You Must Be German

“Why yes, on my mother’s side” I replied, somewhat bemused. It was a question asked of me recently, with a smile, referring to my penchant for events starting on time.  “And I bet you are organized aren’t you” came the next question, “well, yes”, I am laughing by now… clutter and disorganization does pain me, makes my brain hurt, drives me to distraction. My mother mother’s came from a beautiful,

old German family, engineers, professors, patent holders, musicians, linguists and most likely all of them quite punctual.

My mother’s father  was Irish, as was my father and his parents. My grandfather Dyer born in Belfast and my Grandmother born in somewhere in Ireland.   Ah the Irish side, hard workers, craftsmen, carpenters, caretakers, gardeners, musicians, writers, and dreamers. Melancholic with gallows humor, hearts that quicken when pipes are heard, hearts that long for the sea. Easy laughers, talkers and jesters…and good cooks as the note on the below picture states, “the four best cooks in Newark, NJ”.

The conversation above led me to share that I had family calenders for every year that Doug and I have been married. Quick access to the last 16 years worth of calendars, the rest archived in bankers boxes. My conversant was amazed, although I am not sure there is anything particularly amazing or virtuous in my calendar keeping, perhaps more of a neurosis afoot.  But I can tell you the date of dental appointments, surgeries, vet appointments, weddings, deaths, you name it…it is on the calendar.  I experienced a small crisis the other day, I could not physically lay hands on the 2010 calendar. It is always with the tax papers until the tax folder is filed and then the calendar goes in the calendar file. Panic was setting in, I had to have that calendar, how could I not have the calendar of when Justin died, the record of those days afterwards…I used to be able to memorize everything…dates, times…not so much these days.  When Doug got home, I queried him on the location of the calendar. He walked to the file and said “you mean this one?”, it was right where it was supposed to be. I could breathe again, silly me.

July has been a miserably, difficult month, it brings  so many remembrances.  I keep on thinking back to the last summer that Justin was home for any length of time, the summer of 2007.  After consulting with his surgeon, Justin decided to have the right ankle fused. He had extensive rebuilding done to the right foot and ankle,  arthritis had already set in and the ankle was showing signs of being unstable…good range of motion, but chronic pain with no relief. He had two surgeries on the left foot and ankle already, ending in fusion for the left ankle and better stability and less pain. Fusion involved sinking two 4 inch screws into his heel and ankle…they looked like hardware that you would bolt  deck planking  with…he had already experienced the same hardware with the left and was ready to fuse the right ankle. His surgery was set for July 5th, 2007.  It never got any easier seeing him go into surgery even though we were frequent visitors to Union Memorial. There were moments of levity…Justin would tell the nurse starting his IV that he passed out with great regularity when an IV was started…she didn’t believe him until she was screaming for help as he slumped out of his chair…the little nurse promptly went and found someone else to start his line.  I hated seeing him so pale and worn out, he always came home from college so tired.  Was always a relief to get him home from the hospital the next day, he never complained about the pain or being in a heavy bandage and wrap from his toes to his knee. I would stop at the couch and smooth those dark curls …try to keep the older cats off of him those first few days after surgery.  Justin loved cats and they him.

So it was rather serendipitous that 10 days after his surgery the vet’s office calls me, they have abandoned kittens, two have already died, two are barely alive, would I like to give it a try and see if I could save them? What was I going to say, “no”?  I hang up the phone and tell Justin, I was immediately rewarded with one of his brilliant smiles…off I go to the vet. I get to the vet and they are pretty ragged two-week old mostly dead kittens. Vet tells me they will probably not last the night.  I purchase bottles, kitten formula, minute amounts of flea stuff – they were infested – and home I go. I spill them into Justin’s lap telling him to keep them warm while I fix bottles, warm up an old IV bag – they make great little heating pads wrapped in flannel. And so it starts..every couple of hours..temperature taking – can’t feed a cold

kitten it will die – feeding, burping – yes, you have to burp baby kitties, and helping with their bathroom issues. Cleaning, smoothing, holding…but they lived through that first night. Justin would call me when they woke and we start the whole procedure over again…it filled our days and nights and was the most wonderful shared experience. He would burp them and dry them off, hold them close and keep them warm. He would be on crutches for most of the summer, but he was an enormous help, and a natural at soothing the kittens.

One night we were up with them…he could tell that I was tired, not used to being up every two hours through the night…he asked if he and Ryan had been so much work, was this what it was like…I believe it was a rhetorical question, he knew the answer. I smiled at his question. Then he apologized to me, said he was so sorry, that if he had known how much

work he had been, he would have not given us such a hard time as a teenager, that he would have been a better kid…I told him that he had been “no tribble at all” (we were advid Star Trek fans), we talked of all sorts of things through those nights with the kittens.

The kittens lived and are now sleek and beautiful adult felines. They are daily reminders to me of Justin, the kittens still beg to be let into his room…especially Tasha. She had claimed Justin as belonging particularly to her and he doted on her, leaving us with a dreadfully spoiled feline.  I am grateful for the calendars, it is helpful to be able to go back and revisit those days…to see why a particular month evokes certain memories. Grateful for the blend of heritages that keep me organized, but easy going about pet fur. Grateful for a merciful God that provided us with those shared moments of raising kittens, He knew that it would bring us so much joy.  It is  bittersweet  to hold a sweet orange kitty, they remind me so of a sweet, sweet boy.  I am  glad to have said “yes” to kittens, they remind  me that it is  important to make time to do “nothing”,  to “waste” time heating kitten formula, to sit and be, just be with those we love.  They all leave us much too soon.

“Teach us to count our days aright, that we may gain wisdom of heart.” Psalm 90:12

The kittens could never get close enough…