I had to search through my blog to find the date of Anthony’s transition from respite to permanent resident at the nursing lodge. It was January 31st, 2012, 377 days ago.
How could this have happened just a year ago when it seems like a hundred years ago?
How could this have happened over a year ago when it seems like a few minutes ago?
377 days of separation.
For the last few weeks I have been having rather dramatic, block-buster-type dreams. Inside the dreams, I am always the hero who knows she is in a dream, but also knows that, in order to escape the dream, she has to either get away from, or else confront, the baddies.
The most recurrent dream is of something preventing Anthony and me from getting married. This barrier is usually a series of verbal and visual ‘stills’ of what really happened (Anthony’s younger brother’s protestations, my bewilderment, and Anthony’s heartbreak). These dreams are becoming so boringly predictable that I am usually able to clamber free.
But last night’s dream was really weird. Inside the dream, I was away at a conference and Ming rang me to say that Anthony’s old girlfriend had dropped in and wanted to stay the night. Then, the next morning, when I got home from the conference, Anthony admitted that he had slept with her.
Okay, so this was all a dream within a dream, but even when I escaped the inside dream, I found myself trying to climb the escalators the wrong way, in an empty airport somewhere in the desert.
I was glad to wake up!
Gutsy9 is now outside for his third afternoon in one of the yards. It is foxproof and I check on him every hour or so. The cage is where he will eventually sleep overnight. In one of the photos you can see how his right leg is deformed. It probably always was but he was so fluffy to begin with I didn’t notice and was mostly concerned about his injured toe (which, ironically, is now his strongest toe).
His transition to the outside for so many hours per day is akin to a child in his/her first week of preschool! In other words, I am suffering!
I remember when you first winked at me
across the dining room table,
when your mother said I had overcooked the poached eggs.
You were 40 and I was a teenager
so the wink was just a wink of humour,
harmless and not flirtatious in the least
But that wink burrowed itself into my psyche,
made me ache for another wink….
If I hadn’t boiled the grapefruit marmalade all over the Aga,
a second wink might have happened sooner.
Oh well.
I remember when you first hugged me.
It was a week after my father died suddenly and I will never forget
the hesitation of that first hug,
your delight and nervousness,
your big, muscled arms,
my tears on your shoulder.
I remember the evening when you first understood me
as we bantered philosophical conundrums across the kitchen table
while your mother snored gently in the next room.
You don’t remember much of this, your eyes have forgotten how to wink, I banter as you snooze, and your arms no longer have the strength to hug me.
The time may come when you don’t remember who I am,
but I will never forget who you are,
my rock,
my light,
my reason,
my love,
my laughter.
Gutsy9 adores scrambling around in the dirt – best thing he can do for his feet. Yeeha!
I am a bit worried about Gutsy9’s feet. I accidentally injured one of his toes when I first rescued him (i.e. he ran at my desk chair as I was rolling it back, so one of the little wheels mashed one of his toes. Okay, so that is all healed now but, because he is inside the back veranda for most of the time (a back veranda that has now become peachick poop paradise), he is not getting the normal dirt/grass traction for his feet to develop. I take him outside every afternoon so that he can interact with the others but they still peck at him and he runs to me.
Once he is big enough to fly up into the trees at night, I think the other peas will accept him. I hope so.
In the meantime, I will take him to the vet to get his feet checked. I will do this tomorrow.
In over a year, and hundreds of posts, I have been fortunate not to have received any negative comments on the blog. Until today.
The negative comment was uttered in response to my post about ‘doing the right thing’ yesterday.
It was personal, exclamatory and gave me a bit of a shock because I am so fond of this person.
Strangely, I welcomed the comment (better to get a negative comment from a friend rather than a stranger I guess), and, instead of deleting it, I decided to respond and make both comments public.
This has made me very curious about how other bloggers respond to negative comments. Do tell!
On Monday, Anthony turns 77, so tomorrow he is coming out for the afternoon.
On impulse, I rang a few family and friends and all said yes, with a few maybes.
I just counted up how many people are coming and it’s around 50. If the maybes come, it will be 60.
Panic!
jmgoyder 