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Farewell, Miracle, Our Miracle

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches

Today I celebrate the extraordinary life of our sweet Miracle.

We helped her leave her weak body yesterday afternoon after an agonizing early day. We’d had the gift of 8 extra months with her thanks to fluids and meds; last June at the vet’s she was diagnosed with kidney failure and either IBD or lymphoma.

I swore three things that awful day: that I would not keep her around just for my sake if it was no longer good for her; I’d not take her to the vet’s again if I could help it. (Of all my cats, she truly hated it and it took years off of her life each time when she was healthy, no way I was going to do that with her remaining time. They gave her 3-5 months. We got 8.)

And above all, I hoped when it was time, I’d know, and we’d get someone to come to our apartment to help her pass. (Well, actually, to Miracle’s apartment. She just let us live there.)

Well, I never took her in to the vet’s again. I gave her fluids and meds at home each day. We had a great 8 months, give or take some bumps in the road and difficult, challenging times of questioning “Is it time?” (Anyone who’s gone through this knows how it is: awful at times. Wonderful at others.)

And when it was no longer gonna be good for her, she and I both knew. And miraculously, thanks to an angel vet, we were able to hold her as she slept between us (her favorite spot) as she peacefully left her very sick body. I hated letting her go, and I knew it was right. And because I love her so, I helped her leave.

Thank you, Miracle, for your magic. I will see you in the moon and feel your spirit in our home and in my heart always. You inspired a poem https://lifeontheskinnybranches.com/2018/05/15/ode-to-miracle/ and a blog post https://lifeontheskinnybranches.com/2017/07/02/miracle-of-miracles/ and so much more. (Miracle’s story is amazing – read it . I was darn lucky she deigned to love me.)

Thank you angel vet for helping me see through my promises to her. (Thank you Instavet.com.) The angel vet was so caring, respectful of our process, humane and supportive.

Thank you Mary Oliver for putting into words, this part of love.

To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

Mary Oliver

To the Center

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I wrote a roadmap to true north in invisible ink

A child’s game that became a whole life

I secreted it from even my own true self

Tucked it away in my heart’s deepest strife

Countless skeins of yarn winding backwards in time

I followed a thousand strings

All leading to those who stood behind me, before me

The lost and the found, trapped in wounded wings

One by one, I unwound, to lead back to my self

I righted the order, helped past lives align

Until at last I discovered that all along, all this time

The heart missing from the system was mine

Daring to break silent vows – ejected and lost

I’m a lone wolf whose pack’s long since left

I must find my map to the center or else I’ll remain

A family-less soul, all alone and bereft

#DayTwentySix #TheGetMyWorkOutThereChallenge

HeartSpace

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ Leave a comment

My post today was inspired by an incredible poem quoted by the incredible Erin Stutland in one of her meditations. [Erin’s work is amazing: check out her book “Mantras in Motion” and her app The Movement.] Dorothy Hunt’s work is also amazing. Both women’s creativity and lives inspire me to follow my own creativity in my own life.

Peace is This Moment Without Judgment
by Dorothy Hunt

Do you think peace requires an end to war?
Or tigers eating only vegetables?
Does peace require an absence from
your boss, your spouse, yourself? …
Do you think peace will come some other place than here?
Some other time than Now?
In some other heart than yours?Peace is this moment without judgment.
That is all. This moment in the Heart-space
where everything that is is welcome.
Peace is this moment without thinking
that it should be some other way,
that you should feel some other thing,
that your life should unfold according to your plans.Peace is this moment without judgment,
this moment in the heart-space where
everything that is is welcome.

HeartSpace

Somewhere deep in the recesses of my heart

There lies a nook that houses secret things

Like a child’s hiding place of special tokens

In a treehouse or the back of a closet, where

Treasures and other things of import reside

Become forgotten in the process of growing up.

I found that nook, I unearthed what it held

The hurts from being bullied, the times I never told

The part of me that broke apart when I didn’t get picked

to be in Drama Club, that sorority, a date for the dance

The times I was terrified I was losing my mind, felt so alone,

When really, I was finding my sanity, waking up from a coma.

I found these things and so much more – and I dusted them off

I found a prominent shelf in the middle of my heart

And placed them upon it, one by one, with a kiss and a caress.

I have inventoried and know my parts intimately now

Nothing’s in shadow, I shine the light on all I am

Nothing more to be hidden for I am a child no more.

 

#TheGetMyWorkOutThereChallenge #DaySix #truth #heart #dorothyhunt #erinstutland

 

 

 

 

 

For Laura

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ 1 Comment

I know some incredible women.

It is one of those women’s birthday today.

Some people just blow you away. Laura inspires me daily. She is an artist, a wife, a mother, a sister, a daughter, a friend. A leader. A teacher. An activist. A community contributor. An active citizen.

She lost her 20 year old brother to suicide in 2000. Rather than fall into despair, she has used her grief to create, educate, help and heal.

Read about one of her creations, Arts & Dreams, and the incredible work they do here.

Enjoy her art work here.

Laura reminds me to live creatively, lovingly, with ample doses of self-forgiveness.

I am so lucky she was born and that I know her.

She Is
Scarlet lips
Piercing chocolate eyes
Portals who see your soul
Lives in brush strokes
Of love and thoughtful heart
Colors rich with knowing
Midwife of self-love
Earth angel saving
wretched alone-hearts
One mantra at a time

Soulmate

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ 2 Comments

I’ve been looking for you forever

My sister, my twin

The parts of me who flew away

From the pain that was inescapable

Unendurable

You left

And I went numb

With shock, to survive

And then I forgot

You’d ever existed

And just felt emptiness

Where your life had once filled my heart

I cobbled a self out of what of me remained

And tried to find my way

But when you are missing key parts of your soul

Life always feels like it has not quite begun

So I’ve lived a half life

I’ve been like a ghost

While my real self was in limbo somewhere

And now here I am

Calling all of me back

My doppelgänger come home to roost

I feel my heart fill

I recognize what is at the same time foreign

Like meeting a twin separated at birth

Who I am now makes sense

No more searching the ends of the earth

Inspired by The Daily Prompt Daily Word: doppelgänger

Lost Treasure

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All that I held dear

Was washed away

By the tsunami that was you

My heart, my mental health

My easy laugh, my joy

My positive outlook

My belief in goodness

My trust in my own body

My trust in my own soul

The winds have long since died down

My body has healed from the twists and turns she rode

I sit in the quiet aftermath

And wait to see what of me

The tide will wash ashore

Will I recognize my essential parts

Or will I pass them by as detritus

Not knowing their inherent value

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: tide

Lush Life

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ 1 Comment

The darkness descended

The blight that you brought to my lands

Soul-grooves

Worn into my heart

Rivulets of salt-tears

Eroded the once-pristine landscape inside

But I’ve started a conservancy

To build my self up again

Renew, rebuild, regrowth

One day, no traces of you will remain on my terrain

And the wind will carry the seeds of my heartlands

To populate fertile fields so that love will spread

And color the world a thousand shades of beautiful

Inspired by The Daily Post Word Prompt; rivulet

Astral Projection

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ 1 Comment

I learned long ago

How to leave my body

Escape what was

Incomprehensibly horrific

I saved my own life

Salvaged my sanity

(Such as it was)

But there’s a price to be paid for such traveling

You cannot escape the bad

Without missing out on the good

I could leave my body

At any time today

But I choose not to

I have other ways to cope

That don’t cost so much

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: astral