so festive with him in the world.  He loved the Chieftains' old Christmas album "Bells of Dublin" and Vince Garaldi and other fun but non-irritating Christmas music. He had a huge Nativity scene including three Wise Men mounted on a camel, a horse, and an elephant, which he moved around the room so that they'd arrive at the manger on January 6, Epiphany. 

My son and I can't do any of this. The grief is too near and we are too non-Christian. I gave the Nativity scene to Chris' ex-wife, who had been his partner when he was collecting it when his kids were young. I gave all the other Christmas ornaments to her too, as she wanted them, and I didn't.  This year we have no tree. I did keep the artificial wreath and put it on the door.  

Chris with me in 2013 at a local bar

I had a holiday party at work to go to and it was really, really hard to be cheery.  I felt so drained afterwards. I know a lot of people feel like this at this time of year. I have never liked parties, but in the past I have actually had a good time at them. Chris used to say to me "you know once you go you'll have a good time."

It is a dark time of year with no Chris to provide cheer.  We are doing our best. I hope anyone reading this holds their loved ones close.  

Charities and Tygger

 I am one of those people who keeps track of charities even though I have not deducted them on taxes since the "Tax cuts and jobs act" of 2017 that raised the standard deduction so high.  I give to a lot of people-oriented charities, including some local ones, and a lot of environmental charities, again including some local ones. But my favorite charity by far for the enjoyment it gives me is my monthly donation to the Wildcat Sanctuary in Sandstone, Minnesota.  The cat above is Tygger, and I send a donation every month to sponsor him alone. I also send a regular monthly donation that is not earmarked.

The Wildcat Sanctuary sends me cute pictures of him. I have also bought a T-shirt of him. He is a lovely F1 Bengal - meaning that he is a hybrid of a domestic cat with a wild leopard cat.  These cats are bred for their looks, sold for thousands, and then usually euthanized because they are very feral and difficult to keep as pets.

Charities don't take the place of a well-run society with an active social safety net, but they give us joy. In fact, I think that's the main thing that makes people donate to them, not a selfless desire to do good, but the pleasure of giving.

I hope all of us are thankful for our many blessings and that we contribute as much as we can.

Another picture of Tygger, which just came in yesterday's email (The Wildcat Sanctuary called it his "glamour shot"):

Enjoy!

In Memory of Buzz the Cat, 2011-2024

This is Buzz. Buzz is gone.

Buzz was a tuxedo cat we adopted as a kitten for my stepson's 16th birthday. My stepson turned 29 this year.

Buzz was sleek, playful and had the prettiest tuxedo cat markings ever (a blaze on his nose, a white tail tip, white feet and a small white bib).

Buzz was also a problem sprayer all of his life.  I went through three couches and three easy chairs because of this. At the end of his life, we had aluminum foil and washable chair covers on all our furniture, and we had given up on having a couch. We tried everything. We tried Feliway, we tried various combinations and changes regarding litter boxes, we tried it all.  He would just spray when he wanted to. It didn't seem tied to stress. My final theory on this was that one of his testicles hadn't descended properly when he was neutered as a kitten, and that caused some sort of hormonal thing.

Buzz was the leader of our little clowder until he got ill towards the end of his life. He kept our youngest, fattest cat, Yuri, under control, and stood off from Krysta, our long-haired female cat who doesn't really like other cats, and was friends with our other tuxedo cat, Apollo.

Buzz played all the time. He was also very affectionate. He liked to get on laps and stretch out.  

He was an indoor-only cat, and when he was younger he would sometimes get out and stay outside until he had to go to the bathroom, at which point he would finally come in because he didn't know he could poop anywhere outside.

He was the best cat. My husband, who died about six months before he did, always commented that he was the oldest and yet most playful of our cats.  

You would think that my son and I would be relieved we don't have to worry about the spraying anymore, but we actually just feel sad.  I took all the foil down, and the rest of the cats are fine with having a lot more soft surfaces to sleep on, but we just miss our beautiful Buzz.

2024 has been a dark year

Chris, 1958-2024

Starting from now, I am making myself yet another promise to get back to blogging here, because I feel like I have things to say and not enough people to say them to. 

 I lost my husband in February. He had a lot of health issues, many of which were from his lifestyle, and one big one that was a rare genetic disorder. The lifestyle health issues contributed, but the big genetic disorder ultimately killed him.

He was my best friend, and we loved talking about stuff. All stuff. He was the person to bounce things off on, the person to come home to, the person to play board games with or spend hours on YouTube with or cuddle with. We met in 2009 and married in 2017.  It would have been exactly 15 years we were together had he lived another three months. 

He is gone and I am very bereft. 

I live with my grown son and three remaining cats - we also lost our oldest, amazing, beautiful cat later in the year. We are coping with a lot of grief for my husband, the cat and our values (now that we have also had a very traumatic national election that did not go the way we were hoping). 

 Hold your loved ones very close. If you have a choice between vegging out and doing an activity with them, do the activity. Many of them will be gone before you are, and those activities will create memories that sustain you in your grief. Love yourself but don't forget to check in with others you care about. If you are having a difficult time, maybe they are too. The best thing to do in grief, I've found, is to help each other. Just grieving together is much less soul-crushing than grieving alone. 

Commemorate those you've lost, through your own rituals and your own thoughts. Memory is a very weird, subjective, often objectively false thing but it is all we have from our pasts. 

 If you're reading this, bookmark and check back in. I will once again try to be more regular in screaming into the void.