Attitude of Gratitude

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It isn't overly commercialized, no presents - just a time to gather with family and friends, have a good meal, watch some football, and relax.

This year, though, I'm thinking a lot about what I'm thankful for. Really thinking about it, not just a passing nod before I tuck into a heaping plate of food.

It is far to easy to think about all the things I don't have, especially when my mind is absorbed with the loss of Coalie. Yesterday I entered the Anger phase of grieving. I was angry that some careless driver robbed us of our loving pet. Angry that it happened at all. I was playing an endless game of what-if: what-if we hadn't let him out that day? what-if that driver had left their house five minutes later? what-if he hadn't run into the road? It wasn't a pleasant state of mind, and it left me feeling empty and sadder than ever.

My kids are processing their grief by talking about him a lot, acknowledging what a loving addition he was to our family. They are thinking about his life more than his loss. I learn so much from my kids.

I am terrific at feeling sorry for myself. I can put so much energy into sadness, anger or resentment, and it doesn't get me anywhere. I do feel it is important to acknowledge emotions; I spent years stuffing bad feelings, putting them Someplace Else, and that doesn't work either. So what is the answer?

Gratitude.

The funny thing about gratitude, at least for me, is that it is difficult to conjure it up out of thin air. Usually I experience gratitude after I have been through a bad patch, and I'm grateful that it is over. It isn't hard to be grateful for the absence of pain, fear or sadness. It takes more work for me to be grateful for an ordinary day. I forget that an ordinary day is a blessing.

It is the small moments that should carry the most meaning in the fabric of my life. The sound of my kids giggling in the next room. The way Finn sticks his tongue out when he's concentrating. Greta coming up with an idea for a book where the girl gets to save the day. The song the two of them made up together, when they thought I couldn't hear them. Greta's big toothless smile. The way Finn spins in place until he falls down laughing. The sound of them whispering to each other at night when they're supposed to be asleep.

I don't want to live in fear. I don't want to feel gratitude simply because something bad didn't occur. Coalie's gift to me is that he reminded me to see the simple beauty in life as it's happening.

I asked Greta this morning what she is grateful for. She gave me a puzzled look, so I said, "when you get up in the morning, what are you thankful for?"

She looked at me as though the answer was the most obvious thing in the world. "That I woke up," she said simply.

That's a good place to start.

The Coalie Holey

Last week I did a blog about our pets. Yesterday our kitty Coalie was killed - hit by a car in the middle of clear Sunday afternoon. He was a big part of our little family, and we miss him terribly.

I have had lots of pets in my lifetime, and it is always hard when they die. Coalie had a special place in my heart, though - I had never met a cat like him. He was a very loving little creature, and he had a soft spot for me. Virtually every time I sat down, anywhere, he would come scampering across the room to sit in my lap, purring madly. Every night as I settled into bed to read, he would leap up on the bed and settle in next to me (or, if he had his preference, smack dab on the middle of my chest between my face and my book). I always sleep on my side, and each night he'd plop down, perched on my arm, and purr like crazy until he fell asleep.

It's jarring - losing him so unexpectedly. Everywhere I look I think I see him, and it is crushing to realize that isn't him curled on the chair, but only Finn's sweatshirt. Climbing into bed last night it seemed surreal that he was gone - I kept expecting to hear the little thump of his paws running up the stairs.

Greta and Finn are sad, of course, but kids have a very pure way of processing death. Finn understands that Coalie is gone and he isn't coming back, but he hasn't cried about him. He's talking about him a lot, though. Greta and I cried together for a while yesterday afternoon, remembering all the things we loved about him. As her tears dried, she looked up and said "You know what, Mom? Maybe there was a little girl in Heaven who needed a kitty. Now she has Coalie."

We had a little burial out in the woods, said a few prayers for him, and put down a little headstone. As we solemnly walked back to the house, I was thinking about the innocence of animals. How all they really want from you is love. Coalie's affection could drag me out of the worst mood. I'd be sitting in a funk feeling sorry for myself, and he'd crawl into my lap, purring and nudging me for attention. Petting him brought me a measure of peace, and reduced my anxiety.

Seeing Greta sad over the loss of Coalie gave me twinges of guilt. Steve and I knew this might happen, we did the best we could to keep him safe, but we live off a busy road and we always understood this was a danger we faced. The kids became so attached to him, only to have him wrenched away too soon. Was that fair to do to them? Should we have avoided getting a cat because of this danger? The fact is, though, that he brought a lot of love into this house. And it was worth it. I don't want to miss out on that kind of love, just out of a fear of loss.

We kept his food down in the basement, and so the dog wouldn't get it we cut a little circle opening in the base of the door, just big enough for Coalie to fit through. We called it the "Coalie Holey". Now I have a Coalie Holey in my heart, but I am so grateful to have known this loving little spirit. We're hugging each other a little tighter today.

Pepperoni Love

My kids love animals. Any living creature, actually. Perhaps this is how we ended up with four chickens, a dog, a cat and a hamster. This doesn't count our dearly departed 2 chickens, Taily-Tail the gecko, and a rapid succession of 7 or 8 Betta fish with unusually short life expectancies.

Casper, the dog, predated our kids. She was our "we-need-to-learn-to-be-responsible-before-we-have-kids" acquisition. She is a Cuvac (pronounced "chew-vatch") - a huge white longish-haired dog bred to work in conjunction with sheep dogs, and guard the perimeter of a property - her job is to bark and alert sheep dogs to to the presence of predators. This particular skill would be invaluable in, say, the highlands of the Alps, but is misplaced in the relative security of suburbia. Any motion along our own perimeter - a jogger, cyclist, neighbor, UPS man, visiting friend - is subject to a torrent of barking that shakes the walls. Now she is a bit hard of hearing, and so she barks all the time just for good measure - certain there is a perimeter breech somewhere that needs to be addressed.

Our cat, Coalie, joined our family last year - a gift to our daughter for her 6th birthday. My husband isn't a big cat person, so he was skeptical, but Coalie has no idea he is a cat. He is the most loving creature I've ever seen. He is particularly attached to me, and he isn't content to just perch in my lap. He wraps himself around my neck, places both paws on my shoulders and presses his face into mine. I swear he would french kiss if I'd let him. He's completely insane. He fits right in.

Rhino the hamster came about because we were just too damn tired to say no. Greta's friend Abi got a hamster last year, and the kids asked to get one every other minute for a week straight before we broke down. Coalie spends hours gazing hungrily into Rhino's cage while he putters about, oblivious. Occasionally Rhino will get out of his cage - to this day I don't know how - and we'll spend a few terrified minutes chasing the cat, who is chasing Rhino, only to pluck Rhino from the claws of death with seconds to spare. This usually happens at 2am, which is fun.

Getting chickens was an obsession my husband nurtured for years. One day he came home from work and told the kids he had a surprise for them in the car. They went squealing outside, and I followed with a sense of mild dread. I didn't know he had gotten chickens, but feared the worst. Inside a shoe box were six tiny little fluffy chicks - the kids were smitten immediately. It took me a little longer, as I was concerned with little details like "where the hell are they going to live, HONEY?" Turns out they lived in a big box in the basement until my husband could build them what I refer to as the "Chicken Condo" - a beautifully crafted A frame structure that is nicer than my living room. Chickens are actually fairly easy to care for, and we get two or three eggs a day, which is nice. We have the occasional Chicken Revolt - they all get out somehow and wander into the neighbor's yard, which prompts a visit from the Chicken Police (yes, they exist) - but otherwise they are quite low maintenance.

We've had ant farms, butterfly farms, and countless injured insects and moths found in the backyard and brought inside to be nurtured back to health. The ant farm kept itself going for a couple of months, and one by one the ants died until what we essentially had was a mausoleum of dead ants.

My kids will bring any manner of creature inside to nurture as a pet. We've had "Sluggy Slug", who munched happily on leaves for two days before perishing. Several moths - who I think live for like ten seconds on a good day - were nevertheless given a little home in a jar to live out their brief lifespan. One baby toad with an injured leg actually made it for two days before I convinced the kids to let him hobble away.

I guess one of the advantages of all this wildlife is that it has taught my kids at an early age about the Circle of Life. When we lost their favorite chicken - Yellowy -to natural causes, we dug him a grave in the woods and the kids put colored rocks down for a headstone. This was over a year ago, and I still get questions about how Yellowy is doing in Heaven. Taily-tail was the beloved Leopard Gecko who somehow escaped in the night and disappeared. I spent several weeks expecting to find his mummified corpse in a shoe, or in a closet somewhere. His fate is unknown; I have convinced the kids he went home to find his family. So far, so good.

Greta is, thankfully, mostly done with her Vegetarian Experiment. Although she is a carnivore again, I have to assure her that each and every animal she consumes was treated humanely before becoming dinner.

"Mom, promise me! Was this animal treated really nicely before it died?"

"That's a pepperoni, Greta."

"I know! Was the pepperoni treated fairly, allowed to roam free?"

And because I'm getting old, I'm tired and I just can't be bothered... "Yes, it was," I reply.