Losses and Gains - Grief and Elation

 

This week has been a rollercoaster of emotions, stress, and elation. 

  

  

Losing Snoopy-our forever friend, family member, and the best cat ever on August 11th, created an absence in our home that will be felt for a long time.  From the moment we met him, and Jim could hold him in his hand at the mere age of eight weeks, to the last minutes we spent with him fourteen and a half years later, he was a delight.  His presence in our lives will be difficult, if not impossible, to replace.  It’s the silence that digs so deeply.  The missing routines that filled the day from beginning to end now cut at our hearts.  It’s the imagined voice when you think he’s calling to you, or the empty chair or bed where he slept, that stop you from whatever you’re doing or thinking for a moment.  Grief is an ugly companion as you make your way through it, knowing that it is like going through a long, dark tunnel in search of any glimpse of light beyond its grasp that you can cling to.  To love deeply is to grieve greatly.  It is only now that I can even begin to form these words a week later without tears.  

Amid the stress of Snoopy’s liver cancer diagnosis and death, was a week of growing anxiety over my impending cataract surgery.  Everyone says it is an easy procedure to get through.  The prospect of someone cutting into my eye only made my imagination run wild.  Intellectually, I could fathom it, but underneath a growing sense of anxiety fought to overcome any rational attempt to hold it at bay.  Yesterday, I went through the operation on my right eye.  Indeed, everything I’d been told was true.  I was nervous about a procedure that turned out to be practically painless and totally endurable.  Perhaps it was the excellent surgeon that made it so.  Certainly it was the very competent staff who guided me through the whole experience with such care.  Most of all, it is the wonderful husband and partner I have in Jim, who has been at my side through it all. 

I am elated to report that already today, my vision is remarkable.  For the first time since the age of about 14 years old, I maneuvered through my day without glasses.  Yes, there’s still recovery time and improving vision to anticipate, but even today I could read and see items across a room without any glasses.  The world is lighter and brighter and oh-so-white with my new lens.  It’s absolutely remarkable.  Now I am looking forward to getting the second eye done as soon as they proclaim I can be scheduled.      

No one ever said life would be easy.  And it isn’t.  But today I am thankful.  I have loved, I have survived, and most of all, I am so very blessed by all that I have been given to experience.