As you know, my Jericho has been sick, and I knew his death was imminent, but this morning when I woke, he licked at his food a couple of times, drank some water, and laid down in the litter box. I knew I had to mke the decision I didn't want to make and put him to sleep, even though I've been begging God to simply take him so I didn't have to make that choice.
I woke my sister to say her goodbyes to Jericho, and woke my husband to drive me to the vet so I could hold and cuddle my baby all the way there. For his last car ride, there would be no carrier.
We arrived a little early, before the doors opened and we sat in the car as I talked and cried to my furbaby, asking him to forgive me and telling him I was sorry for what I was about to do. Then a few minutes before the doors opened, we got out of the car and waited with the others as it is a first come, first serve clinic.
Jericho struggled in my arms a bit, trying to find a comfortable position, and then he finally found one, but he made some noises I've never heard him make before and he went still, dying in my arms before the doors even opened. I didn't realize it until we'd been sitting in the waiting room for a few minutes and he hadn't moved. I asked my husband if he was gone, and my husband got a tech to come out. He said, "I'm sorry Ma'am, but he's gone."
I cried out to God and sobbed hysterically, as I'm still doing while I write this entry. The tech ushered us out of the waiting room and around to the back door, where a nurse met us and tended to my baby. I kissed him over and over again and told him I loved him and would miss him, paid for an individual cremation with the return of his ashes to me, spent another minute with him and then left with my husband, collapsing outside in hysterics.
But still, I thanked God out loud, for taking him that way and not making me choose to euthanize him. He gave me a special gift of letting my beloved cat leave this world in my loving arms, knowing he was loved more than anything. And I know he loved me too.
So thank you again Lord, for that blessing. You came through, just as I begged you to do. And thank you for forcing me to find the courage to let go, before Jericho could let go.
You are a good God, and I praise your holy name.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
The Kitchen House (Book Review)
Title: The Kitchen House
Author: Kathleen Grissom
Pages: 368
Genre: Historical Fiction
Lavinia came to the old plantation indentured to Cap'n James Pyke, who rescued her from a ship after her parents died while still owing him passage. Her brother, Cardigan, was also rescued, but he was sold off and separated from his little sister.
Upon her arrival at the plantation, she was scared. Everything set her off on a crying jag, but as she grew up in indentured servitude,she saw nothing of black and white, but rather, the slaves who took her in and taught her became her family.
As she grew older, she still looked at things through the eyes of family, and not black and white, and when she was given social opportunities to establish herself as a lady in the white world, she still thought of the slaves as her family, which did not sit well with her husband.
Belle grew up a slave, but she was always promised her freedom papers from Cap'n Pyke. His wife, and everyone else, assumed she was the Cap'n's mistress, but in reality, she was his daughter, and he took care of her well, until his death. Her freedom papers had come, but they were intercepted by the Cap'n's wife and hidden for many years.
This story was told by two different points of view - Lavinia's and Belle's, but I feel it gave a rounded portrayal of what it was like to live in slavery and servitude from the differences of black and white. They lived similarly, but they were very different, a fact that finally became apparent to Lavinia after she married Marshall, Cap'n Pyke's son.
Still, with all the good and bad going on at the plantation, Lavinia refused to see the slaves as anything less than her family, and she addressed them as such.
I'm not usually given to reading books of this nature, because slavery disgusts me. It also makes me realize that at that time in history, my own marriage never would've been acceptable. That said, I'm amazed that the Civil War, of which this book never spoke, is still my favorite period in history.
In any case, I would recommend this book for anyone to read. I gave it five stars.
Author: Kathleen Grissom
Pages: 368
Genre: Historical Fiction
Lavinia came to the old plantation indentured to Cap'n James Pyke, who rescued her from a ship after her parents died while still owing him passage. Her brother, Cardigan, was also rescued, but he was sold off and separated from his little sister.
Upon her arrival at the plantation, she was scared. Everything set her off on a crying jag, but as she grew up in indentured servitude,she saw nothing of black and white, but rather, the slaves who took her in and taught her became her family.
As she grew older, she still looked at things through the eyes of family, and not black and white, and when she was given social opportunities to establish herself as a lady in the white world, she still thought of the slaves as her family, which did not sit well with her husband.
Belle grew up a slave, but she was always promised her freedom papers from Cap'n Pyke. His wife, and everyone else, assumed she was the Cap'n's mistress, but in reality, she was his daughter, and he took care of her well, until his death. Her freedom papers had come, but they were intercepted by the Cap'n's wife and hidden for many years.
This story was told by two different points of view - Lavinia's and Belle's, but I feel it gave a rounded portrayal of what it was like to live in slavery and servitude from the differences of black and white. They lived similarly, but they were very different, a fact that finally became apparent to Lavinia after she married Marshall, Cap'n Pyke's son.
Still, with all the good and bad going on at the plantation, Lavinia refused to see the slaves as anything less than her family, and she addressed them as such.
I'm not usually given to reading books of this nature, because slavery disgusts me. It also makes me realize that at that time in history, my own marriage never would've been acceptable. That said, I'm amazed that the Civil War, of which this book never spoke, is still my favorite period in history.
In any case, I would recommend this book for anyone to read. I gave it five stars.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
The One About Books
I love books. All books. Contemporary Christian is probably my favorite genre, but I don't limit myself to that. I read mysteries. I read books on the "banned" list because I believe in freedom of speech and expression. I read romances. I read everything that looks interesting to me.
I belong to several book clubs on the Goodreads website, and I belong to a book club made up of friends and family members. Right now I'm reading "Water for Elephants" for one of the book clubs. I have a stack of to be read books about a mile high. "The Kitchen House" is next on my reading list for one of my book clubs.
I like having my mind broadened and expanded. I like being taken to different states, cities, countries. My perfect vacation is going somewhere warm, where I can lay on a beach with a stack of books and just revel in the moment while being taken away at the same time.
Sometimes the books I read have questionable language or sex scenes in them. I'm not so much into that sort of thing, but when I think about the fact that my favorite book of all time, The Bible, also has rape, sex, murder, adultery, and you name it, I can overlook an awful lot. There's nothing new under the sun. I don't, however, get into the graphic descriptions and just skip over that until I get back to the story at hand.
But, yes, The Bible is my favorite book. It has a little bit of everything inside it, all while being the guide for life, teaching spiritual truths that cannot be refuted. I love it. I don't read it enough, in my estimation, but I'm changing that, slowly but surely, adding reading time into my daily routine.
Right now, I just sort of jump around and open the book, seeing where the Lord leads me. At the beginning of the year, I'm going to start a year-long study, set up by Holly Wagner in her GodChicks devotional book. I'm looking forward to it.
So the Bible. Do you read it? If not, you should. You might be pleasantly surprised by it.
I belong to several book clubs on the Goodreads website, and I belong to a book club made up of friends and family members. Right now I'm reading "Water for Elephants" for one of the book clubs. I have a stack of to be read books about a mile high. "The Kitchen House" is next on my reading list for one of my book clubs.
I like having my mind broadened and expanded. I like being taken to different states, cities, countries. My perfect vacation is going somewhere warm, where I can lay on a beach with a stack of books and just revel in the moment while being taken away at the same time.
Sometimes the books I read have questionable language or sex scenes in them. I'm not so much into that sort of thing, but when I think about the fact that my favorite book of all time, The Bible, also has rape, sex, murder, adultery, and you name it, I can overlook an awful lot. There's nothing new under the sun. I don't, however, get into the graphic descriptions and just skip over that until I get back to the story at hand.
But, yes, The Bible is my favorite book. It has a little bit of everything inside it, all while being the guide for life, teaching spiritual truths that cannot be refuted. I love it. I don't read it enough, in my estimation, but I'm changing that, slowly but surely, adding reading time into my daily routine.
Right now, I just sort of jump around and open the book, seeing where the Lord leads me. At the beginning of the year, I'm going to start a year-long study, set up by Holly Wagner in her GodChicks devotional book. I'm looking forward to it.
So the Bible. Do you read it? If not, you should. You might be pleasantly surprised by it.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Never Turn Your Back On Your Own
Isaiah 58:7
Sharing your bread with the hungry,
sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;
Clothing the naked when you see them,
and not turning your back on your own.
sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;
Clothing the naked when you see them,
and not turning your back on your own.
What I'm about to talk about may seem like it's tooting my own horn, but I can assure you, that's the furthest thing from my mind. These are facts and that's all I'm dealing with here.
I worry a lot about my family. We put the fun in dysfunctional. I'm the oldest of six children; three girls and three boys. We're a blended family, but as far as I'm concerned, there are no half-siblings or step-siblings. We are brothers and sisters.
As the oldest, I feel a certain sense of responsibility toward the others, but at the same time, I know their choices are their own to make. I don't agree with them, but things are what they are. They don't listen to me, so I'm pretty powerless to do much of anything, but I do what I can.
Right now, I'm most concerned with my middle brother and youngest sister, as they have turned away from each other and there doesn't seem to be anything any of us can do about it. They are going to have to work their issues with each other out by themselves, IF they ever will. At this point, it's looking pretty doubtful.
You see, my youngest sister is bipolar and an alcoholic. She's on the road to sobriety now, but it's taken her a long time and a lot of heartache to get her here, and she still has relapses from time to time. We're working on that, my husband and I and my sister, and we make sure she gets to her AA meetings and outpatient treatment programs as needed. Mom and Dad help out once in a while with that, but since she lives with my husband and I, we shoulder the biggest responsibility for her, including financial. Of all my brothers and sisters and their families, we have the lowest income and the least amount to be able to share, but we do so willingly because we love my sister.
That's part of the problem. My sister has issues with middle brother because he is the wealthiest of all of us, and lives in a huge house with two extra bedrooms, three if he took out his office, and those rooms sit empty. He's never once offered to help her or take her in or offer to help us out financially so we're not shouldering the total burden for her. It's a burden of love, as far as I'm concerned, but my brother doesn't see it that way.
He things she's a self-absorbed, self-indulgent, screw up. He thinks her bipolar disorder is garbage. His whole involvement with her was to force her into rehab before she was ready to go, and then she left after only 33 days in the program. He's pushed for rehab until he got it, and he's pushed for her to go to jail for some of the things she's done. I love him dearly, but he is a cheapskate and thinks everything is just so easy to fix. He's clearly in his own world about this.
The two of them have had verbal battles like you wouldn't believe. It hurts me to hear them ripping each other apart.
Now, with the holidays quickly approaching there's already tension. When she was living in Florida, we always spent the holidays at my brother's house. She won't go over there, and what's more, she's not welcome there anyway. It's got my mom in a dither... talking about canceling Christmas in our family and how she's already taken everyone's Christmas presents back to the stores already.
I'm not getting in the middle of this. I'm giving my Christmas presents out early. As soon as my sister-in-law's gift arrives, I will be taking hers and my brother's gifts over there and explain that I'm staying home and celebrating the birth of Christ with my family without all the presents hoo-ha.
I just can't deal with it. Not Mom's suffering because she can't have her family together, and not brother and sister bickering. Scratch that. It's gone beyond bickering to outright hatred.
Reminds me of a Take Six song, "If we ever needed the Lord before, we sure do need him now."
All I can do is pray. I want them to work things out so we can all be a family again, and then we can deal with the rest of the brothers and sisters and the way they've turned their backs on us all.
Me, middle brother, youngest sister
Last Christmas. The last time we were all together. I hope it's not the last time.
Back row: Middle brother, my husband
Middle Row: Sister-in-law, me
Front Row: Dad, Mom, youngest sister
Middle Row: Sister-in-law, me
Front Row: Dad, Mom, youngest sister
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
There Is An Appointed Time For Everything Under Heaven (Ecc 3:1)
I'm a crier. I cry at books, movies, and television shows that touch my heart. Today I cried.
My sister Corri and I typically watch reruns of older sitcoms in the afternoon: Still Standing, Grounded for Life, My Wife and Kids, and 8 Simple Rules. The latter in this list of sitcom gems were the episodes that were filmed immediately after John Ritter's death. I'd never seen the first part of the two-part episode where Kate (Katey Segal) gets the phone call about her husband's death.
I cried through the whole thing. In fact, I cry an awful lot lately.
Jericho, my 17 year-old cat, has hyperthyroidism. Lately he's been doing weird things, like sleeping in a spot where my sister's old cat used to pee a lot, and laying down in the litter box. I remember Dinah laying in the litter box before we had to put her to sleep. It has freaked me out.
You see, Jericho, with his illness, has gone from an almost 20 pound cat, down to eight pounds. The vet says he's not sufering and his illness is being controlled by the medication I give him every day. I'm taking her at her word, because the truth is, not only am I not ready to lose my furbaby companion, I cannot bring myself to put him down. I am hoping that God will take that decision out of my hands and that when it really is Jericho's time, God will grace me by just taking him in his sleep. I simply cannot make that choice. I can't do it. I've done it once before for our family's dog, and it about killed me.
I've cried and railed to God that I'm not strong enough to do it for Jericho. I'm not a good steward of this wonderful gift of my baby boy if I can't be strong enough to release him when the time comes. And that time is coming. I know it. Every time I think about it, I'm reduced to tears.
So today, while watching 8 Simple Rules, I cried some more. I cried for the loss of John Ritter, and of the character he played on the show. I cried for Jett, the cat I lost three years ago. And I cried for Jericho, knowing our time is growing shorter.
I guess I don't understand why God created our pets to live shorter lives than ours. It almost seems cruel. But part of me thinks it's so that we can love many animals in our lifetime. It's the only explanation that makes sense.
Maybe there is no sense to be made of it and it simply is what it is. Our pets don't have souls, but they do have spirits. I know we'll see them when we die. It just seems like such a long time before that will happen, but I guess there is a time for everything.
Right now, I choose to dance, with just a little mourning and weeping from time to time.
My sister Corri and I typically watch reruns of older sitcoms in the afternoon: Still Standing, Grounded for Life, My Wife and Kids, and 8 Simple Rules. The latter in this list of sitcom gems were the episodes that were filmed immediately after John Ritter's death. I'd never seen the first part of the two-part episode where Kate (Katey Segal) gets the phone call about her husband's death.
I cried through the whole thing. In fact, I cry an awful lot lately.
Jericho, my 17 year-old cat, has hyperthyroidism. Lately he's been doing weird things, like sleeping in a spot where my sister's old cat used to pee a lot, and laying down in the litter box. I remember Dinah laying in the litter box before we had to put her to sleep. It has freaked me out.
You see, Jericho, with his illness, has gone from an almost 20 pound cat, down to eight pounds. The vet says he's not sufering and his illness is being controlled by the medication I give him every day. I'm taking her at her word, because the truth is, not only am I not ready to lose my furbaby companion, I cannot bring myself to put him down. I am hoping that God will take that decision out of my hands and that when it really is Jericho's time, God will grace me by just taking him in his sleep. I simply cannot make that choice. I can't do it. I've done it once before for our family's dog, and it about killed me.
I've cried and railed to God that I'm not strong enough to do it for Jericho. I'm not a good steward of this wonderful gift of my baby boy if I can't be strong enough to release him when the time comes. And that time is coming. I know it. Every time I think about it, I'm reduced to tears.
So today, while watching 8 Simple Rules, I cried some more. I cried for the loss of John Ritter, and of the character he played on the show. I cried for Jett, the cat I lost three years ago. And I cried for Jericho, knowing our time is growing shorter.
I guess I don't understand why God created our pets to live shorter lives than ours. It almost seems cruel. But part of me thinks it's so that we can love many animals in our lifetime. It's the only explanation that makes sense.
Maybe there is no sense to be made of it and it simply is what it is. Our pets don't have souls, but they do have spirits. I know we'll see them when we die. It just seems like such a long time before that will happen, but I guess there is a time for everything.
Ecc 3:1-4
There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A tine to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to tear down, and a time to build.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance.
Right now, I choose to dance, with just a little mourning and weeping from time to time.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Bossypants (Book Review)
Title: Bossypants
Author: Tina Fey
Pages: 277
Genre: Non-fiction, autobiography
This is probably going to be one of the shortest book reviews I've ever done.
I wasn't a Tina Fey fan before I read the book and I'm not one after reading it. In fact, as much as I enjoyed the book for the most part, her vulgarity, I felt was mostly unnecessary and made me think less of her.
She is, however, not very "Hollywood" or even real New Yorker. She's pretty down to earth, which is something I appreciated about her. She calls things like she sees them, and in a male dominated career of script writers, Tina is somewhat groundbreaking in her accomplishments.
She offers her advice and opinion on everything from careers, to marriage, to having children, and breast feeding. Take the opinions for what they're worth.
I wouldn't have chosen to read this book if it weren't for a November book club selection. As it is, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
Author: Tina Fey
Pages: 277
Genre: Non-fiction, autobiography
This is probably going to be one of the shortest book reviews I've ever done.
I wasn't a Tina Fey fan before I read the book and I'm not one after reading it. In fact, as much as I enjoyed the book for the most part, her vulgarity, I felt was mostly unnecessary and made me think less of her.
She is, however, not very "Hollywood" or even real New Yorker. She's pretty down to earth, which is something I appreciated about her. She calls things like she sees them, and in a male dominated career of script writers, Tina is somewhat groundbreaking in her accomplishments.
She offers her advice and opinion on everything from careers, to marriage, to having children, and breast feeding. Take the opinions for what they're worth.
I wouldn't have chosen to read this book if it weren't for a November book club selection. As it is, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
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