Life goes on, no biggie, they were just animals. But the hurt remains, that thi lady called me one day crying hysterically that her dog had just been hit by a car. As I supportively talked with her it became clear that the car had just glanced him, he was alright, and she had realized this before calling me and sobbing into the phone that he'd been hit. So. although she knew he was alright , I hear, "Dede, Toby just got hit by a car!"
"Me:"Oh, no. Is it--is he going to be alright? I'm so sorry.."
She could have said "Toby just got hit, don't worry, he's ok I think, but did I ever get scared!" But, she didn't. She played it like the ending of a chapter in a suspense book.Then when I really lose a beloved pet, see how she was there for me? Not.
I trust God and ask Him to be part of all my moments and all my choices and all my experiences and if He wants me away from someone with no self-control right now, I am glad for His attention to my needs. Because I want me away from that, too. I am growing, not treading water. I have grown so much and I really enjoy life. People say , we're all dying, none of us know how long we have, and that sort of downplays the heroic effort the terminally ill person has achieved to deal frankly with it.Those of us once told by doctors solemnly that we had a year, two at the most, understand what I'm saying. Maybe the one mature act we can demonstrate is that we've accepted this, but they won't let that be a conquest of ours; they airily say we all live with the same chances, as if we've all faced our mortality in a big, can't-turn-away-from-it way.Someday they may get the chance to understand what it means to forgive God while alive and praise Him for the song you got to sing , for the completeness of His gift to you of you, of Him, of loved ones,of life. And face each new day like you weren't suposed to be here, it is truly a gift, that extra day, any bird song, any flower waving, any child laughing, any song you sing in rounds with the children one more time---
Mary, 14, really got mushy over leaving her middle school after 3 years. She came home crying and plays "Graduation Day" by Vitamin C over and over again. Next year will be fierce on her--3 creative writing courses(4 the next, 4 the next, 4 the next). She writes her story all night--her fav characters are on a cruise ship--and is reading "Animorphs" because at nine she read at a ninth grade level so "why not read at the age 9 level in 9th grade?"
Book of the month: Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. She enters our world with her brain smoking away.
Mo across the street was victim of a hit-and-run in Ybor City one evening and has been partially paralyzed ever since. She is now developing a tumor in the back of her hand and the doctor said he can't do anything without money. She is living off her savings. She has her boat, truck, and car (a Jag ) up for sale. She was born in France and her mother is still a French citizen and france just paid to send her here an get her specialized treatment in an Atlanta medical facility. France is paying it all. Mo is an American citizen now and can't get health care..
These little guys here were Tiki's babies - she had one more litter before mysteriously diappearing on November 1, 2002 forever.She was 4 years old and had been well-contained indoors all her life including her first year on an alligator-infested pond in a county northeast of Tampa.
The kitten on the left, a girl, found a good home. The one on the right, Jolly, died a painful death after apparently licking a South American bufous toad.
We caught the toad and were about to have someone come out and identify it when someone reported me for letting the kitten get out into that dangerous situation to begin with. At that point I became the bad guy forced to proove my innocence and be on the defensive. As if seeing the kitten die wasn't punishment enough for me. I saw that the kittens had got out a hole in the screened porch they'd worked on and I thought, what the heck, they've been confined all their lives, they're in a fenced yard, they've never been outdoors once, and the dogs are chained up for Halloween-- let them romp once.
They staggered back 24 hours apart in near-death conditions. Although the Internet says they die within minutes of swallowing the toad secretions, one took 12 hours to die and one 4. At the same time the crazy man across the street had a paper plate of cat food on his front porch although he has no pets. After I told Mo in front of him that my kittens had been poisoned and the mom was gone, his plate disappeared.
The first complaint was in my name. "How do you know the school did not do it?" The woman I know did it asked me disarmingly. Because no one exactly walked over there and said hey we got divorced. They would have named the man they thought was the head of household and homeowner. They all know he was born here. It wouldn't have occured to them that I was guilty of letting cats roam, not him. And why would they cite our "unsanitary conditions?" That imples someone who's been in the home. The lady wasn't aware of this, but the only people who have been in my home since I moved back here in july 2000 was her and her boyfriend, my sister and her boyfriend, and my social workers, maids, and nurses.
She then said "Well why don't you suspect the child welfare social worker? I think she did it, myself."
I said, surprised, "Why?"
"Because she was concerned, remember, she asked Marina how many cats you had."
"She told Marina 'you sure have a lot of cats ' and Marina nodded," I corrected.
"See? She was way too concerned about that. It had to be hr."
"Duh," I said."Her report would carry so much more weight if it was agency to agency."
"Huh?" She said.
"Never mind."
"I bet it was her," she was saying, and it was thudding there, and she knew it.
"why don't you suspect your sister?" She said carefully, in a subsequent call. She was the only caller unable to advance past this incident in my life. It was as if she were obsessing on it for me.
"My sister doesn't have a local phone," I explained.
"She doesn't?"
"No, she's been living at my parents for months. She let her phone go months ago."
"Well maybe she called from your parents'."
"You don't know my parents then."
Do I need to go into it? Their house is one room. It's called a Great Room. The only phone is right there. They sit on their respective easy chairs from 8 to 8 every day . Even I have never found a way to sneak a call out on their phone in my entire life.I used to visit an English family every Christmas who lived near my parents. They would not let me use their phone to tell Sasha I was on my way to her place. My mothe ris mentally a little weird and has paranoia. "Who are you calling on my phone? No you can't call anyone on my phone! Call them on your phone.I don't care if you're suposed to call them when you leave here--go to a payphone then. I don't have to let anybody use my phone."
No way would Debbie be allowed on it at all without them over her . The lady who made the calls about me doesn't realize that my mother treats her 2 remaining children like minors.
But then, if I was feeding bufous toads outside (they are known to eat pet food left out at night) or whatever and someone had poison issues, I might quietly throw my plate of cat food away too.Not because I'm guilty but just because . I don't know. We neighbors had to hold out against an onslaught of -johns-hookers-undercover cops-crack dealers thinking they owned our places every time we went away a few minutes. We depended on each other.Harry said it too--that he wouldn't cause trouble with neighbors because we all need each other here. He said he had nothing against the cats around here. There were cats all over the place the years we didn't live here but just ran the stained glass studio here and Dan's dad lived here and then his brother rented it out to a friend , an inspector with the Dept. Of Agriculture who devoted spare time volunteering at the Manatee exhibit at the zoo.Harry never called on anyone's cats all those years. I moved here in 96 with 4--he never cared. At one point with kittens we had 8--he didn;t call the authorities bitching, Then a year after any have been outside, I'm suposed to suspect him or Mo, who has cats and dogs , indoor like mine, called reporting I have 15 cats in unsanitary conditions, and then, the next week, that I have 15 cats running loose in the neighborhood.Since there were no cats loose in the area, what purpose did the calls serve? To threaten me, not to cross a certain person again? Or just to cause me to suspect someone I'd just had a bad experience with, and ensure I was upset with her, rather than having patience with her even if I were exhausted with her? .
