Tag Archives: loss

by | May 29, 2026 · 10:31 am

My Saddest Blog Post

Three and a half years ago my soul mate cat Perry was diagnosed with both a serious heart issue and either IBD or GI cancer of some sort. At the time we thought he’d only have maybe a year. I was broken hearted to learn this because he was only seven years old.

We were blessed to actually get these 3 1/2 years instead. He required several medications. And he suffered with horrible diarrhea most days. But his love was strong so he hung on.

Until Tuesday night when he stopped eating and drinking and began to hide himself away. I realized that Perry was breathing rapidly with his mouth slightly open. The gardener and I were supposed to go on a business trip, so I told him to go without me–that I would stay and take care of Perry. Yesterday, I had to let the emergency vet put Perry out of current suffering. What I was told was that they had exhausted what they could for him, and that I could take him to a specialty emergency hospital. He probably had a few things wrong with him–pneumonia, congestive heart failure, maybe more. What that special ER visit would entail would be lots of nasty testing and then he would be hositalized for at least a few days–with a feeding tube. And the prognosis wasn’t good. I could see the vet was telling me something.

After conferring with the gardener who spoke with the vet on the phone, we decided we couldn’t let his sensitive soul suffer any longer when there was no hope of him actually getting well enough to enjoy life.

So on May 28, 2026. Perry, my very best friend, passed away.

If you don’t know, Perry was a stray in my yard nine years ago. We trapped him in a trapping cage and got him neutered. Then I brought him to the animal rescue where the gardener and I both volunteered. I visited every day and read him his favorite Curious George book. But he seemed feral in that setting, and the rescue asked me to find another place for him as he was too difficult to care for. So I bought a 3 tier cage and brought him home. He stayed in that cage until he felt comfortable hanging out in the room. For two months I read and sang to him for a few minutes every waking hour. I held his bowl while he ate.

Finally one day while he was hiding under the bed and I put my hand toward him, he rubbed against my hand. Then I knew he was not really feral, just a very very scared and neglected stray cat who had been infested with worms and whose paws were thickly callused. Perry’s soulful eyes and gentle but commanding personality quickly made him my favorite cat of all time. He was the most unique and more like a toddler than a cat sometimes.  We became a team, Perry and Mama. And more recently when my grandson Hudson would lie on the couch with me Perry would squeeze his way between us all the while licking us both to show that although he had to come first with Mama, he loved Hudson, too.

I wrote this poem when Perry was first diagnosed, and it was published in a small journal that is defunct.

Perry

I call my other cats dear heart names–
Tiger Queenie Princess Mimi
and Meeskeleh Meeskeleh Meeskerelli.
Lily Billy Peaches and Cream.
Perry is Perry.
Perry is a cartoon cat.
He’s Tom of Tom and Jerry.
My other cats look like regular cats.
Those cats hobble into old age
with arthritis and newfound
appreciation for my help.
Perry ignores all boundaries.
He carries his octopus, fish, and squid
upstairs and down, wherever we are.
He stares at the others for attention.
My other cats lie on the couch back,
the chair, the bed, or in the new box.
Perry lies tummy up in the crook
of my arm for the length of a movie.
When I’m mad at my husband I say
I’ll divorce you and marry Perry!
Perry is only lucky number seven.
The others are elderly and wise.
Perry has been imaged inside and out.
He doesn’t know what we saw,
and I can’t feel what I saw, or
I won’t be able to breathe, so I say
Perry is Perry.

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by | February 24, 2025 · 4:21 pm

Review of Robert Okaji’s Our Loveliest Bruises

Robert Okaji’s new poetry collection Our Loveliest Bruises can be considered his greatest work, truly a magnum opus. The spare language belies the beautiful compelling imagery as it probes the depths of emotion.

Some of the poems have been published in various literary journals and anthologies, but the book is a tightly woven project of loss and grief. Okaji uses the Japanese bamboo flute shakuhachi as a metaphor for these emotions. Throughout the book, in various poems, the poet breathes his life force into the holes of the instrument, producing notes which are akin to his poems. The holes represent the absences of loss. Eventually, in “Self-Portrait as Shakuhachi,” the poet becomes the flute: “How easy to let air / slide through oneself.”

The poet’s mother’s ghost is a recurring character. She does not communicate, but there is a sense of competition between the two. The imagery in these poems is rough and realistic. There is a sense of profound regret, but also of love. From “Ghost, with a Line from Porchia”:

Your battle with language, with silence, invoked.
I stretch the word and weave this dirge for you.

Some poems address a “you,” and I believe in many cases this person is his mother’s ghost. But it could mean the poet himself. There are instances in some poems that point out the brief nature of life itself or are a merging of mother and self and perhaps even a universal human message. “Each day lived is one less to live,” Okaji writes in “Mother’s Day.”

Robert Okaji has written an extraordinary account of the “loveliest bruises” we experience from the love we have for loved ones, of self, of life itself.

***

Bob Okaji blogs at O at the Edges. If you haven’t read his blog you might not realize that Bob was diagnosed with late stage metastatic lung cancer. He has posted a couple of times on his blog about his illness. He continues to do well, although he doesn’t always feel that great.

Bob is the person who first introduced me to the Tupelo 30/30 poem challenge. I think that challenge really motivated me into writing more and more poetry.

Click the link to Bob’s blog so you can send him some good vibes. And then, if you can, click the link to his gorgeous book.

Our Loveliest Bruises

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by | October 6, 2021 · 7:34 am

Making After Loss

On my last post about losing all the kitties, Linda Raha suggested I make scrapbooks for the kitties. She knew that that would be right up my alley. What she didn’t know is that I was already making something to remember my dears by.

Using my art journaling supplies and a carton that cat food comes in, I made this so that all the kitties (including Mac who I lost in 2015) are together, right where I can see them all the time.

The cat bed and bowls are dollhouse-sized. The kitty on top was a gift. Here is a close-up of the kitty pix.

Upper left is my heart Pear, then clockwise, Mac, Felix, and Izzie.

Monday I had the vaccine booster shot, and I felt fine yesterday morning. But then I started to get sick with a 101 fever and then painful lymph node swelling under my arm, reaching into my chest and back and down to the tips of my fingers. I had finger cramping last night, but not this morning, so maybe I will be getting better soon.

Well, i wanted to share with you my little cat nicho. Make it a great rest of your week.  XOXO

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by | October 3, 2021 · 5:20 am

In a Fog

This has been such a difficult three months for me. On the one hand, I am blessed that I am not recently mourning any of my human relatives or close friends. But two of our long-time kitties and one of our kitty grandkits have passed away–one in July, one in August, one in September. Isabella Rose, or Izzie, was my daughter’s cat, only 11 years old, and I used to babysit her alllll the time. I loved babysitting her. She would walk in as though she owned the place. She had the other cats convinced of just that. We had Felix for fifteen years, and he was such a gentle, sweet soul. He endured chronic GI problems for years, but we set up a camera over his litter box and monitored his “schedule” for two years. I didn’t mind at all because I loved him so much.

If you are a regular reader of my blog you will know that the latest loss is my closest friend, my heart, Pear Blossom. She was 21 1/2, but that only makes it harder because we were together for so long. So many of my people have known her over the years. And with her kind and helpful personality, she touched so many lives. Pear and Felix were from my first group of three cats. They were very good friends–the three mousketeers. Macavity passed away in 2015. If you would like to read the story of how Mac, our first cat, came to be a part of our family–and how the gardener changed from a self-avowed cat hater–you can read this story: My Own Cat Hero or a Loss Upon a Loss

Why do kitties always take a turn for the worse on the weekend when one is least likely to find one’s vet available? Izzie passed on a Sunday, and both Felix and Pear on Saturdays. And yesterday, on Saturday, Tiger got sick!!!!! I took her to the ER after calling them and making sure. But when we were getting checked in, the vet called in sick. They sent me to another ER across town. At that one, the vet was just going into surgery and the wait would be hours. I was concerned that Tiger could have a urinary blockage as she had been running in and out of the litter box, unable to pee. By this time my vet was open (only open mornings on Saturdays) and although they were completely booked up, she let me drop off Tiger so she could be examined between patients. Luckily, Tiger turned out to have a UTI, not a blockage.

Being there at the euthanasia of three cats in three months has made me feel like the Angel of Death. I’m a benign zombie, not fully in the moment. The couch is soooo lonely without Pear next to me, even if another cat comes to me. I can only sleep at night with the little blanket Pear used in the last few weeks of her life.

Of course, life keeps on happening, right in the face of grief. But I’m trying to go easy and not push myself right now.

I had posted the following pic on Instagram in September 2019, while I was babysitting Izzie. I felt like Snow White with the 7 little cats–so happy to have them all together in my home. But now it’s easy to see the devastation.

Don’t worry: Tiger and Kana still make me work hard with all their needs. And Perry needs lots of attention because he’s grieving more than the other cats. He is at loose ends much of the time, with a sad look on his face.

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by | September 26, 2021 · 12:02 pm

In Loving Memory

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by | September 14, 2020 · 5:20 am

A Spiritual Teacher has Left Us

I know that I am not alone in feeling a loss at hearing of the passing of our friend and blogger Pauline King from The Contented Crafter. Pauline was the wisest person I ever met. As a tribute to Pauline, go peruse  her blog.

Pauline made me a beautiful light catcher 2 1/2 years ago, and I wrote about here: Rainbows Everywhere.

At the start of the pandemic, Pauline gave me some advice which I shared here: Advice from Pauline. Her advice included:

We will strive every day to look for the good things that are being done and enacted and shared – lets walk through this together and share and support and make the world a smaller, friendlier, safer place for a while. I think this will make a great deal of difference.

RIP Pauline. You were a powerful beacon in this dark world. I hope we learned enough from you. Love, Luanne

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by | December 11, 2019 · 6:43 am

Poetry of Loss

The Plath Poetry Project is one of the most unique poetry projects around. The central event involves writing poems that are inspired by Plath poetry. The poems are accompanied by explanations of  the inspiration. PPP published a poem I wrote once before, and now they have published one I wrote based on Plath’s “For a Fatherless Son.”

by Sylvia Plath

You will be aware of an absence, presently,
Growing beside you, like a tree,
A death tree, color gone, an Australian gum tree —-
Balding, gelded by lightning—an illusion,
And a sky like a pig’s backside, an utter lack of attention.
But right now you are dumb.
And I love your stupidity,
The blind mirror of it. I look in
And find no face but my own, and you think that’s funny.
It is good for me
To have you grab my nose, a ladder rung.
One day you may touch what’s wrong —-
The small skulls, the smashed blue hills, the godawful hush.
Till then your smiles are found money.

My poem is “For an Adopted Child.”

My children were adopted by the gardener and me as babies. My brother was also adopted by my parents as a baby. Although my kids are vocal about the positive side of adoption, that does not mean that they haven’t been scarred by the process of adoption. Adoptees aren’t born when they join their adoptive families. They have lives before that–perhaps a week, three months, or six years. They know loss before most other people. In the case of my kids, they are transracial adoptees, so that brings some more baggage along with it.

We’ve come a long way from the days when even educated people told adoptees they are lucky they were adopted, but there are still plenty of unenlightened people out there saying stupid stuff, never fear. It’s not lucky to lose your birth family, no matter what the circumstances. It’s not lucky to know loss so young.

I hope you appreciate “For an Adopted Child”; it’s one of my favorites.

 

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by | October 21, 2019 · 5:20 am

Goodbye to My Uncle

Last Wednesday my Uncle Frank passed away. A month or so before, he had suddenly found it difficult to walk, so he asked a neighbor to take him to the ER. Before that moment, he seemed in remarkably good physical and mental health for someone 90 years old. Although they didn’t know what was wrong, they admitted my uncle to the hospital where he fluctuated between lucidity and not. They had him on a strong dose of morphine because the pain in his back and legs was so bad.

Then they sent him to a nearby nursing home where he spent his days slumped uncomfortably in a wheelchair. That is the point where my cousin, Frank’s only living child, called me.

For a few weeks, Frank went back and forth between the hospital and the nursing home, but he was never given a diagnosis. Even without the morphine, he began to lose his lucidity. It became impossible to talk to him on the phone because he didn’t know what to do with a telephone and his words were slurred.

Although it’s a long drive, my mother and brother in Kalamazoo were able to drive to Arkansas to see him. They reported that after their initial visit he no longer recognized anyone, so I decided there was no point in flying there to visit. My brother and cousin thought he might have a couple of weeks “left,” but still nobody knew what was wrong with him. The day after the nursing home decided to get him an appointment with a blood doctor, he passed away. My cousin called me from Uncle Frank’s bedside.

We still don’t know what was wrong with him. I think the nursing home did the best they could as they are not doctors, but I have to wonder what went on at that hospital. I have no legal rights in the matter, though, so there it lies.

I am left with the memories. My father and Uncle Frank were, like many twins, very very close. Frank also had a long and happy marriage with my Aunt Dolly who passed away from leukemia less than a year and a half ago. He would have been 91 the day after Christmas, the birthday he shared with his twin brother, my father. With Frank gone, since I am the oldest of the cousins, I am now the oldest person descended from my grandmother.

The first time the gardener and I spoke with Uncle Frank after he was admitted to the nursing home, the gardener made a joke to Uncle Frank about “his scotch.” Uncle Frank enjoyed scotch and soda, and he loved to cook and to eat. He once owned a steakhouse in Chicago, although most of his career was spent as a car salesman. He was very social and had a great many friends, many of them decades younger than himself. The gardener asked what he was drinking at the nursing home. In a very cryptic comment, Frank said, “Whatever Dolly had.” This comment chilled me.

After all, Frank’s white blood count was up, and his worst symptoms were the pain from his back and the inability to walk. These are all symptoms of leukemia.

I’ve written on this blog about visiting Uncle Frank after Aunt Dolly passed away–and also attached a link about the time he escaped death by a mass murderer. You can find both links here: Links to Uncle Frank articles

I could have selected a lot of photos for this blog post, especially ones where Frank is with my father and with Dolly. Or even one of myself with my beloved uncle. Instead, I chose a photo of him in his U.S. Navy sailor uniform (he served right after WWII) and a Christmas photo from Grandma’s home in 1967. On his lap is my cousin Leah (age 7) who passed away 16 years ago.

Rest in peace, Uncle Frank, Aunt Dolly, and Leah.

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