Death and other stuff
I've come to realize a few things about me and death.
I've always been uncomfortable with corpses, the physical manifestation of death. But never with death itself. The corpse-phobia comes from a very disgusting thing that happened to me when I was six years old, involving a dead bird, an innocent desire to "save" a "hurt" bird by taking it to my mother, and a lot of maggots. That's all I'll say about it, but touching a corpse is enough to give me a panic attack and has been since that time. But death itself has never bothered or frightened me.
About 2 years ago I lost 2 dogs in a really horrible way (one killed the other one - Duncan was my little soulmate and Tucker wasn't aggressive, just very prey-driven and Duncan was much smaller. I let them out to go to the bathroom in the backyard and opened the door to the whole snowy yard covered in blood. I was completely alone in the house and had to deal with Tucker, my other 3 dogs, and the body of Duncan then try and call my friends for help.) Tucker was euthanized, and one of my remaining three dogs went to live with Fox and Wendy.
I lost part of a litter of siamese rats I'd been really looking forward to when mom chewed a hole in the tub they were staying in and led several of the babies out and they walked along the side of one of the adult male cages. No blame there - strange little mammals are fair prey when they invade an adult's territory. Three of the babies were terribly injured but not killed. I won't go into graphic detail, but suffice it to say, they were very maimed. Again, I was alone in the house and had to try and deal with putting away the other babies, removing the maimed ones, finding a secure place for mummy and the rest of the litter, then calling Fox to help me out by snapping the necks on the maimed babies.
I lost 2 grandmothers. One was my actual last grandmother (around Thanksgiving) and the other was the woman who'd lived 2 doors down from my parents and pretty much raised my brother and I from the time we were born until I was about 15, babysitting us all day until our parents got home at 6 (and she died around Christmas.)
Between those two deaths, I got a bacterial infection in my rattery which went on killing one rat about every-other day for about 2 months. It got to the point where I was physically unable to go into the rat room and Caesar had to take over their care. I mean I literally could not go in and face seeing who'd died. My joints locked up and I just freaked out.
I would like to say that I had a good, supportive community to help me deal with all that happening, but I didn't. For reasons I will probably go into in a blog not too far in the future, since it's been on my mind a LOT lately, I'd lost my church community and all the trust I'd been able to build up in any kind of religious community since my horrible burning at the hands of Catholic school and Jenny, due to the actions of 2 ministers and the reaction of the church to them. I had my parents, and I had the Pack, and while that was a lifesaving amount of support, it would have been AWFULLY NICE to have some sort of faith to fall back on, a community of supporting people who has a spiritual viewpoint and who I could trust and believe in. But I didn't have it. I went through about three of them trying to get that back and gave up just as the worst of this was landing in my life.
I'm realizing now that death freaks me out. Badly. I can't deal with it. I can't look directly at it. I feel like I'm looking at it from the corner of my eye. This bugs me because death itself has NEVER been a problem for me. Now it is.
This last week, a lady from one of my old churches died. It was someone I liked, someone I once spent an entire day with, driving around with her, immersed in her life and errands. The last time I was at Church of Peace, she, Ray and I sang a trio. This week, she's dead. She wasn't as old as my mother, even. She was immune suppressed, she got an infection, it went into her blood and put her in a coma. They took her off the machines when it was pretty clear she was not coming out. It feels so sudden.
I realize there's certain music I associate with certain people's deaths. I really have always married music to events, and since I'm a singer, it's not terribly surprising. I hear "Right Here Waiting," by Richard Marx when I think of Jenny. I associate "I'll be There" by Escape Club with my grandfather's death when I was 13, and when the song was played at my senior prom, I started to cry. I hear "Candle on the Water" and I think of Duncan - my mother and "sisters" Andi and Cathy sang it at his funeral. I wanted to sing with them, but I was in so much pain I could hardly breathe, let alone sing. I think of "Amazing Grace" when I think of Grandma Lois' death, since I sang that at her funeral (I don't care for the song, but it was one of her favorites. I was pretty happy that I made it all the way through without losing voice once, my entire family was in tears.)
Now I keep hearing "Thy Word" over and over all week. That was the song I sang with Diane and Ray the last time I was in church. The last time I saw her. And it was years ago, but it doesn't leave me. Music has always been a deep trigger into memory for me, and always very much emotionally effects me (my mother used to be able to make me cry just by singing to me when I was a kid, or my dad by playing certain classical music, it always bothered me that some music really causes me physical PAIN the way it gets inside me and pulls.) I hear it, and I think of Diane, and I can't really believe she's dead.
Caesar's cat, Tasha, is dying. I mean, actively dying. She's not old, her Gotcha Day is 9/4/97 and she was only a few weeks old when we got her, but every cat we have has been exposed to FIV, FeLuk and FIP. We used to do rescue and we've had cats die of all three, and we know they've all been exposed. I'm pretty sure Tasha's in organ failure from FIV. I want to get her put down. She looks AWFUL. She's going downhill HARD in the last couple weeks, and frankly I think she has a couple weeks at MOST left in her. But Caesar won't even consider it. He adores this cat. He's hand-feeding her chicken now. He's making sure she has ice cubes in the water bowl, or running the faucet with her so she can drink running cold water. He's spending a ton of time cuddling and talking to her. But he won't take her to the vet because he knows they'll want to put her down, and he refuses to acknowledge it's time. And I can't stand watching it. It's bringing up every trigger I have from watching my rats being sick and dying and knowing that, likelihood is that I will be the one to deal with her death.
Caesar works and goes to school. He's not-home more than he's home, and he's gone before I wake up. The chances are very good that when Tasha dies, I'll be home alone again. And I know that she's suffering. But he won't even consider taking her to be put down and if I were to take her myself, he would never EVER forgive me for it. I mean I seriously think that he would leave the house and I'd never see him again. But I can't stand this, and I do NOT know how to tell him how much this is upsetting me and how cruel I think he's being and how it's just TIME to let her go. I don't know how, but the dread in me is building up like an acid wave and I feel trapped and helpless.
On top of that, this week is the Pack's annual camping trip. We're going up on Thursday and won't be back until Sunday evening. With the shape Tasha's in now, I wouldn't be shocked to come home to her dead. And honestly, it's so not fair to do that to my mother or my brother who'll be over here pet sitting. Why does someone else have to deal with Tasha's death? Why can't Caesar do it?
I'm tempted right now, after trying to talk to Caesar and being told flatly that no, he won't take her to the vet, to ask my mother or brother to take her while we're gone. But god, I do not know if I can go behind C's back on something this important. I know mom would be in the room with her, and hold her and pet her while she went, and let me pay her back for it without letting C know... but that's a LOT of deception for me and her to carry against the guy who's supposed to be my husband.
I don't know what to do, but I do know that I can't handle this. I just don't know what other option I have.
I've always been uncomfortable with corpses, the physical manifestation of death. But never with death itself. The corpse-phobia comes from a very disgusting thing that happened to me when I was six years old, involving a dead bird, an innocent desire to "save" a "hurt" bird by taking it to my mother, and a lot of maggots. That's all I'll say about it, but touching a corpse is enough to give me a panic attack and has been since that time. But death itself has never bothered or frightened me.
About 2 years ago I lost 2 dogs in a really horrible way (one killed the other one - Duncan was my little soulmate and Tucker wasn't aggressive, just very prey-driven and Duncan was much smaller. I let them out to go to the bathroom in the backyard and opened the door to the whole snowy yard covered in blood. I was completely alone in the house and had to deal with Tucker, my other 3 dogs, and the body of Duncan then try and call my friends for help.) Tucker was euthanized, and one of my remaining three dogs went to live with Fox and Wendy.
I lost part of a litter of siamese rats I'd been really looking forward to when mom chewed a hole in the tub they were staying in and led several of the babies out and they walked along the side of one of the adult male cages. No blame there - strange little mammals are fair prey when they invade an adult's territory. Three of the babies were terribly injured but not killed. I won't go into graphic detail, but suffice it to say, they were very maimed. Again, I was alone in the house and had to try and deal with putting away the other babies, removing the maimed ones, finding a secure place for mummy and the rest of the litter, then calling Fox to help me out by snapping the necks on the maimed babies.
I lost 2 grandmothers. One was my actual last grandmother (around Thanksgiving) and the other was the woman who'd lived 2 doors down from my parents and pretty much raised my brother and I from the time we were born until I was about 15, babysitting us all day until our parents got home at 6 (and she died around Christmas.)
Between those two deaths, I got a bacterial infection in my rattery which went on killing one rat about every-other day for about 2 months. It got to the point where I was physically unable to go into the rat room and Caesar had to take over their care. I mean I literally could not go in and face seeing who'd died. My joints locked up and I just freaked out.
I would like to say that I had a good, supportive community to help me deal with all that happening, but I didn't. For reasons I will probably go into in a blog not too far in the future, since it's been on my mind a LOT lately, I'd lost my church community and all the trust I'd been able to build up in any kind of religious community since my horrible burning at the hands of Catholic school and Jenny, due to the actions of 2 ministers and the reaction of the church to them. I had my parents, and I had the Pack, and while that was a lifesaving amount of support, it would have been AWFULLY NICE to have some sort of faith to fall back on, a community of supporting people who has a spiritual viewpoint and who I could trust and believe in. But I didn't have it. I went through about three of them trying to get that back and gave up just as the worst of this was landing in my life.
I'm realizing now that death freaks me out. Badly. I can't deal with it. I can't look directly at it. I feel like I'm looking at it from the corner of my eye. This bugs me because death itself has NEVER been a problem for me. Now it is.
This last week, a lady from one of my old churches died. It was someone I liked, someone I once spent an entire day with, driving around with her, immersed in her life and errands. The last time I was at Church of Peace, she, Ray and I sang a trio. This week, she's dead. She wasn't as old as my mother, even. She was immune suppressed, she got an infection, it went into her blood and put her in a coma. They took her off the machines when it was pretty clear she was not coming out. It feels so sudden.
I realize there's certain music I associate with certain people's deaths. I really have always married music to events, and since I'm a singer, it's not terribly surprising. I hear "Right Here Waiting," by Richard Marx when I think of Jenny. I associate "I'll be There" by Escape Club with my grandfather's death when I was 13, and when the song was played at my senior prom, I started to cry. I hear "Candle on the Water" and I think of Duncan - my mother and "sisters" Andi and Cathy sang it at his funeral. I wanted to sing with them, but I was in so much pain I could hardly breathe, let alone sing. I think of "Amazing Grace" when I think of Grandma Lois' death, since I sang that at her funeral (I don't care for the song, but it was one of her favorites. I was pretty happy that I made it all the way through without losing voice once, my entire family was in tears.)
Now I keep hearing "Thy Word" over and over all week. That was the song I sang with Diane and Ray the last time I was in church. The last time I saw her. And it was years ago, but it doesn't leave me. Music has always been a deep trigger into memory for me, and always very much emotionally effects me (my mother used to be able to make me cry just by singing to me when I was a kid, or my dad by playing certain classical music, it always bothered me that some music really causes me physical PAIN the way it gets inside me and pulls.) I hear it, and I think of Diane, and I can't really believe she's dead.
Caesar's cat, Tasha, is dying. I mean, actively dying. She's not old, her Gotcha Day is 9/4/97 and she was only a few weeks old when we got her, but every cat we have has been exposed to FIV, FeLuk and FIP. We used to do rescue and we've had cats die of all three, and we know they've all been exposed. I'm pretty sure Tasha's in organ failure from FIV. I want to get her put down. She looks AWFUL. She's going downhill HARD in the last couple weeks, and frankly I think she has a couple weeks at MOST left in her. But Caesar won't even consider it. He adores this cat. He's hand-feeding her chicken now. He's making sure she has ice cubes in the water bowl, or running the faucet with her so she can drink running cold water. He's spending a ton of time cuddling and talking to her. But he won't take her to the vet because he knows they'll want to put her down, and he refuses to acknowledge it's time. And I can't stand watching it. It's bringing up every trigger I have from watching my rats being sick and dying and knowing that, likelihood is that I will be the one to deal with her death.
Caesar works and goes to school. He's not-home more than he's home, and he's gone before I wake up. The chances are very good that when Tasha dies, I'll be home alone again. And I know that she's suffering. But he won't even consider taking her to be put down and if I were to take her myself, he would never EVER forgive me for it. I mean I seriously think that he would leave the house and I'd never see him again. But I can't stand this, and I do NOT know how to tell him how much this is upsetting me and how cruel I think he's being and how it's just TIME to let her go. I don't know how, but the dread in me is building up like an acid wave and I feel trapped and helpless.
On top of that, this week is the Pack's annual camping trip. We're going up on Thursday and won't be back until Sunday evening. With the shape Tasha's in now, I wouldn't be shocked to come home to her dead. And honestly, it's so not fair to do that to my mother or my brother who'll be over here pet sitting. Why does someone else have to deal with Tasha's death? Why can't Caesar do it?
I'm tempted right now, after trying to talk to Caesar and being told flatly that no, he won't take her to the vet, to ask my mother or brother to take her while we're gone. But god, I do not know if I can go behind C's back on something this important. I know mom would be in the room with her, and hold her and pet her while she went, and let me pay her back for it without letting C know... but that's a LOT of deception for me and her to carry against the guy who's supposed to be my husband.
I don't know what to do, but I do know that I can't handle this. I just don't know what other option I have.