Friends, furries, and Discontent, musing on death

 It's snowing, in April. Welcome to Western PA.

I'm ruminating on sad events. They tell you not to do that, but, it's my blog and I can do what I want. (tongue in cheek)

One day I came home from school and my dog was gone. my mom took him back to the pet shop, my brother was allergic. No build up, no explanation, just gone from my life. I was ten. How does a child process that?

My horse drowned, decades ago. My best friend and I tied him up  too close with my brother's horse, the leads got tangled. My horse fell. The rain poured down. He drowned in the swell of the creek.

I had the flue. All the ugly events came together for disaster. When I asked my brother to check on him, it was too late.

My heart broke. Comanche was young, too young to die. I was twelve.

A dapple gray, close to my horse.

Life is full of devastating losses. My brother gone when I was 24, my only sibling. My parents would never talk of it. How do you recover from that? You march on, as they say.

* * *

My good friend is suffering through cancer. She had breast cancer 15 years ago. It returned as bonce cancer. 

She's afraid to die. I'm terrified to lose her. Today she gets the news that will tell how bad it has gotten. I want to be there, even in Covid, but she's 3,000 miles away on the west coast. 

She got the news, the cancer has spread. The docs will do a more aggressive chemo on her, shunt on all. She might have a year. Why do evil people skate through life and good ones get death sentences?

Another good friend has a husband dying of a rare cancer. She's in England. We've been pen-pal critique buddies since 2006. We finally met up two years ago in London. She was all I'd imagined her to be. I hope I passed muster. I can't find the pic of us together. Her husband has about a year.

I don't want to lose any of these women, one through disease, the other through grief. But we must stay strong, march on, gird our loins, grit our teeth. I plan to visit her in a couple of years, when Covid fades away. 

Even when pieces are chipped away throughout leaving us like Swiss cheese, Americans are supposed to pretend to be happy, but I think we are all different. I'm grateful for what I have but grieve over my losses, or losses to come.

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My Dog or My Mother

 Almost two years ago my dog Fritzie passed over the Rainbow Bridge, as they say. He was old, sixteen, and had just had a convulsion. I'm still broken hearted at his loss. He was a part of me constantly since a little puppy. He loved me unconditionally. I knew it was time for him to leave, but still there's a hollow place in my heart where he'd been nestled so sweetly.

Two weeks ago my mother died. She lived out in California, over two thousand miles away. Our relationship, while fine as a child, had grown acrimonious. Since I was a teenager we'd had 'issues'. Most I didn't understand and she wouldn't let me in on her animosity. I wanted us to be close, confiding, the "My mom is my best friend!" stuff I saw in other people. But she was bitter and took it out on me.

We were hit and miss for many years. I was ashamed to speak of it since no one understood. When she ended up in a nursing home, and we flew out to pack out her apartment, she was at first okay, then accused me of things, bitter again. I'm thankful my high school girlfriends joined in the packing out business. I couldn't have done it without them. But they too didn't understand the animosity.

I guess I need to form a Facebook group, 'Daughters who had bad relationships with their Moms'.

I miss my dog more than my mom. He was there for me to the very last. My mom had pulled away to snarl like a beast who could have eaten her young. Where was the Brownie leader I once knew?

Mom on our vacation in the sixties. Yellowstone?

I'd mourned the loss of our relationship years ago. A friend once told me, you never get the parents you wish you had. My father once said that, too.

After becoming a mom myself, I realize no matter how hard you try, relationships never evolve as you wish they would.

I mourn my dog for the love he gave me every day of his life, and my mom for the love in my childhood. 

I hope my two granddaughters know how much I love them. 

In the Second Year of Covid, I hope for better things. Hurry up with that damned vaccine! It's here, but not here in PA.