The COVID Diaries (Losing Lucky)

 **First, whomever is feeding my blogs to toxic people who weaponize what I write against me - insert middle finger emoji here - Ok, moving on**

We thought we had it all planned out.  Lucky took a turn over the weekend and we thought for sure he would make it until Thursday evening.  I arranged to have my afternoon schedule blocked off so that I could be there.  He was doing well enough earlier in the week that I wondered if we had been too hasty, then he stopped eating yesterday. I went to bed last night thinking, less than 24 hours left...

This morning, we took Lucky outside.  We had coffee under the spectacular monsoon clouds.  I will always remember the cruel beauty of this morning.  I love clouds, and a spectacular, humid sky is a rarity in Southern California.  This morning was something special.  During our last morning as a family, Lucky lost the ability to walk.  We offered him Starbucks banana bread (weirdly, a kitty favorite in our house) and this absolutely disgusting chicken goo in a tube (also, a kitty favorite), with no response.  

We brought him upstairs while I was getting ready to work, not wanting to waste any time as a family during our final day together, when Lucky started to twitch.  Those twitches rapidly progressed to seizures, and our plan to have him put to sleep peacefully as a family turned into a frantic scramble to get him to the vet as soon as possible while I had to finish getting ready for work.  Blessedly, my employer rescheduled my initial consult.  I can compartmentalize with my existing patients, but an initial?  No way...Lucky died peacefully in Evan's arms at our trusted vet's office.

The thing about loss, and I've had my share of it recently (seriously, 2020...back off on the loss, ok?), is that it makes you reflect on your time.  Lucky was my first real adult responsibility.  He was my first baby.  He was probably too young to even adopt when I got him, but what did I know?  He was tiny, his eyes were still blue, and his ears were still a little droopy like brand new kitten ears tend to be.  He would knead so enthusiastically that he looked like he was marching, and he would rear up and violently crash into you to rub against your leg.  He loved with all he had.  He did not understand restraint when it came to affection. 

When Lucky came into my life, it was a case of who rescued who?  My life was evolving at a breakneck pace, at times threatening to throw me off the ride entirely.  I had a different career, lived in a different place, and was just learning who I really was.  Lucky was along for the ride.  He snuggled with me at night, let me hold his paw like I was holding his hand, and let me cry into his fur when life seemed impossibly unfair.  He was one of the few threads that still connected me to a time in my life where the only thing that was constant was change.  I feel like a connection to that part of my life was lost today.  My wild, complicated, chaotic, beautiful days in Los Angeles.  A fading memory, one more relic from that time gone.  

Those beautiful, cruel morning clouds gave way to oppressive heat.  A climate better matched to my heavy chest.  Like I tell my patients, the thing that sucks about grief is that the only way out is through it.  This one is going to be a long road.  

          

The COVID Diaries (Letters to Ethan #1)

 Dear Ethan,

What a long, strange trip it has been.  In March, existence as we knew it screeched to a halt.  Unfortunately, the timing lined up perfectly with your transition from toddlerhood to preschooler, and you will have vivid memories of this time in your life.  

I've tried to hold it together for you, but life has been so complicated lately...even without the glare of the global pandemic obscuring some of  the view.  I finished grad school, and this was supposed to be our time.  My time.  Life was supposed to settle into our new normal.  Just working, and spending time as a family.  Now I work from home, daddy will be changing careers, and I am just trying to keep the three of us afloat.  Grandma and Grandpa will be moving out here for a year to help us with you, because the schools are closed, and quite honestly I'm not fond of the idea of sending you to school with the specter of a brand new virus haunting our lives.  

I wanted to start writing sooner, but I was struggling with crippling depression anxiety.  I miss life as it was.  I miss my friends, and making play dates for you.  My Grandma Miller died in May, and I wasn't able to go see her.  We haven't been able to have a funeral.  My Great Aunt is now on hospice, and can't have visitors at her assisted living.  I spent the better part of a decade dealing with death professionally, my heart aches at the thought of my Aunt Marge dying alone.  I've seen people die alone more times than I can count, and I pitied them.  Now it is the new normal.  I want to get some of these thoughts out of my head and share then with you when you're older.  I hope this isn't our normal for years to come.  

You have been a bright spot in all of this.  You wear a mask without complaint, but I see the toll it takes on you.  You're an extrovert, just like me, and when we take you anywhere you crave interaction.  You tell anyone within shouting distance exactly what is on your mind.  "I like Tron," you yell...or, "We have 10 cats!"  Which is not true, but it feels like it some days.  You said to me a few weeks ago, when I was singing you to sleep, "Mom.  When this is all over, I want to go on play dates and get close to people again."  Me too, my love.  Me too. 

This weekend felt almost normal, with the exception of the masks and the excessive hand sanitizing that we do.  Yesterday we braved Costco, and visited one of the community pools that we had never been to.   Today, you and I went on a paddle board and navigated the entire harbor together.  You were not a fan.  You kept saying, "This is the last time I'm going to do this," when I asked if you were having fun.  When people would ask from the shore if you were having a good time, you told them, "No!"  I tried to point out the minnows and the Garibaldi, which did not interest you.  Instead, you preferred to keep your eyes fixed straight ahead, praying for the ride to be over.  You did enjoy seeing dogs in boats, "Captains," you called them.     

You also would shout to people who engaged with you, "My cat, Lucky, is going to go to heaven," after which I would have to uncomfortably explain to perfect strangers that my cat is sick, but that he's very old and this is kind of expected.  Lucky's illness seemed to carry more weight with you today.  You had a sadness about you when you spoke of him...an awareness of mortality that I had not seen in you before.  My professional advice has always been to be honest with children about death, but it's not so easy when I'm actually having to practice what I preach.  "He's my best friend," you said sadly.  

Lucky was mommy's first baby.  I got him just before my 24th birthday, a present to myself.  I remember the weight I felt from my new responsibility.  I had to actually care for something!  He was so tiny, barely the size of my hand.  I brought him home to my apartment in a cardboard box.  His tiny meows when I would leave for work were heartbreaking  We grew up together, Lucky and I.  From single and living in LA and being transported in cardboard boxes, to my wild house in Long Beach, to my small apartment in Orange County (living the academic life and using a proper carrier), to married and home ownership, to parenthood of a human child.  Lucky is my last thread to a life that is a quickly fading memory.  Growth, and pain.  Hard work and triumph.  Lucky was there when all I had were my cats, my car, and a plan for a better life which seemed nearly impossible to achieve.  He was along for the entire path to my American dream.  I've watched a lot of connections to the past slip away this year.  2020 has been really hard.  

We ended up spending the rest of the day in Grandma's pool, after our adventures in the harbor.  Your little nose is getting freckled from the sun, just like mine did when I was your age.  On the way home, we stopped by the mall where my replacement phone had been sent...it was sent to a store that is closed.  It was eerie seeing all of the empty shops and the still escalators.  I am truly afraid of what life will look like on the other side of all of this, which is ultimately what inspired me to get these thoughts out of my head and onto some other medium.          

Tonight we watched a move, read bedtime stories, and I sang you to sleep...your bedtime playlist, which is the same three songs every night.  You request them, and I oblige, because I will blink and you will not be asking me to sing you to sleep anymore.  

I don't know what the future holds, but I do know this: You will always know that you are loved.  Even when we are stuck wearing masks, we are grieving the terminal illness of our pet, all of the stores have closed, and nothing in life seems like it will ever go back to normal...you are loved and we will do the best we can to make sure that you are safe.  

Love, 

Mommy