a tribute to lucy and a few other thoughts on the meaning of life...

it's kind of a weird thing. the way i can just feel content with my thoughts for days at a time. and then one day i just feel kind of suffocated by them. they start to overwhelm my whole being till i sit down and get them out. and then i feel that peace and contentment again until the next time my thoughts start building up and creating that choking/burning/anxious feeling inside me. it's starts in my mind and then slowly it connects to my heart. it's just a little feeling of "hmm...good one cailie..." but then the more i think about it and the more it expands the more it begins to fill up that mind and heart connection. and then the more full it gets the more anxious i get to release these overwhelming ideas. and with that increase of anxiousness it starts to fill up the pit of my stomach. and when i leave it longer and longer it will start to ooze down my legs and arms and into my fingers and toes. till my whole body is screaming that i need to attempt to share my thoughts, feelings, ideas, with someone. anyone. usually chris gets to hear all these overwhelming thoughts. most days it goes something like this:
ring ring ring ring ring ring (for some reason he lets it ring about 9 times till i'm just waiting for the voicemail to start...)
hello?
hey! guess what!
what?
i made $40 bucks in tips today! and i had 9 clients! and i ate pasta for lunch! and i had this one crazy client....big long explanation! and i'm really itchy from tons of hair poking me! but i had some request clients come back to me! and this goes on for awhile!
then he says "cool."
then the normal, relaxed conversation begins.

other times it's more relaxed to begin with. we're just chatting about something and then some idea on how life works that i've been thinking about comes up and i get really excited and passionate about it and the next thing i know i'm rambling for 15 minutes straight and he just sits quietly, smiling and listening. and then when i finally stop to breath he adds a sentence and then i butt in and start going again. and he just starts smiling and listening again. haha. so most times i just talk too much ( thank goodness he's such a patient/good listener, eh? :) but there are times i get that overflow of thoughts and it's something else. i know it's something else when it makes me choke up; cry a little even, and i don't talk about it as much and the same way.

about 14.5 years ago when i was in about 1st/2nd grade (that was about the time i finally started growing the wedge out if that tells you anything about how long ago it was) my family somehow got roped into getting a cute little black and white kitten for free. she was nameless for a little while. note: i was kind of a weird child. i remember loving strange old tv shows like i dream of genie and the wonder years. i also quite enjoyed i love lucy. so one afternoon, within days of getting our new pet i enjoyed an episode of i love lucy and then i remember distinctly being upstairs in my mom's bathroom petting the new cat and telling her we should name her lucy. i remember giggling and thinking it was funny. but also thinking how cool and suiting that name was. lucille ball was so crazy but she was all grown up and beautiful but really funny in my young eyes. and somehow lucy seemed like a sophisticated name. so lucy it was. and it stuck.

i remember sometime in the early years of lucy's life i wrote a book called "lucy long legs the cat" i was so proud of that story. i drew lots of pictures and words all about my skinny little black and white cat. i remember the day lucy got out. one of only 3 times she would EVER leave the house. and shortly after that we noticed how fat she was getting. yep. she snuck out and got pregnant. i remember watching her get bigger and bigger and getting more and more excited for kittens. (note: this was the only time lucy ever got very fat) i remember when she started giving birth in her cat box, haha, and my mom helped her deliver the kittens. she had 4 of them. she was a strange, but good mom. i remember one time she got brave and jumped up on the counter and ate a big bowl of pasta and then she threw it up and it got all over my mom's bedroom door. i know that's a strange memory. but i guess that stood out to me as a child. lucy was at every christmas since i was just starting elementary school. every birthday. every day after school she was sitting at the top of the stairs, just watching. lucy was a pretty anti-social cat. she didn't really like playing or being petted much. but she would warm up if you were patient. she had this weird habit of only liking to drink running water. she'd sit and meow by bathtub or on bathroom sink until you turned it on for her. but it couldn't be running too fast. or barely dripping. it had to be at just the right speed.

the second time i remember lucy leaving the house she come home a little beat up. my guess was that she got in a fight with the father of her children. as far as i'm concerned lucy won. but she still had some battle wounds. i remember laura and rick turner were at our house and they helped my parents bandage her up. i was probably somewhere in the middle of elementary school. my guess would be 4th or 5th grade. i don't remember any of her wounds except one of her front paws was bleeding pretty bad and they used a tampon to get in there and clean it. again a weird memory. but i remember being so worried about lucy and kind of standing back and watching and then thinking "what is that strange cotton ball they are using?..." and then seeing the wrapper and thinking "oh one of those weird 'grown up' things...i didn't realize they are for fixing cats..." if you were wondering if strange people were once strange kids, they were. i am living proof.

as i started to grow up and pay a little more attention to my appearance lucy would sit on the bathroom counter and watch me learn to apply makeup and make my long hair look cute. she was a friend through all the awkward jr. high years. her whole life she slept on the foot of my parents' bed. she always loved my dad. my mom said she was in love with my dad. haha. it was always a weird joke we had. once chole came around and then oliver joined the dog team her attitude got a little worse at times. which is totally understandable. they tormented her so much. they'd jump around her barking and she'd hiss and scratch them and they'd run away. so really, lucy won every time.

one time when i was in high school it was a spring/summer night and i got home kind of late. i was walking in the house. the little porch light was on so there was some light in the front of the house but not much. there is a window well right in the front of our house next to the corner of the porch. there are also vines growing all over the front of the house and lots of plants in that general area. so it's hard to see anything suspicious going on in that particular window well at this time of year. well it's late and dark and i'm walking on the sidewalk past the window well and all of the sudden lucy comes flying out of the leafy window well. hissing and making scary cat noices. flying. yes she flew out of that window well. not and exaggeration. she almost hit me and i started screaming. that was the third of the three times i remember her leaving the house. there was another time that flying thing happened. i almost pooped my pants the second time too. somehow lucy and the dogs got locked on the basement stairs. they were being relatively quiet, so when i opened the door to go down there and get something the three of them came barreling out...lucy literally flew in the air again and then ran away and hid. this time wasn't nearly as scary. at this point i was in high school. i remember those two incidents combined with a couple of weird times where i'd find lucy walking around and watching me late at night caused me to get a little creeped out. i called her creepy lucy for awhile. nothing is more scary than having your cat fly in the air hissing with claws out in the middle of the night...and you know when cats are walking around at night and they turn just right and their eyes glow all crazy...yeah her little nightly adventures that resulted in us running into each other often included that...but really she was just watching out for me. it took me awhile to realize but she was very motherly.

lucy watched me graduate. she kept me company for my first year of college when i spent a lot of time in bed...sick with mono and every other flu you could imagine. she watched me leave for college. and she was always there on the stairs waiting to be pet (and waiting on the bathroom counter for me to turn on the water) when i came home to visit. in her younger years she plumped up a little. but at this point she reminded me of yzma from the emperor's new groove as a cat. she was rather bony. but had that little bit of excess, saggy skin. it was also at this point that we really started noticing that lucy was getting old. and we'd always talk about how she would live forever. ten...twelve...that was so old. and she was so healthy. i really felt like she'd be around forever.

and she just kept going. through hair school. through lots of boyfriends. all the teenage and and college age drama. and then this summer/early fall i started to notice lucy couldn't jump up to her food. and wouldn't meow so much to have me turn on the water. so we started lifting her. not long after i also noticed that she only had two teeth in her little mouth. that was a really scary moment. but she kept eating and kept watching our lives move on. then the day came where i lifted her up and noticed a lump on her stomach. i also started to notice she was getting dandruff. both signs of her age showing and her life slowing down. pretty soon the lump on her stomach became several larger lumps. not long after they started to turn into sores. she started eating and sleeping less. and for awhile no one said anything but we all knew what was coming. right before thanksgiving my mom and i took her to the vet. the only solution was to love her for the few weeks we had left.

as a family we decided that when we could tell she was in pain, then we would let her go. it didn't take long. so today we all said goodbye. lucy had been around for so long and we knew it was coming. but every one of us has cried our eyes out. literally. it's weird how things become habit. just a way of being. we become so used to the little things that make life what it is. lucy was quiet. kept to herself. but she has been the routine of my life for as many years as i can remember. it's just part of my day to pet her and turn on the water. and then before we new it that part of life has come and gone. it's sot hard to let go of something that has been so close for so many years. my mom turned the water on for awhile as she got ready for bed tonight. :)

so as i sit her crying all over again i've been thinking about life a little more than i usually do. how it comes and goes. one of my favorite scriptures is in 2nd nephi i'm pretty sure and it says something to the extent of life passing away...like a dream. it really does just come and go in the blink of an eye. and then you have those moments where you realize it's come and gone. there are so many little things like seeing the beloved family cat sitting on the stairs watching everyone come and go, waiting for someone to pet her and give her a drink...little daily routines...that is what life is. all these little routines. wake up. brush teeth. get ready. eat some cereal. give hugs and kisses goodbye. listen to the chunga show and drive to work...etc. etc. do we ever notice them? not until the flow is disturbed. then we realize how much each little detail of our life matters. i am so grateful for these details. i'm grateful for seeing quincy's static-y hair and crazy smile after work tonight. i'm grateful for storey's little shy smile when i asked her about a boy in her class, i'm grateful for tieing my mom's apron for her, i'm grateful for hearing aubree talking about chase...again... i'm grateful for taking the time to let my dad tell me and show me all about what he learned on npr today, i'm grateful for nolle's cute crimped hair and green shoes an sweater, i'm grateful for hearing chris's laugh over the phone and making plans for christmas, i'm grateful for chole jumping up and down and barking to go outside, and then jumping up and down and barking to come inside, and now laying next to me in my bed, i'm grateful for that moment of complete and utter death to the nostrils that happens every time chole's mouth opens, i'm grateful for that weird voice nolle uses when she's being funny, i'm grateful for seeing aubree running around almost naked all the time and the way her bathroom always reeks of chlorine, i'm grateful for the one of a kind cards and notes and homemade birthday gifts storey always gives, i'm grateful for "like a rat" and the rat hands, i'm grateful for the moments when we have to have talks about "when it's time to be a human girl and when it's time to be an animal: rat, rodent of any kind, raptor, etc." i'm grateful for my mom's head lamp and her terrible british accent that makes me cringe just a little, i'm grateful for when chris starts to kiss me and then thinks of something funny and starts laughing, full on laughing his head off in my mouth mid-kiss (yes this happens almost every time) and then we both end up laughing at everything for the next hour or so. i'm grateful for when the front of my dad's hair starts to get too long and it kind of looks like antenna, i'm grateful that he is so sensitive i can look at him during any moment that is remotely spiritual or touching and see tears in his eyes, i'm grateful for chase's laugh and the way he tackles aubree every time he walks in the door, i'm grateful that chris laughs at everything. at every good and bad moment, i'm grateful that he had no problem with wearing pants with a gigantic hole right in the crotch to meet some of my best friends, hahaha and that i didn't even notice till he pointed it out and we were laughing our heads off about it, i'm grateful for the noise of the quilting machine...and how i fall asleep listening to it almost every night, i'm grateful for the way kramer/tortie crawls out from under his log and just sits and watches me get dressed every morning...kind of creepy that that's the moment he chooses to wake up and say hello everyday, but i love seeing his little face looking at me naked or clothed... i'm grateful for coats and scarves when it's cold outside. and tonight i am very grateful for the noise of running water and the memories of having one of the strangest but most loyal and loving pets around. thank you lucy for all of the good times. may we love each other a little more and never forget all the simplicities...the little things that make life what it is. it really is too short to let anything slip by. i dare you to notice these little things. notice the things that bug you. notice the things you never have time for. notice the things you love. notice the things that make you laugh. it will change your life, i promise.