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Stashia: b. Aug 5, 1981 d. Nov 30, 2002
Dec. 6th, 2002 11:43 pmOkay, the "big thing" that happened on Saturday was that one of our kitties died -- Stashia (so named because she had a little lopsided black Charlie Chaplin mustache marking), five days short of being 21 year, 5 months old, so she was not a young kitty by any means... but it's still sad.
Her mother, Sam, (full name: Samantha Tilden) who was barely older than she was, died a couple of months ago, and I think Stashia just decided to stop living...
She, her three sisters and one brother, were born the summer that the movie Buckaroo Banzai was first released to movie theaters. One kitten was adopted by another family, and we kept the other three.
Before the kittens opened their eyes, Trevor, one of our dogs, took a special liking to Stashia, and would very carefully and gently carry her out of the nest in his mouth, and take her to a special place and snuggle with her between his paws. ... Stashia loved him all her life, and would leap up and throw her paws around his neck when he came through the door. :-) Sadly, Trevor died of old age about four years ago.
After that, Stashia tried to shower her affections on Bill, the second of our three dogs, but he was a bit embarrassed by a cat trying to befriend him... Bill died of cancer 2 years ago.
But long before that happened, way back when: As the female kittens were opening their eyes, and climbing out of the front of the drawer where Sam had made the nest, the male kitten was trying to climb up the dresser. Naturally, we named him "Buckaroo Bonzai" -- it fit, too... he walked with a swagger.
When my mom's cancer had matasticized to her liver, he would lie with her, and she swore he took away her pain... absorbed it into himself. Within two years of my mother dying, Buckaroo got feline lukemia -- which matasicized into an inoperable tumor in his liver -- and died shortly afterward.
Sam, Buckaroo, and Stashia were sort of like a posse... Tammy, the third kitten, was always sort of a loner. *She's* still going strong.
So, with Trevor, and Bill, and Buckaroo, and Sam gone, I think Stashia just decided that it was time for her to go too...
Me? I miss them all... but the sting isn't quite as strong as it might be, because I really said goodbye to them all when I moved south 5 years ago. I'd come home to visit twice a year, of course, but the animals -- especially the cats -- didn't really see me as a member of the family anymore... more like a nice, visiting stranger.
But Dad? I'm not sure... I'm not worried about him exactly... but.
In the six years since I moved, the four-leggeds have been his family, and he's really learned to communicate with them... I'd almost say in a Shamanistic-spiritual way, except that he's not the religious type. If there's even a hint of ritual, Dad would hightail it in the other direction. But if there were ever such a thing as a non-ritualistic Shaman, Dad would be it.
The thing is, even though he is 'in touch with his feelings' and his 'feminine side' a lot more than other men of his generation, he has a hard time accepting condolences from other humans. When we came home from the Art Garden and found that Stash had finally passed away (we'd known it was coming for over 24 hours -- you could almost see her melting away), he told me to give our dog Lucky an extra hug... and when I passed on Gordon's condolences, he said he'd pass them on to Tammy, since she now had no one to cuddle under the woodstove with, rather than accept them himself.
He'll do fine, I think, in the long run... he's generally too cheerful to be morose or suffer from a broken heart for long... but I do kinda worry about him.
As I've said earlier, he's really the last close family I have, and my main connection to all the friends I left behind when I moved here.... And after 6 years here, I have yet to make close friends in 3-d space locally. Mostly, I have yet to find a creative community I have like that of the Art Garden. I just don't fit in the local culture of "kid 'n' culdesac 'n' Wednesday night Bible Study", and I don't see that changing any time soon.
In spite of all this, I really do feel good about life in general... I managed to meet all my resolutions for 2002, or nearly have... and I have a creative skill which is appreciated by others, even if those others are not geographically my neighbors, and I expect the future to be better than today... somehow.
But still, there are some transitions in the works, and so I am a little wary... of course, that could also be due to the headache I've had for the last 24 hours...
But even that is fading -- finally -- after a third dose of acetaminophen... Glad I have acetaminophen...
And "Olive, the Other Reindeer" was on TV tonight... and that's my all time favorite Christmas special :-)
Her mother, Sam, (full name: Samantha Tilden) who was barely older than she was, died a couple of months ago, and I think Stashia just decided to stop living...
She, her three sisters and one brother, were born the summer that the movie Buckaroo Banzai was first released to movie theaters. One kitten was adopted by another family, and we kept the other three.
Before the kittens opened their eyes, Trevor, one of our dogs, took a special liking to Stashia, and would very carefully and gently carry her out of the nest in his mouth, and take her to a special place and snuggle with her between his paws. ... Stashia loved him all her life, and would leap up and throw her paws around his neck when he came through the door. :-) Sadly, Trevor died of old age about four years ago.
After that, Stashia tried to shower her affections on Bill, the second of our three dogs, but he was a bit embarrassed by a cat trying to befriend him... Bill died of cancer 2 years ago.
But long before that happened, way back when: As the female kittens were opening their eyes, and climbing out of the front of the drawer where Sam had made the nest, the male kitten was trying to climb up the dresser. Naturally, we named him "Buckaroo Bonzai" -- it fit, too... he walked with a swagger.
When my mom's cancer had matasticized to her liver, he would lie with her, and she swore he took away her pain... absorbed it into himself. Within two years of my mother dying, Buckaroo got feline lukemia -- which matasicized into an inoperable tumor in his liver -- and died shortly afterward.
Sam, Buckaroo, and Stashia were sort of like a posse... Tammy, the third kitten, was always sort of a loner. *She's* still going strong.
So, with Trevor, and Bill, and Buckaroo, and Sam gone, I think Stashia just decided that it was time for her to go too...
Me? I miss them all... but the sting isn't quite as strong as it might be, because I really said goodbye to them all when I moved south 5 years ago. I'd come home to visit twice a year, of course, but the animals -- especially the cats -- didn't really see me as a member of the family anymore... more like a nice, visiting stranger.
But Dad? I'm not sure... I'm not worried about him exactly... but.
In the six years since I moved, the four-leggeds have been his family, and he's really learned to communicate with them... I'd almost say in a Shamanistic-spiritual way, except that he's not the religious type. If there's even a hint of ritual, Dad would hightail it in the other direction. But if there were ever such a thing as a non-ritualistic Shaman, Dad would be it.
The thing is, even though he is 'in touch with his feelings' and his 'feminine side' a lot more than other men of his generation, he has a hard time accepting condolences from other humans. When we came home from the Art Garden and found that Stash had finally passed away (we'd known it was coming for over 24 hours -- you could almost see her melting away), he told me to give our dog Lucky an extra hug... and when I passed on Gordon's condolences, he said he'd pass them on to Tammy, since she now had no one to cuddle under the woodstove with, rather than accept them himself.
He'll do fine, I think, in the long run... he's generally too cheerful to be morose or suffer from a broken heart for long... but I do kinda worry about him.
As I've said earlier, he's really the last close family I have, and my main connection to all the friends I left behind when I moved here.... And after 6 years here, I have yet to make close friends in 3-d space locally. Mostly, I have yet to find a creative community I have like that of the Art Garden. I just don't fit in the local culture of "kid 'n' culdesac 'n' Wednesday night Bible Study", and I don't see that changing any time soon.
In spite of all this, I really do feel good about life in general... I managed to meet all my resolutions for 2002, or nearly have... and I have a creative skill which is appreciated by others, even if those others are not geographically my neighbors, and I expect the future to be better than today... somehow.
But still, there are some transitions in the works, and so I am a little wary... of course, that could also be due to the headache I've had for the last 24 hours...
But even that is fading -- finally -- after a third dose of acetaminophen... Glad I have acetaminophen...
And "Olive, the Other Reindeer" was on TV tonight... and that's my all time favorite Christmas special :-)
