THE GANG

Don’t worry, this won’t be a complaining post. Au contraire! Just a statement from a wounded child/mother, reflecting on a life of poor communication on her part.  I had to put my blind/deaf cat (who trusted me)  down on Tuesday, and the last pet I had put down was my pet dog of many years, Gracie. At that time my son made a special trip to town to help comfort me. He held her in the vet’s outbuilding while “she went to sleep.” I was there, too, stroking her.  She trusted me, too, but I still wonder if it wasn’t too soon.  Much earlier, while living with his father, he had called long-distance to tell me that they were having to  put our family dog Buttons down, and he just wanted to let me know. I think those are two of my warmest memories.

After a life of poor or too-late communication, one grows even rustier at it.  One of the favorite lines from my book Time Wrinkles is something like  “I found a loudspeaker in my crib and just realized  it doesn’t work.”