Marriage. While it has been quite a learning experience, if I had it to do over again, I never would tether myself financially again, or emotionally, to this degree. And that is exactly what you do when you marry. For the woman, I believe we lose a ton of power once we say 'I do'. No, if I had a do over, I'd date, sure, remain faithful, of course, but never ever marry and probably keep separate house as well. Once a man has you, they just stop the necessary courtship. A woman needs the ongoing courtship to feel loved, appreciated and sexy. And when a woman feels that way, then the man is happy too. In my experience, things are hidden prior to marriage that perhaps would either be deal breakers if found out or maybe continue to be secret during a lengthy courtship, that may not matter as much in a dating situation.
For instance, in my situation, I did not realize the degree of damage, due to otherworldy abuse by a sick father, done to Michael. Sure, he mentioned his abuse and that he had years of therapy. But he was such a gentle soul and so loving and sweet during our courtship, and full of energy, and he was brilliant.
To the outside world, Michael is this handsome, zany, live wire, pied piper, full of energy, full of charm, very talented, capable and uber responsible. After our marriage, at home, things have fallen apart. Michael started out the primary breadwinner. He was the most romantic courting man I ever met. We were stone in love. After marriage, suddenly Michael grew sick, most vitality vaporized. If you ask him, on any given day, how he feels, he will say "exhausted". If you ask him how his day went, he will say "Terrible". What I saw first was the physical. He had a couple of focal siezures. He did not work for over 2 years, and I supported us. I was driven to distraction over worry for him. My whole life revolved around him like a planet orbiting his sun. For weeks, he had every sort of test and thing hooked up to him but nobody found anything wrong with him. sometimes I wonder if it is me wrong with him. Today, I suspect most of his issues to be of emotional origin, manifesting as these physical ailments. Everything, including the bedroom, is affected by his malaise. His dad beat him, knock him down flights of stairs, electrocuted him, so yes, he could have brain issues for real, but I find it very odd that in our 2 year courtship, where we saw each other several times per week and were together contstantly, that none of this presented during any of that time. This leads back to the secrets one keeps when one is courting. Like buying this brilliant car and then seeing the paint is peeled. These strange problems were well hidden from me.
After a couple of years around the house, he got bored and decided to work part time at Starbucks, as a Barista making 6 bucks an hour. He did that for 2 years before working full time as an assistant mgr and later a manager. True to form, he was unsurpassable and unstoppable at work. As a store manager, he created a million dollar store, mentored other stores and gained a huge following and worked the P&L like nobody's business. Any store he worked at for the day, became the highest grossing store! The man is amazing at work, but not at home. At Starbucks, he never got vacation time. When he'd try and take time off, something would come up and he'd have to come in. Additionally, he was on the phone with starbucks issues all day and all night long. I was routinely awoken out of deep sleep more times than I could ever count. 70 hour work weeks at 40-50k, and being awoken at all hours of the night, to my mind, is just not worth it; bad deal. I guess Starbucks had him where they wanted him, afraid of promoting him any further. Stupid choice for them as he is one of those rare individuals who can change a stock price. I am damn good at what I do, but I cannot do that one. My magic is much slower, and focused on revenue retention by treating the customer like gold. But you could never tie today's stock price with what I did last week, no. With my husband? Yes, absolutely, you could do that.
After years of trying to further promote, he quite and it was like a bad marriage. He is not allowed into the store! They escort him out! If he sends customers over to purchase coffee, the store manager refuses them service and asks that they leave! So Michael opened his own restaurant with a partner. Again, he is rocking everybody's socks off.
And then there is the financial thing. We argued about my spending, largely on property maintenance and furnishings, for ages, while I begged him to stop buying people gifts at Starbucks. He'd charge up $400.00 per month, buying people food and coffee there! I begged him to cut back on our grocery bill which was always over $2000 and sometimes over $4000, for 2 people! Now that I buy my own groceries, mine come to about $300 to $350 per month, and I eat organic.
I think people can run into huge fantasy and disconnect when it comes to financials, so why on earth marry them? In reality, I had been paying the mortgage and bills along with shoring up the differences in Michaels food costs for over a decade, because he literally did not earn enough to fill up his belly. Yet, if you asked him, he would tell you squarely I was a spendthrift who was going to leave him penniless.
In 2008, Michael left Starbucks to get his business going. He'd not saved any money back so again, I was fully supporting him for several months. Things got bitter when he made the mistake of stealing money from an account that I had set up under his employer, for both of us. Here I was stressed out about the food bill and how to pay the property taxes, and he was taking money secretly out of our stock account that was supposed to be for retirement investing.
When I caught the theft in January (which he'd denied 5 times until I shoved the statement in his face) he was unapologetic about taking the cash. In fact, he began switching his mail to the restaurant address, changing pin and password so that I no longer have access to this account.
In his mind, I had already taken enough, and he wanted his. Completely oblivious to the financial facts at hand. Effective March 09, I began to separate our finances, as much as can be done while married, so that I spreadsheet our joint bills and assure Michael pays exactly half. We each have our own account (s) that the other has no access to.
This is not my idea of what marriage is. But I have come to realize that we all enter into this sacred union with our own ideas of what is going to happen and sometimes, our partners have a whole other idea in mind.
I think, with rare exceptions, we don't all get married just to jack with each other. No, instead, what happens is we try to then suddenly create the marriage we think we should have, and that marriage we think we should have may just be quite shockingly different than the dating and courtship life we portrayed ourselves to be like!
Michael is clearly at odds with supporting a woman, supporting a home and complains bitterly about not ever having any money left after his paycheck. I remind him the only difference between now and prior to March 2009, is that, due to his own choices, he now supports himself and my paycheck does not pick up the overage.
Recently, he offered to help me pay a portion of some home repairs. I quickly said no, I am good without it. I know had I taken the money, it would have back fired on me later. No, as long as he pays half the mortgage, what is left from his paycheck is his to spend anyway he wants. I can handle myself just fine.
We still file jointly and for our 2009 taxes, Michael tried to hide the fact he blew through roughly 18k last year and none of that cash came into the home. In counselling, I have been advised to pull back emotionally and take care of me, which I am doing. I cannot fix him, he has to do that himself. He swears he doesn't do drugs, but where on earth does all that money go? I may never know. Recently, he barricaded himself inside his room...the entire day and night. His door shuts, but he went the extra mile of moving an end table, etc, to actually barricade the door and refused to allow me access. I needed the passcode to the wifi, which he slipped through the curtained door so I could not see anything but his hand. The next morning, he acted like nothing strange had happened, then asked me if I knew why there was all this stuff in front of his door. He claimed to not remember anything about what happened, our conversation, or barricading himself in with the end table, which is what he had told me earlier that he had used. He said he did not remember any of our conversation or anything about that day, except that all day and all night, he had dreams of his father. He said he would go back into therapy but he has not, claiming that he must now work Mondays and that is the only day the therapist can see him. I have offered him to leave, get his own place (and bathroom) and absolve him of any and all financial responsibility of this house but he insists he loves me and wants to stay with me. He holes up in his room or takes over my bathroom regularly.
I wonder if all marriages have these secret lives...look normal on the outside, sure they love each other, but neither one is really getting what they want and acting all crazy at home.
Before I agreed to marry Michael, I had one rule; that I must be first. I had to be first in all ways and that, in return, he would be first. What I see is his 30k per year job is first, and whatever hours he chooses to work is first, or his need to hole up in his room, or my bathroom is first. Sometimes I wonder at what place I am in his life. He can be very sweet, come home, fix dinner, sit and watch a movie with me. The next day he can be moody, fix nothing for dinner and just disappear into the bathroom and never come out until I have long since gone to bed without a shower. There is no warning.
What I know for sure is that we are not financial partners. He does not see where his leaving a 50k job for a 30k should involve me or affect me. His money should be his. I am learning to share less and make more of my money mine. I understand I would be very alone without him, but sometimes it seems more peaceful at least knowing the ground rules of my living with just myself. Sometimes, as many as 5 days can go by where we do not see each other, because of his holing up. There is little to no room for me to occasionally be the sick one because he is always ill. He spent so many years complaining about me to his mother, she finally asked that he divorce me or shut up about me. I wish him great happiness and to live his best life. But I am thinking of saving this year and getting my own place and just quietly moving out of his life if he will not move out of here. I would be curious to know if it brings his energy back or if he continues to hole up and hide in the bathroom after I am gone. Maybe I'll install a camera. :-)
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
TARGET and CHASE...OUTSOURCING AND BANKING GONE SOUR?
We can all learn from lessons of the past, or from past lessons of others. The trick is in the listening, in the absorbing. Unfortunately, many businesses wait until customer attrition, business failure, significant revenue loss, before they wake up and work on changing things. (DTV comes to mind again)
I always find this incredible and amazing. I invision the worker bees not being "heard" by the powers of change, such as the CEO and Execs, until THEY spot the bottom line dwindling and only then begin to listen and act. A smarter approach would be to provide and maintain an open communication line for the worker bees to channel their concerns. Much like canaries in a coalmine, worker bees see it all...and usually long before it happens financially to the company.
Before I get to my story, the lesson is simply this: Always listen to your customer and with a little empathy, please. If you are not empowered to make a legitimate complaint right, escalate the concern. Keep escalating that. Write annonomously to the CEO if you have to.
So here is my story about Target. They went after my business, and gave me an initial 15k limit. We have a ton of cards, we cycle through them. I have to say my favourites are DiscoverCard, Amex Blue, StateFarm Visa, Fidelity, Nordstrom, and the now defunct Starbucks Visa....oh, Starbucks Visa, you are sooooo missed! We use the cards, typically 3 at a time, pay them in full when the bill arrives, wash, rinse, repeat. We had not used the Target card in several months, so when we took it out of our safe to shop, we were not initially surprised to have it declined after a couple of small purchases. We figured they wanted to validate that, yes, it is just us using the card. Instead, the bottom line is that, without any notice, they had lowered our limit down to $200 bucks. I daresay our Starbuck coffee bill is higher. What ensued next is just crazy. I spoke with various folks, several supervisors, numerous emails were exchanged, at which point I promised to blog about this! Target refused to raise the limit (at all), refused to re-run a credit check, if that is what they needed to still feel all warm and fuzzy about us, and said, when I asked why not, this was due to cost cutting. I paraphrased just to make sure I heard things correctly: Target is refusing to listen to its customers legitimate concerns, refusing to do the necessary business conductions, such as periodic credit checks, in order to manage its credit department, preferring to LOSE business instead by lowering limits to very unreasonable, unusable levels and not budging. The rep said yes, if that is how I want to put it. I asked that my account then be cancelled as it was not worth the wallet space with only a $200 limit. I tried reason...I've got cards with 20k limit, so why would I bother with $200? Makes alot of sense to my mind, but TARGET clearly prefers I take my good business elsewhere. So, my employer does business with Target. And I used to work in AR. I double checked Target was still paying our bill. Yep, still paying us...and I will continue to check on this, since the company really sounds distressed to me.
On that note, and particularly in this economy, EVERY employee out there should be alert to any subtle signs from any of your vendors, that things may be off. When you are doing your own personal business, just keep in the back of your mind anything that might affect your employer (and paycheck) downstream. Something that is odd behaviour personally can manifest financial hardship that is more global. We all need to step a bit outside ourselves and look around, and act more globally. Everything is connected so everything must be observed and acted upon accordingly. I like that I have saved my company alot of money by watching the AR of companies doing strange things, over the years. Just by following my gut and providing a heads up my company might otherwise not have had. Jobs get saved, maybe even mine.
In the case of target, they are paying, so appear to be solvent for now, although their shelves are very bare at the one near us (things that make you go hmmmmm).
My take at this point is Target is clearly cutting back on stocking shelves, at least in some areas, and more obviously, they have got to be phasing out their credit department. This should be huge news! Target closing their credit doors. I was told, repeatedly, that they do not check credit on any redcard accounts, any longer. Those customers are no longer being supported. Period.
Am thinking it would be cleaner to just make the announement, provide 60-90 days grace prior and then cancel the cards after notice is sent to the account holders, then close the department and be done with that. Why continue to hold it on a shoestring with a total lack of customer service and support? My personal interactions make me much less likely to even shop there using one of my real credit cards!
And in other news....CHASE Bank preferred I close my 4 savings and checking accounts, close my 6 credit cards, close my HELOC and our two business accounts, rather than give me back the $45.63 in fees for my Pier 1 card who, unfortunately chose Chase as their carrier, because they either failed to send the statement (to gain revenue in fees) or it actually honestly got lost in the mail.
We have all heard of banks 'forgetting' to mail out statements so they can collect on fees, but I cannot prove Chase did this egregious activity. There was a slight issue with the address, which I got fixed with the rep I was working with (in India), and since I always pay all our accounts on time and in full, after getting the statement, I asked for a break on this, as a good customer, because I just did not get the statement. I was blamed for their not sending me a statement, that I somehow should have known the bill was due. The break was denied. In all communication Chase remains very appologetic, sure, but do they offer to adjust the $45 bucks? Nope...so I am still no longer a customer. What was very funny, is that while talking to Mr. India, he saw 4 cards associated with the Pier 1 card, and offered right then and there to cancel them! I said sure, NUKE 'EM and Enjoy your $45.63...if that is the customer service level Chase is now offering, I want no further part.
BANKS - Just a hint on how to do business successfully: STOP blaming your customers, unless you want all of us to write you off as idiots who deserve to get stuffed and take our business elsewhere, we can, and we will! Looking into my crystal ball, what we will see soon is more and more worker bees getting good and righteously pissed off. Anger can be a very good and empowering energy, if channelled correctly. We will all close accounts we really don't need. You have to wake up, banks, because the populous are more savvy about rates and where to shop, and we already have way too much stress in our lives so one more stupid policy or more of the typical blame game and we are outta there! The beauty of individuals is when we come together, en mass, to fight for justice! With my pretty credit, I figure if Chase is pissing me off, then these guys are pissing off the world. And so is Target. This canary is squaking! So, like a guy (or gal) who treated you poorly, in a year or so, with enough customer attrition, banks will wake up and get to grovelling for all of us to come back. Do you go back to that bad significant other? Or do you finally realize you were happier single after all?
With enough of us fed up, banks will become a service driven industry! When we stop banking, when we stop buying, we change the world, and that is huge power.
Ages ago, Discover card did this very thing. I had great service for years, then *poof* they irritated me, would not listen and I closed the account. They were suddenly so aweful, I asked if they'd been bought out. Turns out they had. I waited a full decade to come back, after they got nice again. So far, they treat me like gold.
In any economy, customers are Number 1. They have to come first, they are 'the money'. If you rent, you ARE the customer. If you owe a mortgage, once again, you ARE the customer. If somebody else wants something FROM you, that makes you the customer. Any customer, any debtor should come first, for nothing more but common sense in business. Should we stop paying, for any reason, a business, a bank, feels that real fast! Frankly, if I were strapped for cash, which thank goodness I am not, (whew, survived yet another layoff round) I would first pay those nicest to me. I have always paid the nice people first. So, big business...BE NICE. :-)
I always find this incredible and amazing. I invision the worker bees not being "heard" by the powers of change, such as the CEO and Execs, until THEY spot the bottom line dwindling and only then begin to listen and act. A smarter approach would be to provide and maintain an open communication line for the worker bees to channel their concerns. Much like canaries in a coalmine, worker bees see it all...and usually long before it happens financially to the company.
Before I get to my story, the lesson is simply this: Always listen to your customer and with a little empathy, please. If you are not empowered to make a legitimate complaint right, escalate the concern. Keep escalating that. Write annonomously to the CEO if you have to.
So here is my story about Target. They went after my business, and gave me an initial 15k limit. We have a ton of cards, we cycle through them. I have to say my favourites are DiscoverCard, Amex Blue, StateFarm Visa, Fidelity, Nordstrom, and the now defunct Starbucks Visa....oh, Starbucks Visa, you are sooooo missed! We use the cards, typically 3 at a time, pay them in full when the bill arrives, wash, rinse, repeat. We had not used the Target card in several months, so when we took it out of our safe to shop, we were not initially surprised to have it declined after a couple of small purchases. We figured they wanted to validate that, yes, it is just us using the card. Instead, the bottom line is that, without any notice, they had lowered our limit down to $200 bucks. I daresay our Starbuck coffee bill is higher. What ensued next is just crazy. I spoke with various folks, several supervisors, numerous emails were exchanged, at which point I promised to blog about this! Target refused to raise the limit (at all), refused to re-run a credit check, if that is what they needed to still feel all warm and fuzzy about us, and said, when I asked why not, this was due to cost cutting. I paraphrased just to make sure I heard things correctly: Target is refusing to listen to its customers legitimate concerns, refusing to do the necessary business conductions, such as periodic credit checks, in order to manage its credit department, preferring to LOSE business instead by lowering limits to very unreasonable, unusable levels and not budging. The rep said yes, if that is how I want to put it. I asked that my account then be cancelled as it was not worth the wallet space with only a $200 limit. I tried reason...I've got cards with 20k limit, so why would I bother with $200? Makes alot of sense to my mind, but TARGET clearly prefers I take my good business elsewhere. So, my employer does business with Target. And I used to work in AR. I double checked Target was still paying our bill. Yep, still paying us...and I will continue to check on this, since the company really sounds distressed to me.
On that note, and particularly in this economy, EVERY employee out there should be alert to any subtle signs from any of your vendors, that things may be off. When you are doing your own personal business, just keep in the back of your mind anything that might affect your employer (and paycheck) downstream. Something that is odd behaviour personally can manifest financial hardship that is more global. We all need to step a bit outside ourselves and look around, and act more globally. Everything is connected so everything must be observed and acted upon accordingly. I like that I have saved my company alot of money by watching the AR of companies doing strange things, over the years. Just by following my gut and providing a heads up my company might otherwise not have had. Jobs get saved, maybe even mine.
In the case of target, they are paying, so appear to be solvent for now, although their shelves are very bare at the one near us (things that make you go hmmmmm).
My take at this point is Target is clearly cutting back on stocking shelves, at least in some areas, and more obviously, they have got to be phasing out their credit department. This should be huge news! Target closing their credit doors. I was told, repeatedly, that they do not check credit on any redcard accounts, any longer. Those customers are no longer being supported. Period.
Am thinking it would be cleaner to just make the announement, provide 60-90 days grace prior and then cancel the cards after notice is sent to the account holders, then close the department and be done with that. Why continue to hold it on a shoestring with a total lack of customer service and support? My personal interactions make me much less likely to even shop there using one of my real credit cards!
And in other news....CHASE Bank preferred I close my 4 savings and checking accounts, close my 6 credit cards, close my HELOC and our two business accounts, rather than give me back the $45.63 in fees for my Pier 1 card who, unfortunately chose Chase as their carrier, because they either failed to send the statement (to gain revenue in fees) or it actually honestly got lost in the mail.
We have all heard of banks 'forgetting' to mail out statements so they can collect on fees, but I cannot prove Chase did this egregious activity. There was a slight issue with the address, which I got fixed with the rep I was working with (in India), and since I always pay all our accounts on time and in full, after getting the statement, I asked for a break on this, as a good customer, because I just did not get the statement. I was blamed for their not sending me a statement, that I somehow should have known the bill was due. The break was denied. In all communication Chase remains very appologetic, sure, but do they offer to adjust the $45 bucks? Nope...so I am still no longer a customer. What was very funny, is that while talking to Mr. India, he saw 4 cards associated with the Pier 1 card, and offered right then and there to cancel them! I said sure, NUKE 'EM and Enjoy your $45.63...if that is the customer service level Chase is now offering, I want no further part.
BANKS - Just a hint on how to do business successfully: STOP blaming your customers, unless you want all of us to write you off as idiots who deserve to get stuffed and take our business elsewhere, we can, and we will! Looking into my crystal ball, what we will see soon is more and more worker bees getting good and righteously pissed off. Anger can be a very good and empowering energy, if channelled correctly. We will all close accounts we really don't need. You have to wake up, banks, because the populous are more savvy about rates and where to shop, and we already have way too much stress in our lives so one more stupid policy or more of the typical blame game and we are outta there! The beauty of individuals is when we come together, en mass, to fight for justice! With my pretty credit, I figure if Chase is pissing me off, then these guys are pissing off the world. And so is Target. This canary is squaking! So, like a guy (or gal) who treated you poorly, in a year or so, with enough customer attrition, banks will wake up and get to grovelling for all of us to come back. Do you go back to that bad significant other? Or do you finally realize you were happier single after all?
With enough of us fed up, banks will become a service driven industry! When we stop banking, when we stop buying, we change the world, and that is huge power.
Ages ago, Discover card did this very thing. I had great service for years, then *poof* they irritated me, would not listen and I closed the account. They were suddenly so aweful, I asked if they'd been bought out. Turns out they had. I waited a full decade to come back, after they got nice again. So far, they treat me like gold.
In any economy, customers are Number 1. They have to come first, they are 'the money'. If you rent, you ARE the customer. If you owe a mortgage, once again, you ARE the customer. If somebody else wants something FROM you, that makes you the customer. Any customer, any debtor should come first, for nothing more but common sense in business. Should we stop paying, for any reason, a business, a bank, feels that real fast! Frankly, if I were strapped for cash, which thank goodness I am not, (whew, survived yet another layoff round) I would first pay those nicest to me. I have always paid the nice people first. So, big business...BE NICE. :-)
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
FLAT FACED IAN - TRIBUTE TO A GREAT CAT 1/4/2010
Today is my husbands birthday (same as Elvis) and I have got to just pull myself together, at least on the outside, for him. I've got a major cold and now it is difficult to tell if my furthering weakness is this damn cold or grief. Ian was really an accident, much as I was too. Mini Meow, who is still with us, was very small and when we took her into our home. Although she was with us for a few months, she was so tiny, but we took her to get fixed feeling it was about time. The vet asked that we bring her back in 3 more months, that she was too young for the proceedure.
That same week-end she went into her 1st heat and spawned 3 kittens; Nikki, Mendy and Ian. Mr Nikki got run over by a car several years back. Mendy is still with us.
Ian, was half the size of her siblings, requiring me to push her up to a teet to get her milk and assure she did not get pushed out of the way by her brother or sister at feeding times. Unlike her siblings and mother, she never wanted to go outside, prefering the balconies or a comfy chair or window sill.
She was a charmer, walking over, meowing then falling over hard on the floor to be petted. She had a unique meow, always chirped when touched to acknowledge it, loved her snacky treats, hated wet food, and fish, but loved good hard food and chicken and kitten milk.
In 2003, she was only about 3 years old, she went into congestive heart failure. Ian ended up at the emergency clinic overnight and further tests at Hillside Vet confirmed Advanced HCM, a fatal heart condition. She went on Enalpril, flaxseed oil (hates fish) and Hawthornberry, an herb that is supposed to strengthen the heart and blood vessels.
The enalpril made her stomach upset, so a few years later, when I took her in for a check up, and they were amazed she was still alive, but even more amazed that her heart seemed fine, I took her off the medication.
Flash forward to a couple years later, she suddenly got very sick to her stomach and was tossing up a bit of blood (pink) , refused to eat, so I took her in. They found a mass in her stomach, that must have been there a long time as her stomach lining was very thick. While her kidneys and heart, blood work up etc seemed fine, nothing was passing through her stomach, which had suddenly filled with fluid to 5x its normal size. With her stomach so large, she was in a ton of pain with all her organs squeezed for room in her tiny little body.
It seemed the upshot was to cut her open and confirm cancer, or leave her be and call it cancer. Either way, it was up to her body to release the fluid in her stomach and it was not doing so, causing a big issue. There was nothing that could be done for my little darling.
She had stayed overnight at the vet, to get fluids into her, since she was dehydrated from vomiting. While she stood up when she saw us, she did not make a sound, no greeting meow, and was drooling which the vet explained is what cats do when they are nauseated. She was not the kind of cat to rub up against you. So when Ian walked over accross the table toward me and placed her head against my abdomen, I understood. She had a catheter in her already for fluids so they put the kill dose of whatever they use in there. It was silent and quick. She went from scratching an ear to limp. Then her heart stopped beating. It was suggested we could bring her home, love on her then bring her back the next day to euthanize her but that seemed the most cruel to Ian.
I will remember how she would look right in my eyes when I would speak to her or pet her. How she would play chase the string with me, and how she, every day, tried to enjoy her life. A decade is short and I wanted more time. We always want more of a good thing.
All creatures are their own signature and uniqueness. It is to be treasured as it is never exactly duplicated again. Devinity is in the every day moments with the people and other creatures we are blessed with sharing our lives with. None of us are promised anything beyond the breath we are now taking. Although it hurts greatly to lose her, I am blessed knowing her. The happy accident of both our births allowed us both much joy. Since I will not truly know what happens when we die until I do, all I can hope is that her spirit is alive and well on some other plane, waiting for me.
That same week-end she went into her 1st heat and spawned 3 kittens; Nikki, Mendy and Ian. Mr Nikki got run over by a car several years back. Mendy is still with us.
Ian, was half the size of her siblings, requiring me to push her up to a teet to get her milk and assure she did not get pushed out of the way by her brother or sister at feeding times. Unlike her siblings and mother, she never wanted to go outside, prefering the balconies or a comfy chair or window sill.
She was a charmer, walking over, meowing then falling over hard on the floor to be petted. She had a unique meow, always chirped when touched to acknowledge it, loved her snacky treats, hated wet food, and fish, but loved good hard food and chicken and kitten milk.
In 2003, she was only about 3 years old, she went into congestive heart failure. Ian ended up at the emergency clinic overnight and further tests at Hillside Vet confirmed Advanced HCM, a fatal heart condition. She went on Enalpril, flaxseed oil (hates fish) and Hawthornberry, an herb that is supposed to strengthen the heart and blood vessels.
The enalpril made her stomach upset, so a few years later, when I took her in for a check up, and they were amazed she was still alive, but even more amazed that her heart seemed fine, I took her off the medication.
Flash forward to a couple years later, she suddenly got very sick to her stomach and was tossing up a bit of blood (pink) , refused to eat, so I took her in. They found a mass in her stomach, that must have been there a long time as her stomach lining was very thick. While her kidneys and heart, blood work up etc seemed fine, nothing was passing through her stomach, which had suddenly filled with fluid to 5x its normal size. With her stomach so large, she was in a ton of pain with all her organs squeezed for room in her tiny little body.
It seemed the upshot was to cut her open and confirm cancer, or leave her be and call it cancer. Either way, it was up to her body to release the fluid in her stomach and it was not doing so, causing a big issue. There was nothing that could be done for my little darling.
She had stayed overnight at the vet, to get fluids into her, since she was dehydrated from vomiting. While she stood up when she saw us, she did not make a sound, no greeting meow, and was drooling which the vet explained is what cats do when they are nauseated. She was not the kind of cat to rub up against you. So when Ian walked over accross the table toward me and placed her head against my abdomen, I understood. She had a catheter in her already for fluids so they put the kill dose of whatever they use in there. It was silent and quick. She went from scratching an ear to limp. Then her heart stopped beating. It was suggested we could bring her home, love on her then bring her back the next day to euthanize her but that seemed the most cruel to Ian.
I will remember how she would look right in my eyes when I would speak to her or pet her. How she would play chase the string with me, and how she, every day, tried to enjoy her life. A decade is short and I wanted more time. We always want more of a good thing.
All creatures are their own signature and uniqueness. It is to be treasured as it is never exactly duplicated again. Devinity is in the every day moments with the people and other creatures we are blessed with sharing our lives with. None of us are promised anything beyond the breath we are now taking. Although it hurts greatly to lose her, I am blessed knowing her. The happy accident of both our births allowed us both much joy. Since I will not truly know what happens when we die until I do, all I can hope is that her spirit is alive and well on some other plane, waiting for me.
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