Threads

This blog was begun a few weeks ago when the weather was outrageously cold. 

I have been enjoying pondering a challenge I set for myself this past week.  I had three things I found myself wanting to talk about on the blog, none of them taking up a lot of words but all just on my mind.  The challenge I pondered was “is there anything that connects these three things?”  Can I talk about all three in the midst of one blog and have it all make sense?  I am going to try.

The first thing I want to share is one of the gifts that Jill gave me this Christmas.  Jill seems to really enjoy the shopping process and she is thoughtful about what she knows about people.  She knows that I love sunflowers.  In her looking around she found an Etsy artist who makes baskets of sunflowers using a crochet pattern.  She purchased it for me. I love everything about this gift. 

It is cute.  It is pretty.  It is so well done and it reflects what Jill knows about her Mama.  The reason I love sunflowers is that I feel like we have a connection.  They are tall growing plants.  In one of my earliest years here in the south I was driving past a field of sunflowers and I noticed that occasionally one pops up high about the others.  When I saw this I laughed out loud.  That looked like so many pictures of me among my peers…..a line of people, and then there’s Kathy, head and shoulders taller than others.  I love sunflowers because I relate to them I think.  Jill intended for me to hang this from the mirror in my car but I feel like I will appreciate it more in the house.  So that is where it is.

Another thing I wanted to tell readers about is that Russ and I got a new duvet set for Christmas.  It was in my Amazon cart for several months.  We have lots of blankets so I felt a little decadent wanting it but we have recently started using a down quilt inside a duvet (a quilt bag) for bedding, we needed a second duvet cover.  Russ and I love color, that was the main thing that drew me to this set, its why I put it in my cart and finally ordered it.   I wrapped it up and it went under the tree, the tag said, “To Kathy and Russ, Love from Bingo.”  Bingo is the dog that will protect Russ from all threats, seen and unseen.  What I forgot when I ordered it was that the set also contained a bottom sheet.  I ordered extra pillow cases.  The end result is the least restful bedroom scene you might ever see.  It is an almost nauseating amount of color, but honestly, we just love it. 

What we learned after it was washed and put on the bed is that this is the softest bedding I have ever had.  It is astonishing how comforting this comforter is.    What I really wanted to say when I started out on this little story is a word of warning to anyone who might be thinking about purchasing a duvet or quilt pattern such as this.  Be prepared to lose the remote control, your phone or your eyeglasses, multiple times a day.  Everything blends into the craziness of it and it does induce a small panic, especially when your glasses are lost and therefore you can’t see anything and because of the pattern you can’t see anything!  Russ and I are mighty grateful to Bingo for her generosity and we are thankful for the comfort and warmth we have had from that gift, especially in the last week.

It is now February 9th and I am trying to make progress on this.

The third thing that I was pondering heavily as this blog got started was the fact that we had a barn cat living in our basement bathroom. It had been discovered injured when the weather was so very threatening, it had no movement in its lower half.  Our best guess is that it was stepped on by a calf that could have weighed as much as 700 pounds. Besides apparent paralysis it was weak and had a frostbitten ear when the decision was made to bring it in for warmth, assessment, and food. That decision was made on the condition that I was heard, and I was, I wanted it known that I was not having anything to do with that cat. 

That was a few weeks ago now. The reason I limited my involvement right from the start was, I think, that I couldn’t handle the suffering, pitifulness and hopelessness of the situation. There was something in me that was so very weary and still not healed after the fires, weather challenges, deaths, chaos and injuries that shaped 2020 and the couple years afterwards. I didn’t think I had it in me. 

That is not how it all ended up unfolding. I began to check on the cat when asked to, I took it food once or twice in the early days, it wasn’t that hard or emotionally taxing and the practical side of me kicked in. I did the laundry created by the situation, thats my strength in all times of chaos. The thinking in those days arose from what Russ was told by a vet he knew when he was younger, that vet said, “if a cats bones are all in the same room, they will knit back together.” We were subscribing to the mystery and resilience captured in  Phil’s phrase and giving that cat six weeks to show it was healing. About four days in I was listening to a podcast while doing laundry, the speaker presented evidence on the power of touch. Its a big deal. Suddenly, I couldn’t stand that this cat was isolated in a room with no windows and getting only basic care. Morgan and Russ were watching TV and I went upstairs and said to them, “guys, if I brought the cat up, would one of you pet it?” Russ jumped to the opportunity. I brought the cat up with his waterproof bed pad, settled him in with the guys and went back to what I was working on. This set the pattern for all the days since. The cat never returned to the basement bathroom but took residence in the upstairs guest bathroom. This is not the first time we harbored an ailing animal in there.  We hosted an injured rabbit in that bathroom a few years ago.  Russell imagined that rabbit was likely the spouse to “Jack” rabbit, and so he called it “Diane.” If you know the John Cougar Mellencamp song “Jack and Diane,” you know Russell’s starting point for the naming.  We got a bit weird.   After Diane passed we started to call that bathroom the “Diane Mellencamp Memorial Bathroom.”  And it got zanier yet, I made a door plaque on Shutterfly that made the name official, it hangs there, a nod to our tender days with Diane, Jack rabbits spouse.  Anyways…. anytime the guys were watching TV they would include Rumble. Soon physiotherapy began, Russ was working at keeping joints moving and stimulating nerve activity. Jill was home recently and joined in the work. 

For my part I took over most of the food delivery, and also stimulation. I set up stations in front of three different windows where the cat could sit and observe the outdoors.  Rumble got stronger and the physiotherapists in the family were certain they were seeing some improvement. Then, earlier this week, Rumble stopped eating and drinking. Thursday he had some seizures and by later in the afternoon he passed away, Russ was there. It was very sad but it was also a relief, all the unknowns that had hung in the air for a few weeks were now knowns. 

Our experience has left us with things to ponder. 

We all were relieved and touched by the fact that despite all the mean noise and action that the dogs direct at each other and Buster, our resident house cat, not a single animal in our house ever made a threatening noise or action towards the cat. Its like they could see he was vulnerable, he was sniffed at times, he was curiously looked at, but there never seemed to be jealousy or resentment for the attention or more luscious food he was getting. Their “maturity” and insight really amazed me and touched me. 

We never really experienced the cat being happy. It took to Russell quickly and would occasionally purr with him, but around me he never gave a warm fuzzy. I found myself wondering if he recognized Russ from all the time he spends in the barn, maybe he already had a trust in him. 

I put myself in that cats shoes. He had quite a story.  He began his life as a growing cat amongst many at our friends’ place.  A couple years ago, on a day when they were coming over with a trailer of horses he got in the trailer at some point before they headed over.  Russell witnessed him launching out of that trailer at 70 mph when the door was opened.  He was quite wild and could not be caught for a return trip so we kept him.   A couple weeks later, when Gina was home, the cat was at the house looking for food and upsetting Buster.  Gina lured him to herself with bacon, brought him in and petted him, and then showed him the barn and the location of the cat food dish. That day she named him “Rumble.”   Besides those minutes of contact Rumble had lived his whole life looking out for himself, always alert in order to protect his survival. He would have worked to stay far from coyotes and other threatening forces in the wild while doing his mouse hunting.  Then came his encounter with a calf, in -40 weather.  With the paralysis of his back legs he was absolutely vulnerable.  Once he was brought into the house he was thrust into a world he had almost no knowledge of, he didn’t know if he was safe. When left to drag himself around, for a little exercise and experience of autonomy he would quite quickly drag himself back to his bathroom, it was his safe zone. I couldn’t be upset that he never gave me the message that I was one of his safe people. He didn’t have it in him, yet. 

I am an analytical person, in our days with Rumble cat I see many parallels to human experience and especially to what it means to have the love of God shaping our days. When that cat moved into our house we had the chance to give it safety and love, we had the chance to transform its experience of the world. Although it was suffering it had compassion and love. This speaks very clearly to me of how I have known God in my life. I am so very blessed to know a life shaped more by love and compassion than by the “survival of the fittest” reality. I believe it is the power of God that has carved out every space and moment where love and compassion rule the day. It means alot to me that despite the initial hesitation I had in being involved in this cat’s days, we had the chance to use our energy to comfort and bring the reality of love to it. It reinforces my sense of self as one of God’s people when I remember how I ended up being a comforter.

I began this blog with a personal challenge to myself to tie the sunflower, quilt bag gift and cat stories together. The things that unfolded with Rumble made a common thread pretty clear to me. 

Being spiritually and physically comforted in the cold of night, (both literal and symbolic) is so important. 

God has knit us together to be comforters. 

We help weave God’s story and carve space for love and compassion when we find our way clear to be those who extend comfort to others. 

May it be so.