Death Takes a Holiday

Two years ago on July 4, which I have for the past nine years or so not really "celebrated" to speak of, I was here at home as the sky slowly decided to grow dark, looking at my Sweet Siddy La, and I decided to go to my office and pick up my laptop.  I felt like I might be being overdramatic, but I had this overwhelming need to be with her, to not leave her the next day and just go back to work.  And the next day, she did go to the vet ... and not come home.

Sidney was the gooderest thing, and I'm *still* grateful to ever have known her, to have been privileged to love her.  Her death began what has been a hideous two years - I was in a car accident one week after she died, I had health scares, there has been a surfeit of stress and fear and difficulty, culminating in the fear, starting almost a year ago, that my job was, if not in jeopardy, at least in for some fundamental changes I could not see as positive.  I reacted in knee-jerk fear, did not find a way out, settled down ... and then almost by accident an opportunity called my name, and I responded.

Image:  Wikimedia

I did NOT want to leave that job - least of all my team, whom I still adore to bits and have maintained friendships with - but it has in the end turned out to have been the right thing.

We used to look out our window there, from time to time; the cube farm was next to a small manmade lake in a large manmade office park in an area very close to the swamps of my childhood.  We'd be like little kids watching Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom if eagles, deer, our huge gleaming-finned carp, or the heron showed up.

For years, I've loved the Great Blue.  I saw them when I worked beside the river downtown, and they were regular players on our pond.  But I'd never seen a White Egret until last year, and the ghostly appearances of them starting just when I was going through such fear got me all schmoopy and I looked up the animal symbolism of the bird.  They stood for self-determination, among other things.




Starting with that job change, I was blessed to have the *power* of self-determination, and the past six months have brought ever-growing reasons to be thankful and grateful.  The job has been a good thing, and I have yet another new, great team and a really interesting desk full of work.  I like it and am happy there.

Right now, a new two years looks good to me.  Some of the best news in my life came in May.  I have a completely charming new (ish) little Prius.  Penelope and Gossamer are both two themselves now (I adopted the latter just two days after that car accident mentioned above), and we're a pretty good little pack family.  One of these days, I might even get to take a vacation for the first time in three years.

And the final polish on Ax is so close I can almost touch it ...

At its solstice, 2014 has been a wonderful year, to be grateful for, and the main thing I wish now is for my friends to be so blessed - and more.  I wish the same peace and prosperity for everyone.

Get to it.  And watch a few birds along your way - and pet a few furbabies.