The cat and the co-worker are both dead.
Tom,
my Walmart co-worker,
who respected me so much,
was born April 12, 1958.
He died February 6, 2014,
at 55 years and ten months old.
The cat,
who was so ill in January,
seemed fine,
for two months,
then died suddenly.
More below the divider doodle.
A special welcome
to anyone new to The Grieving Room.
We meet every Monday evening.
Whether your loss is recent,
or many years ago;
whether you've lost a person,
or a pet;
or even if the person you're "mourning" is still alive,
("pre-grief" can be a very lonely and confusing time),
you can come to this diary
and say
whatever you need to say.
Unlike a private journal,
here,
you know:
your words are read by people who share your values
and have been through their own hell.
There's no need to pretty it up
or tone it down.
It just is.
.....and then eat pie.
Here is the link to all the previous The Grieving Room diaries:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Read more about Tom and the cat
here.
That's a link to the last
The Grieving Room
diary I wrote,
this past January.
The funeral for Tom
was in the next small town to the west,
but a short drive for me,
since I commute ten miles west anyway,
to go to work.
The funeral was at 10:30 AM.
I was scheduled to check in at work at
3 PM.
All I had to do was
get up a few hours earlier than usual,
drive 25 miles west,
to the location of the funeral.
Then,
after the funeral,
go back east 15 miles,
to my Walmart workplace,
arriving in plenty of time.
I didn't do it;
I missed his funeral.
Did I miss the funeral
because it seemed too painful to go?
Or because I didn't actually feel the emotional need to go?
Or,
should we just call me lazy,
blame it on inertia,
the tendency of a body at rest
to remain at rest,
in my bed,
til I had to go to work?
As for how the cat died:
I don't know.
Since I didn't see him drink any water
the last time or two
that I put water out for him,
and he died in the pet taxi,
in the kitchen,
near a heater,
maybe he dehydrated.
The amazing thing about his death,
a thing not typical to discuss
here at a grief support group,
is that I simply didn't feel bad,
when I saw he was dead.
I put him out,
way in the back of the back yard,
still in the pet taxi,
to freeze solid.
On trash night,
I dumped him into doubled trash bags,
and put him in the dumpster,
to be picked up a few hours later.
The standard kind of sensibility
that we write about,
that we so often feel,
especially here at this grief support group,
is that any human,
any pet,
that we invest in,
spend quality time with,
try to help,
feed and water,
any such animal,
human,
dog,
or cat,
we fall apart when they die,
because it simply
hurts
so
much.
But this time,
it didn't hurt.
It didn't hurt much,
when we lost a puppy
to distemper
about a year ago.
It didn't hurt
when we lost our cockatiel,
over a year ago.
It may not fit
the way you think,
but I think I don't feel so much pain
at the loss of this or that animal,
because I focus so much
of my emotional and physical investment
on my wife, Tonia,
and her family.
If Tonia and I
are alive and well,
whatever others die
is not a major concern to me.
That's exaggerated
and over simplified,
but that's the deep down feeling I have,
apparently.
Important note:
I am apparently on the autism spectrum,
along with so many others out there.
Those of us with autism
are said to have less empathy,
to feel less grief,
than others.
That's likely a factor.
I may connect with your grief here,
and feel some of your pain,
but no pain for the cat
who died in the kitchen.
Although a little pain came on,
when I read my last grief diary,
about the cat.
It sounds good to say,
we should have such big hearts
that we embrace with such passion,
anyone we know,
every pet we touch.
But I don't always do that,
apparently.
Maybe writing about that
will help some of you
who don't feel pain
when you thought you should.
I,
for one,
think it's very much okay
to bury your cat
without a tear.
You'll have plenty of occasions to cry,
if you live long enough.
Last fall,
one of Tonia's uncles died.
His death haunts me,
and part of the reason
is the way black Americans,
(My new family is a black American family)
the way black Americans are mistreated
by the American criminal justice system.
Tonia had several uncles
who did many things,
for years,
for decades,
things that no one should be proud of.
I won't go into details,
but jail time
would not seem unreasonable
for any of these uncles.
The uncle who died last fall,
Rhonell,
certainly indulged in behavior
that most would say
should be answered,
by our system,
with stern words,
clear conviction on his record,
and maybe some actual prison time.
Although I've always wondered
what good it does in the long run
to lock folks up.
It feels good to say it,
"lock 'em up,"
but in the long run,
does it help?
Anyway.
He was put in prison
for 30 years.
I'm reasonably certain
that a white man
convicted of a similar crime
would not have been sentenced
to three decades in prison.
Diabetes runs in my wife's family.
That's likely how my Tonia will die,
someday.
Rhonell had health troubles
while in prison,
and did not get proper care.
By the time he was released,
he had one foot amputated,
and he needed home nursing care,
to keep him healthy as possible.
Two of Tonia's brothers
went to school,
and got certified
as nurses aides,
so they could do a good job
of caring for Rhonell,
when he got out of prison.
Tonia went to pick him up,
and her car broke down along the way.
I tell this story
to get you to feel
the loyalty my new family has
for each other.
And the pain I feel
at the unequal treatment
black Americans get.
Rhonell did not hire Tonia's brothers.
Neither he nor those he hired
did very well
in taking care of him.
He was okay for a few years,
I said hello to him
on the city bus once.
I visited him in the hospital once.
He used to play the bongo drums;
he had thick, strong, bongo player hands.
He died September 24th.
I went to his funeral
on October 4th.
Now,
to news about the family I was born into,
the white, Irish family.
This is a link to a picture on Facebook,
a picture of my younger brother and his wife,
and my oldest sister:
my brother, Brent, his wife, Brigitte, and Adonna
Those three are the smokers in our family.
Adonna will be dead within a year.
She looks way different than I ever remember
seeing her.
If it weren't for the context,
I would never guess that's my sister.
She looks like an overdone caricature
of an old lady,
smiling as she dies of cancer.
No bad health news yet
on Brent and Brigitte.
But remember,
my co-worker, Tom,
now dead and buried,
was born the same year as my brother, Brent.
And women die, on average, much sooner than men,
from tobacco.
So,
the sequence will likely be this:
Adonna will die,
Brigitte will die,
Brent will die.
I'm not sure I will go
to any of the funerals.
Adonna is in Houston;
the money and stress of the trip,
from Wichita to Houston,
may be too great for me to ask my wife and myself,
as a team,
to endure.
And when Brigitte dies,
my brother might fail to notify me.
He didn't tell me
when his wife's parents died.
I found out from the grave markers
near our parents' grave markers,
when I went to see them.
Here is a picture of our nephew,
and his wife and baby.
my nephew, Brent
The first name is the same as my brother,
Brent,
but the nephew Brent
is the son of Lois,
the non-smoker police sketch artist.
To make it more confusing,
the wife of the nephew Brent,
is named Laura.
Laura is the name of my other sister,
the non-smoker who was born
the same day as me,
but three years earlier than me.
One reason I wanted to post these pictures
is to partly satisfy your curiosity:
What does bigjac/Mark look like,
anyway?
Look at the picture of my nephew,
and that's pretty close to how I looked,
when I was that young.
Look at the picture of my brother,
and that's close to how I look now.
Except,
I actually look a little younger than him,
in spite of being three years older.
He's been smoking,
and working outdoors,
for decades,
while I've done neither.
Direct sunlight ages the skin,
and smoking ages the face.
I tend to let my whiskers grow out
for two weeks at a time,
so my chin and lower face
tend to look like this guy:
Sir Edmund Hillary
Wait a minute!
Time out!
The reason for me posting this diary
at this time of year,
this time of this month:
tomorrow,
the 11th of March,
is the sixth anniversary date
of the death of my first wife, Pam,
in 2008.
I'm busted.
I have only twenty minutes
to get this diary done.
I don't have time to write a great deal
about the life and death,
the charming smile,
of Pam.
Focus for a moment,
on what I just wrote:
The charming smile of Pam.
Pam and I built a marriage,
a pretty good marriage,
one that lasted 30 years.
We built that marriage
on a few basic things:
I'm fairly diligent.
I'm fairly nurturing.
Pam had a charming smile.
We were both fairly sensible,
and there's always luck involved,
but her smile
was a big part of the marriage.
I have mementos,
all around the room,
surrounding Tonia and I;
Christmas bears,
with the year 2007 on the foot,
the last Christmas Pam and I had together.
A wheelchair cover,
hand embroidered by her mother,
with the words,
"We've only just begun...
October 29,
1977"
hanging above our heads,
draped over the curtain rod.
I have vinyl albums,
and cassette tapes,
and music cd's,
hundreds of them,
all picked out by Pam.
I have a receipt in my wallet,
showing that I got $80 cash
for my wedding band,
sold as scrap gold.
Pam was practical;
she would have approved.
Tonia talks more about Pam
than I do.
Pam is not forgotten.
I was just thinking about more recent loss,
when I started this diary.
Thanks for reading.
I'm leaving these quotes in,
from the last time I posted here:
Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Satchel Paige
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/...
Here's my poem,
the only one I formally call a poem:
Life Poem
We do what we can
with what we've got.
Our life is only that.
We stand,
at the end of the day.
We see some respect from a few,
our friends.
We smile for a moment.
And then we're gone.
Thanks for reading.
The comment thread
is an open thread,
for you to use,
to pour out your heart,
reveal your pain.
It usually helps
to write it out,
and crying is healthy.
So,
don't hold back.
.......and then eat pie.