Suzy Says

The Beautiful Harriet, May 7, 2020

We lost The Beautiful Harriet just two days after Megan’s birthday.

Megan was working, and Rob saw Harriet make a strange movement and then seem to be partly paralyzed. Her pupils were fixed and dilated. He knew there was no hope of recovery, so he held her lovingly until she breathed her last, knowing that she was safe and loved.

Rob wisely waited until Megan got home from her long night shift, meeting her at the car and telling her the news as they walked back to their place together. Although Harriet was 19, her death was unexpected. I was shocked and saddened to hear the news. She hadn’t been sick or in decline, she was just old, about 92 in human years.

I went to the family estate after work that day. We all met at the chinquapin tree where Harriet’s sister Ramona and little Henry Etta are, along with Jed the Wonder Dog. Harriet is in good company in this pretty place:

She was still beautiful and her magic pelt was still magic, even in death. We petted her amazingly soft fur and told her we loved her. Rob had already prepared her resting place, quite deep but narrow enough that she would be safe and snug. Megan and I carefully rewrapped Harriet in a soft lavender towel, and then Megan lovingly settled Harriet in, tucking the towel in around our beloved girl.

We all took turns gently sifting the rich red earth over her, saying farewell and again telling her we loved her. Here is Rob finishing filling in the resting spot:

We covered it with leaves and it looks tranquil and serene:

Harriet had a long and happy life. She and Ramona lived with Megan and Rob from the time they were kittens, and were always loved and cared for. I am glad she had a peaceful end, at home, being held by someone who had loved her all her life, and that we were able to lay her to rest with our own hands with love.
Sleep easy, beautiful Harriet. You are loved and missed and will always be in our hearts.

A YEAR AGO: The great move to my current beautiful abode.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A fantastic birthday party for Megan, including the best practical joke ever.

TEN YEARS AGO: There’s nothing more fun than some quality girl time.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Some quality time with the wonderful, beautiful Rita.

I should really have my own radio show. People are always telling me their deepest, darkest secrets, even strangers. Maybe especially strangers. Back when I used to fly to London once or twice a year, people were always talking to me, even when I had the then-equivalent of earbuds in and was reading.

Sometimes when I’m in staff meetings, I look around me and think about the many things I know about my co-workers.

This one’s relative murdered two of the town’s most popular residents and led law enforcement on a long manhunt before dying in a hail of police bullets.

This one was President Obama’s teacher in college and is still his friend.

This one has five generations of her family living. This is only possible with some seriously precocious parenting.

This one’s father was driving the car which killed his wife and seriously injured his grandchild and himself when he got into an accident. He was a homicide detective.

This one had a long ago fling with one of the docs who still works here.

This one has a mail order bride.

This one is married to an ex con half her age who cheated on her before and during their marriage. She attempted suicide over him but was unsuccessful.

And then there’s me.

A YEAR AGO: Almost moved! I still can’t believe I live in this beautiful place.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Car talk.

TEN YEARS AGO: You never know where you’ll find a cat! With a guest appearance by Audrey’s gorgeous sister June. I miss her and Roscoe every day.

There haven’t been a lot of dull moments for Megan at work lately. She has worked in the emergency room of our local hospital for many years now, and just when you think you’ve seen it all, it turns out you haven’t.

A woman showed up carrying a blanket, which later turned out to contain a two week old fawn. She wanted Megan to help her with the fawn, and Megan told her to take it back where she found it. Mother deer will go in search of food and then come back. If you see a baby deer, leave it alone.

Well, she had picked it up 30 miles away.

Megan’s Plan B was that the woman keep the fawn overnight and contact Woodlands Wildlife and Parks & Recreation in the morning to get help. The woman left, and left Megan wondering why she thought the ER could do anything for, you know, a wild animal. Do they need a “Humans Only” sign on the door, like the “Please park off highway” sign at Gowman’s?

Later that evening, Megan met Monica in the hospital parking lot and noticed a blanket by the bus stop. Guess who?

So this person took the fawn, drove it 30 miles, and then abandoned it.

Megan convinced Monica to take it home, where she cared for it until Woodlands Wildlife came to get it. They said the fawn was weak, but would probably make it, thanks to Megan and Monica. And you thought they only rescued dogs!

On another occasion, someone came in and said her friend’s neck looked a little strange. Megan took a look, and it certainly did. Friend had had the same spinal surgery Rob has twice endured, though with less successful results and presumably at a less reputable establishment, since her sutures had failed spectacularly, allowing for an unobstructed view of the spine and all the inner workings associated with it.

Megan was fascinated, yet horrified as she alerted the doctors to the situation, agreeing that it did indeed look a little strange and trying to keep everyone calm. Let’s hope the repair job is more successful than the original patch job.

The Powers That Be who run our hospital – all men – decided a couple of months ago that they would no longer deliver babies. So pregnant women living on the coast have to drive an hour and a half over winding and sometimes snowy and icy or even closed roads to get there. Great idea, right? They said that the 100 or so births a year did not justify keeping the department open. That works out to a couple of births a week in any given year, right? As I said to Megan, if there was an average of two heart attacks a week, would they get rid of defibrillators?

It didn’t take long for a baby to be born in the emergency room.

There was no equipment, no staff specializing in this service, the baby was early and mother had no prenatal care, claiming she didn’t know she was pregnant. Maybe she was too busy taking care of the nine month old baby she already had to notice. This birth was fast and unexpected, and Megan caught the baby, who was given the same name as our brother. Mom and baby were transferred out, but it was complicated by rainy weather. Not ideal for anyone, though the PTB considered that it “went off without a hitch”. Of course, they weren’t there and they never will be.

When Megan was getting ready to go to work for her next shift after that one, I said that I hoped she would have an easier night. She said, “If I don’t end up with a face full of amniotic fluid, it’s all good.”

A YEAR AGO: Dealing with the past so I could start my future.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Small town fun.

TEN YEARS AGO: A bad day for our heroine.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: I still think I’d enjoy Eloise’s lifestyle.

Sunday afternoon with Dodge

Since I don’t know Dodge’s actual birthday, I gave him my American grandfather’s birthday, May 11. Hoho, as we called him for his frequent and distinctive laugh, loved cats, and I have many pictures of him with long-ago cats, especially Smoky, the grey cat he and Nana had when Mom was young. They loved that cat so much that they still had his bed up in their attic when I myself was young, more than 30 years later.

Hoho was always a bit of a rascal too, so I think he would have enjoyed knowing Dodge, the former street cat.

This summer marks two years since Dodge followed my co-worker Susan home from the car dealership and made his way into my heart and home. He was two or three then, so that means he’s four or five now.

He certainly looks healthier and happier now than he did when he first appeared. Then he was painfully thin in both body and fur:

Now he is, as Megan puts it, 100% plush. His fur is so soft and thick!

He is also such a happy boy. I have never had a less neurotic cat, despite his unfortunate start in life. He is not very interested in food, despite being starved. Maybe just knowing there’s always food now is enough for him. He is friendly to anyone and everyone, and still has his endearing habit of jumping up while simultaneously rubbing against you. He has an incredibly loud purr, and is very attached to Clyde.

Clyde loves him right back. When Dodge has escaped from the house, Clyde looked for him anxiously and when he came back in, sniffed him all over carefully to make sure his little brother was safe and sound. They often curl up together:

and play together. I think Clyde is very happy to have Dodge in his life after losing his unforgettable brother Roscoe, and I feel the same way. As soon as Dodge took one look at Clyde, he was determined they’d be friends, and he was right.

As for Audrey….well, she takes a dim view of the interloper. To be fair, she is also not a big Clyde fan, despite his always elegant attire and incredible cuddliness and cuteness. I really think she only tolerates me for the food, treats, and litterbox services I provide. Audrey is nondenominational in her overall grumpitude.

A YEAR AGO: Nothing like a flood in the bathroom to make you feel like it’s time to move!

FIVE YEARS AGO: Attempting to come to terms with the grind.

TEN YEARS AGO: An evening with Audrey.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO A bemused witness to a somewhat surreal fashion show for dogs. Yes, dogs. Yes, with tiaras.

Mother’s Day has rolled around again, bringing with it all those complicated emotions.

Since I took over writing all my work’s Facebook posts, maybe a year and a half or a couple of years ago, I have had to surmount challenges like writing something uplifting about domestic violence and teen date rape (I did it!), and this year I had the bright idea of collecting photos of the babies born to our staff over the past couple of years to celebrate these hard-working mothers on Mother’s Day. Looking at the pictures and writing all the cheery captions was a little upsetting to someone whose mother was never all that crazy about her. She never really seemed to love me, or at least not in a way that I could see or feel.

I don’t know if it was me, or because she was abandoned at birth, literally left on the orphanage steps, which has to have a huge psychological effect on anyone. Having said that, her adoptive parents adored her and always told her they chose her out of all the children in all the world, and that parents who gave birth to their own kids just had to take what they got, which is true, and also a great outlook on adoption.

They adopted Mom at the age of three and fostered her before that, so she couldn’t have had many memories before that time, but maybe the feeling (and fact) of abandonment was just hard-wired in her DNA.

Mom never had the slightest interest in her birth parents, but I do. When I got that Ancestry DNA kit from Erica, I have to admit that I was hoping to find that Mom had siblings out there or some kind of relatives that I was unaware of, but nada, nothing, zippo. This was disappointing to me. Our family tree is more like a twig. Mom was an only child, Dad’s sister was mentally challenged or whatever they call it now, and never married or had children. So no uncles or cousins for me, and Megan, Jonathan, and I do not have children, either.

I never wanted to be a mother, and I am perfectly fine with not being one. But Mother’s Day still brings up so much grief. Sadness that my mother never loved me, or at least not that I could tell; sadness for my grandmother, who endured seven miscarriages before adopting Mom; sadness for the girl who felt she had no other option but to leave her newborn on the steps of an orphanage one fine spring day. Whether you are a mother or not, Mother’s Day is never simple.

My happiness at seeing an email from Cammy, a friend of many years, quickly turned to sadness when I saw that she was alerting me to the untimely and unexpected death of a mutual friend, Randy. I literally gasped out loud when I read the news.

Randy wasn’t much older than I am, and we were just joking around together on Facebook a couple of weeks earlier about the unseasonable, and to Randy’s mind, unreasonable, snow he was still getting where he lived in Chicago. I have noticed over the years as my expertise in the field of death has unfortunately grown* that people always say, “But I just saw him” as if that made the fact of their being gone forever impossible. It does make it more surreal and unbelievable.

When I wished him happy birthday at the end of March, I had no idea it would be his last, and from what he said, it doesn’t sound like he did, either: “Thanks for the birthday wishes. The best present would be for all to be around for many more. Let’s hope this craziness passes quickly and we can all celebrate together.”

I learned from his wife that Randy had died within ten days of being diagnosed with mesothelioma. Like my former brother-in-law, Mike, it seems that Randy died quickly (and hopefully peacefully) of something that can be a lingering and horrible, suffocating end. His family was with him and I hope he slipped away easily and without fear.

For those of us left behind, it’s hard to imagine that we will never again see those blazing blue, twinkling blue eyes, ask him for advice, hear his infectious laugh, or get one of his comforting hugs. Randy loved his family with all of his heart, and in our friendship, there was something fatherly as well.

I am lucky to have known and loved him, and to have had Randy touch my life. He will always be in my heart and my memories.

*People always unhelpfully inform me that you have to expect increasing visits from the Reaper as time goes on, but a) I’m not that old, still in my 50s; and 2) This Reaper bullshit started with me when I was 15. I lost all my grandparents within one year, and both of my grandfathers within three weeks. I was barely 16 when they were gone.

A YEAR AGO: I may have missed the Derby (gasp), but I did make it to a fabulous BBQ at Rio’s place.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A new Royal Princess, a new ‘do, and the Derby – what more could a girl want?

TEN YEARS AGO: Dad’s amazing Honey-Mustard Chicken. Try it, you’ll like it!

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Plumbing problems

It’s that magical time of year when the long, slow curve in Little River is a haze of green as the trees on each side flaunt their new leaves. Spring leaves have a brilliance that is lost by summer, and these trees also lose their leaves in winter, so it’s a delight to watch them bud and then burst forth in all their verdant glory as the year progresses. There are banks of calla lilies unfurling their white blooms under the trees in the spring, like out of season snow.

These days, it’s light enough in the mornings for me to see the leaves on my way to work, which is a small pleasure in and of itself. Mornings are glorious this time of year, in sunlight:

and in fog:

It’s also rhododendron time, when the woods are frilled with pink:

Arriving home last week, i noticed that there are wild irises scattered among the ferns beside my house:

There is beauty everywhere this time of year.

A YEAR AGO: I found the beautiful house where I now live. I still can’t believe I live in this lovely place.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Dogs and cats. Cats and dogs. Past and present. Present and past.

TEN YEARS AGO: The mystery of the window boxes in the night.