That's Not How You're Supposed To Do It, You Know

Here's another thing about death - it makes you sit up right straight and ponder your relationships with the non-dead.  Not zombie non-dead but those who are still, at this point, technically alive.  I get pissy about people not doing exactly what I want them to do exactly when I want them to do it, and I end up irritated.   When I'm mad at my friends and family it's usually about the most inane crap.  Whatever I'm mad about is not worth it.

Here's another thing about me: I don't learn shit about shit when I'm getting my way.  I don't learn anything valuable when I'm on vacation - the best lessons come when I shoulder my way through some unpleasantness.  At my Step meeting yesterday we read Number 9 - the direct amends Step - and a lot of people talked about how scary the amends process is and how wonderful the results are.  We do it because we need to do it - it's the right thing to do - not because it sounds like a lark.  The famous Promises come into play after we're well into saying we're sorry.  We get 'em when we do the hard stuff.

After our cat had gone to The Big Sandbox in the Sky we sat with her for a while.  I couldn't get past the stark beauty of her corpse.  It was like looking at one of the space capsules that had actually been on the surface of the moon, reconciling the stillness with what had gone before.  We were able to think: "I know she isn't going anywhere ever again but, man, where she has been."

The vet offered a personalized cremation service which we declined.  Neither of us are particularly sentimental so the thought of The Wheeze's ashes on our mantle was unappealing.  I have trouble walking through the house without knocking something off a table so we both knew where an urn of ashes was headed.  I felt guilty making the decision - I spend a great deal of time worrying about whether or not I'm acting the way I'm supposed to be acting, whatever that is.

I had my camera phone with me. 

"Would it be weird to take a couple of pictures?" I asked my wife.

"Oh, god, yes," she said, clutching my arm.  "I was hoping you were going to suggest that."

They're our favorite pictures.  They're better than shots of our failing cat stumbling around.

So we turn on an old sitcom last night.  The episode centers around two brothers - one tasked with delivering the eulogy, the other with disposing of - you guessed it - an urn of ashes from an aunt who had passed away.  In the scene that was sent to us from above, the eulogy brother is in the car, discussing his speech with his father, while the ashes guy is in the background, struggling to get the lid off the urn so he can spread the ashes.  He twists and turns, he bangs it on a tree and against a rock, he falls into the bushes, and when the lid finally releases with a jerk, the remains fly out and cover both of the brothers.  

A message from god delivered by a 20 year old episode of "Frasier."  Priceless.