moanin' those old hound dog blues
My grandmother's cat had been in a veterinary hospital since Easter Sunday. Studies have shown that pets are more effective than people in cheering up the elderly and that the elderly prefer visits by animals than by people. Maybe it's because animals are less complex - show them that you care, and you have their love and loyalty. Sometimes I think that people are the only animal that will refuse comfort, shelter and care when they actually need it.
Happily her cat, which she has named "Spider", got better. He hadn't been eating or drinking, and his temperature had run up to 106 degrees (Fahrenheit - he wasn't boiling. I do this for the sake of my Metric system friends). They called it a bacterial infection, which seems to mean "I don't know what it was" whether it comes from a doctor of pets or a doctor of people. After three days, he was ready to come back home.
I had a free afternoon, so I volunteered to go with my grandmother to pick up her cat. She's had surgery on her knee, and it didn't help. Her doctors are talking about knee replacement. Makes me want to make sure that I take good care of myself as I get older, because both of my mother's parents are having awful physical ailments in their old age, preventable ones. Anyway, my grandmother's knee hurts when she drives, so she only goes on short drives when she can, and when she can't, we try to give her a ride. So I got her cat carrier, which was like a duffel bag with mesh sides, and we headed out to Kirkwood to pick up Spider.
On the way I talked about the price of gas, and I let slip that I was not particularly optimistic about the future, that it seems to me that things are going to get worse before they get better. She didn't say anything about that, and it's just as well. Maybe I was hoping for some wisdom from someone who lived through the Great Depression as a small child, had World War II rage during her teenage years, had the Cold War hover over her head, witnessed the Civil Rights Movement and watched the Vietnam War collapse into chaos live on television. But these events didn't directly concern her; they were only circumstances that she lived under, so I wasn't surprised she didn't have anything to say about the future. Besides, the elderly shouldn't have to think about these things unless they so choose, since the future is a world they will know nothing about. Most of the time, the present has already left them behind, or vice versa. And this may just be the way of things.
When we were at the hospital, we sat in the waiting room as they went to get Spider and do final check-ups on him. Waiting rooms are terrible places, because they clearly and cruelly let us know how much of life is beyond our control. All we can do about so much is sit and wait because it's out of our hands. This is something I still have trouble accepting, though I know it is the way of things. In this waiting room was an man of 60, as I found out later. He was a gregarious man - a black man with white hair hidden under a black baseball cap and a white mustache that only people with the gravitas of age can wear without looking foolish. He was there because his sister's five month old puppy took off running after being walloped by the cat and ran right through a gap in their balcony's railing. He landed on concrete. This man had found the puppy gasping for air and took him in. The puppy's ribs weren't broken, but his lungs were bruised. The hospital said that it was going to be $165 dollars for him to stay and be taken care of. The man only had $100. The hospital told him that they could put the puppy to sleep for $37. He said he wasn't going to be the one having to decide whether or not to kill the dog.
It saddened me to know that the difference between something living and something dying was $65 dollars. I suppose some might have gotten angry about it, but it only left me with an echo of sorrow. The death of a puppy isn't the death of a human being; I would have been outraged were it a human being dying. Nevertheless, I knew that with the death of this animal, a good friend of this man would be going before it had a chance to live, which didn't seem right. The man's nephew would be devastated too, and I was grateful that I never had to deal with the death of a pet as a child myself. If I had the $65, I was seriously considering giving it to him. After all, saving the life of an important companion is probably a better use of it than what I would have spent it on.
While my grandmother filled out forms, I sat with the man and talked. He was a kindly man, and one of directness. He knew how he felt, and he understood how others felt. He said that it seems wrong that something like money could decide life or death. I said that money isn't what lets us do things, it's lack of money that keeps us from doing things, and he agreed. I felt like my statement was verified as true by six decades of experience. This wasn't a matter of pride. It was a matter of knowing something about life I needed to know. He talked about how he was one of twelve children, seven boys and five girls. We talked about the heat and the sun, and I mentioned I burn in the sun. He talked about how black people do better in the heat, and that he was already born with his tan. We laughed, and I told him that being Irish, we don't tan, we just go from pale to pink and burned, and we laughed about that too. He said he's got nothing against any group of people, that he had a friend who was upset about Mexicans coming into the country, and that he didn't feel that way. He said, even if they are taking jobs, he knows they're taking jobs that nobody else wants. As he put it to his friend, "Are you gonna go out there and pick those apples?" I said that unless you're a Native American, we all came from somewhere, and he agreed.
Spider came out, already loaded in the carrier, and my grandmother was overjoyed. She started making all sorts of noise, cooing, and the man said he was a fine cat. I felt embarrassed by all the fuss she was making. I understood how happy she was to have her friend back, but it seemed almost grotesque to be celebrating how lucky we were when this man wouldn't get that celebration with his puppy. We walked out and said goodbye to the man, and I was sorry to leave him. He was interesting and I felt like he had gone through a lot that I ought to have known about. Instead, I left without even learning his name.
When my grandmother got home, I ran to get her Rally's because she wanted a shake to celebrate. I sat drinking my shake with her while Spider stretched out on the floor. I still felt like things were going to get worse before they got better.
Happily her cat, which she has named "Spider", got better. He hadn't been eating or drinking, and his temperature had run up to 106 degrees (Fahrenheit - he wasn't boiling. I do this for the sake of my Metric system friends). They called it a bacterial infection, which seems to mean "I don't know what it was" whether it comes from a doctor of pets or a doctor of people. After three days, he was ready to come back home.
I had a free afternoon, so I volunteered to go with my grandmother to pick up her cat. She's had surgery on her knee, and it didn't help. Her doctors are talking about knee replacement. Makes me want to make sure that I take good care of myself as I get older, because both of my mother's parents are having awful physical ailments in their old age, preventable ones. Anyway, my grandmother's knee hurts when she drives, so she only goes on short drives when she can, and when she can't, we try to give her a ride. So I got her cat carrier, which was like a duffel bag with mesh sides, and we headed out to Kirkwood to pick up Spider.
On the way I talked about the price of gas, and I let slip that I was not particularly optimistic about the future, that it seems to me that things are going to get worse before they get better. She didn't say anything about that, and it's just as well. Maybe I was hoping for some wisdom from someone who lived through the Great Depression as a small child, had World War II rage during her teenage years, had the Cold War hover over her head, witnessed the Civil Rights Movement and watched the Vietnam War collapse into chaos live on television. But these events didn't directly concern her; they were only circumstances that she lived under, so I wasn't surprised she didn't have anything to say about the future. Besides, the elderly shouldn't have to think about these things unless they so choose, since the future is a world they will know nothing about. Most of the time, the present has already left them behind, or vice versa. And this may just be the way of things.
When we were at the hospital, we sat in the waiting room as they went to get Spider and do final check-ups on him. Waiting rooms are terrible places, because they clearly and cruelly let us know how much of life is beyond our control. All we can do about so much is sit and wait because it's out of our hands. This is something I still have trouble accepting, though I know it is the way of things. In this waiting room was an man of 60, as I found out later. He was a gregarious man - a black man with white hair hidden under a black baseball cap and a white mustache that only people with the gravitas of age can wear without looking foolish. He was there because his sister's five month old puppy took off running after being walloped by the cat and ran right through a gap in their balcony's railing. He landed on concrete. This man had found the puppy gasping for air and took him in. The puppy's ribs weren't broken, but his lungs were bruised. The hospital said that it was going to be $165 dollars for him to stay and be taken care of. The man only had $100. The hospital told him that they could put the puppy to sleep for $37. He said he wasn't going to be the one having to decide whether or not to kill the dog.
It saddened me to know that the difference between something living and something dying was $65 dollars. I suppose some might have gotten angry about it, but it only left me with an echo of sorrow. The death of a puppy isn't the death of a human being; I would have been outraged were it a human being dying. Nevertheless, I knew that with the death of this animal, a good friend of this man would be going before it had a chance to live, which didn't seem right. The man's nephew would be devastated too, and I was grateful that I never had to deal with the death of a pet as a child myself. If I had the $65, I was seriously considering giving it to him. After all, saving the life of an important companion is probably a better use of it than what I would have spent it on.
While my grandmother filled out forms, I sat with the man and talked. He was a kindly man, and one of directness. He knew how he felt, and he understood how others felt. He said that it seems wrong that something like money could decide life or death. I said that money isn't what lets us do things, it's lack of money that keeps us from doing things, and he agreed. I felt like my statement was verified as true by six decades of experience. This wasn't a matter of pride. It was a matter of knowing something about life I needed to know. He talked about how he was one of twelve children, seven boys and five girls. We talked about the heat and the sun, and I mentioned I burn in the sun. He talked about how black people do better in the heat, and that he was already born with his tan. We laughed, and I told him that being Irish, we don't tan, we just go from pale to pink and burned, and we laughed about that too. He said he's got nothing against any group of people, that he had a friend who was upset about Mexicans coming into the country, and that he didn't feel that way. He said, even if they are taking jobs, he knows they're taking jobs that nobody else wants. As he put it to his friend, "Are you gonna go out there and pick those apples?" I said that unless you're a Native American, we all came from somewhere, and he agreed.
Spider came out, already loaded in the carrier, and my grandmother was overjoyed. She started making all sorts of noise, cooing, and the man said he was a fine cat. I felt embarrassed by all the fuss she was making. I understood how happy she was to have her friend back, but it seemed almost grotesque to be celebrating how lucky we were when this man wouldn't get that celebration with his puppy. We walked out and said goodbye to the man, and I was sorry to leave him. He was interesting and I felt like he had gone through a lot that I ought to have known about. Instead, I left without even learning his name.
When my grandmother got home, I ran to get her Rally's because she wanted a shake to celebrate. I sat drinking my shake with her while Spider stretched out on the floor. I still felt like things were going to get worse before they got better.