Archive | October 21, 2014

rough weekend

Oct21

It was a rough weekend. Saturday we had to put my sister’s cat to sleep. Failleas was a month shy of 20 years old and she’d had a stroke a few weeks ago and seemed to be her usual senile self but last week she had at least 2 more. She could only walk in circles and was getting lost going from her chair to the potty and back and by Friday morning she couldn’t jump and she had gone blind and deaf in just a few days so her quality of life sucked.

I went with Alison she was going to leave her there but then she asked what I would do and I said I would stay so Alison stayed. I told her she didn’t have to that’s just what I would have done but I’m trained hospice clergy and she isn’t. I’ve been there with mom and dad and while she was around I was the one making the decisions. She’s never had to do that but she stayed and I stayed with her because she wanted me to. It was quick and painless and the vet and staff were very kind but Failleas had been with her for a good share of her life. I took her to get her at the Pasadena Humane Society back in 1995, She found the paperwork with her cat carrier, Failleas which means shadow in Scots Gaelic was about 2 months old when she was rescued from an alley. Alison picked her because she hissed at her. She picked her because it was the only cat that paid attention to her. Failleas hated me from day one and it wasn’t until her sight started to go about a year ago she let me pet her when I fed her in the morning. Before then she always took swats at me. She wouldn’t leave Alison’s room from the moment I moved in with Liath 14 years ago. We had an upstairs cat and a downstairs cat and they only met on the stairs to swat at each other through the bars but I always got the feeling it was for show because Liath always was trying to be friends and would stare down the hall from my room.

So Saturday was a very sad day for us. Sunday I went to the ALS walk and I was amazed to find Mary’s name on the tribute banner. There were a lot of people there. They said 3 times as many as last year. At least a thousand so to find Mary’s name on a banner with only about a 100 names was kind of amazing. When I signed up I just put who I was walking for and I guess they used that.

I was practically the only one not on a team and I only made it about ¾ of the way before my bad knee got cranky and I started to feel really sick, so I rested a bit and took the Expo line train home before I couldn’t walk at all and that last little bit from the Orange line stop to home felt like it was miles away before I go there. It was really cool to see all the people because before the bucket challenge no one seemed to know what ALS was. Renee Zellwiger was there and so was Reese Witherspoon supporting a friend that was diagnosed 2 months ago. Their friend could still stand and walk but there were many in motorized wheelchairs like Mary has to use. Only one was on oxygen so far. There were all kinds of people because ALS is an equal opportunity disease and hits all races and both sexes about equally. A lot of families were there supporting their loved ones. Next year maybe I can get someone to walk with me.

I got home and collapsed

Today’s reading

Oct21

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  Heron
Queen of Cups

Greeting the dawn, often alone, the heron is reputed to be gifted with psychic perception and reflection. The guardian of many esoteric secrets, it is said to stand at the gateway between life and death and to act as mediator on the soul’s journey to the Celtic Otherworld and reincarnation.

Drawing this card denotes someone who is deep, wise, knows when to be silent; is psychic, emotional, able to be solitary, but also able to impart wisdom with maturity and responsibility.

Someone able to be still enough to receive gifts of wisdom.

Tendency to day dreaming and over-passivity.