The Beginning I Saw in the End

Donna and Richard Riddle, madly in love.

It’s been eleven years since I sat in the hospital room with my Grandfather, watching him dance with death. It was my first bedside vigil and will not be my last. We sat, wondering how long it would last, watching his chest rise and fall, gambling the minutes… did we have time to go to the bathroom? Time to get a cup of coffee? Time to put on fresh clothes after a frantic race across the state to get there before it was too late?

The doctor had said it could be minutes, hours, days. We didn’t know how long it would be but we knew how it would end. There is no winning in the dancing, just an end of the music, the last pulling of strings humming in the air, becoming vibration with no sound, and then… memory. Waiting beside my Grandfather, my heart was already heavy with the loss of my grandmother three years earlier. I could tap my grief out for you in my own soft shoe, but we all know the face grief wears, and the mask grievers don.

I want to tell you something true, because it is the last day my grandfather had. The morning before I rushed to the hospital, he saw his doctor. He’d had lung cancer and had undergone treatment. He’d been in remission and then his cancer had returned. That morning, he asked his doctor how long he was looking at. Instead of months and years, the doctor gave him weeks and months. I don’t think he had expected that answer.

He hadn’t been feeling well. My parents received a phone call that night. Grandpa told them he thought he needed to go to the hospital. They raced over, but in that short time he had already slipped into unconsciousness. They say animals know when they’re about to die. And we’re animals.

My Grandpa loved life. He soldiered through losing my Grandma without removing himself from the world. But he was tired and he was in pain. That much was obvious in the hospital room.

He was struggling to breathe. We were painted in the room, separate tableaus across the same canvas. What happened to me did not happen to them. I was not ready to say goodbye to him, our rock, but I was ready for his suffering to end. I didn’t think he would be better off without us but I was ready for him to be free. I was ready to deal with my grief on my own time, not his. Being ready to accept the death made all the difference for me. In that room, with the clicks and the whirs of the equipment and the slow, low rattling of his lungs, I was prepared to wait.

I was praying in my head, words my heart couldn’t bear to speak, telling him it was okay, that we would be okay. I don’t know how I knew he wasn’t going to wake up. I think we all did. But we hoped. Sometimes when death comes, hope is a dangerous blade. The fact was we were there because he had decided he was ready. Cancer may have claimed him, but his death was on his terms.

We never really talked about death as a family, as a neighborhood, or as a culture when I grew up. Someone died and everyone put their funeral outfit on and we were sad and gave those grieving some space and then life went on. It tells a lot about my family that they allowed the soft chanting from the corner of the room where I sat. Music helps me move through emotion more easily and we were all doing what we needed to do in those moments.

When it happened it was quick. One second. It felt as if someone opened a door in the wall beside me, soft wind rushing in, and that second stretched into season as winter welcomed in spring and spring turned to summer and the smell of tilled earth, warm with worms, tomatoes and cucumbers, filled the air around us. I was ready for what was coming. I felt the shift as it happened.

One person turned away. One person died and one person cried out. I was aware of two realities. The air in the room stopped moving and I heard the sound of a toe tapping as a green light stepped into the room through the wall beside me. I held my breath, afraid to shatter the moment. On the hospital bed, my grandfather smiled and he lifted out of his body. Whatever you want or need to call it, his spirit, his anima, his soul leapt towards the light that smelled like my childhood summers and blinked away.

I was back in the room and the warmth that held us there was gone. He was gone. The sudden cold sterility of the room was disarming. So quickly, the heat from his body was dissipating. I stood apart from the moment and the grieving. I wanted to stand in sorrow but I was left in shock and wonder.

When I remember that moment, what I remember was not that it was awful for me, but that it left me full of awe for my experience and the gift I was given amid such a welling of sadness. Somewhere in the universe, in the ether, in the springtime around me, the energy I saw leave that room still lives, whether transformed, absorbed, scattered or inhaled, and the warmth of the man I loved became something new.

[Original article published March 23, 2011.]

Spring Cleansing & Home Blessing

Equinox is upon us, mid-point between the longest night of the year and the longest day and we bask in the warmth like turtles on a log, like snakes on the rocks. Winter mostly behind us, we throw open our windows and curtains, letting the first of the warmer air blow through. Light hits the corners of our darkened caves.

If our bodies are the temple of our spirits and deserve the best of our attentions and care, our homes are the temples our bodies depend on. My home is more to me than wood and flooring, than roof and wall. It is not my property but it is my sanctuary, my resting place. It is sacred.

Spring is the best time to scrub your house of its dark corners. House cleansings and home blessings can be done to simply rejuvenate the space, as well as more specific reasons like moving into a new home or after a remodel, a traumatic death in the home, the loss of a loved one, haunting, feelings of being watched, etc.

I like to teach people how to do it themselves, because no one is better suited to build the temple of their home than the ones who live in it. Set up an altar in the room that you consider to be the heart of your home. All you need on it is a candle, to serve as a hearth. You can add items that are personal and meaningful for you, anything that warms your heart. Personalize it to suit your preferences and tastes. Intention is the most powerful magical tool.

Step One: House Cleansing

The purpose of the first step is to cleanse, clear and empty your home of unwanted energies. Start at the back of the home and sweep towards whatever door you use as your main entrance and exit. Use a broom to stir the air. Go through every room, pushing towards the main door. When you’re done, open the door and sweep it outside.

Now that the energy is stirred and moved, grab rattles, drums, pots and pans… anything that makes noise. Start at the back again, make some noise, and move towards and out the front door. This will chase out anything lurking in your home that wishes you harm or ill, be it an entity or a repository of negative emotional gunk. If you have trouble moving the energy it may be helpful to chant “bad energy out of my house” while you’re working.

To finish off, you can burn some white sage, commonly found in smudge stick forms (mind your smoke alarms). You can also use copal or camphor if you can’t find sage. Both of them are strong herb and resin purifiers.

Step Two: Resting

This is optional, but it adds a substantial boost to the cleansing. Burn a candle made with real cinnamon oil and walk it through your home. It’s not just for baking. Cinnamon, Cinnamomum zeylanicum, is the dried bark of the laurel tree. It’s native to Sri Lanka and was originally the only place it was grown. Most of the cinnamon we use today is Cinnamomum cassia, and comes from the cassia tree.

Step Three: House Blessing

            The blessing is the most important part, coming full circle, closing and sealing the gaps. It is about sacredly blessing the portals where energy comes in and out of your house. In doing it, you create a protective filter. Your altar candle is burning. You can set the cinnamon candle, if you used it, on the altar as well.

You will also need a bowl of salt water, a small dish or vial of oil (olive oil works fine). If it is just you, you will use each of these one at a time. This is a good excuse to invite some friends over and, sharing their love for you, to fill your house with warmth.

Work room to room and anoint every portal with a tiny dab of water, oil, and then smoke from the sage. By portals I mean electrical outlets, heating grates, windows, doorways, televisions, computers, faucets and drains, toilets, tubs and showers, etc. Do not stick your wet or oily fingers in the outlets- for the love! I just run a dab along the outer casing.

While you’re doing this, speak words to the effect of: Protect my home and family from harmful energies.

Be mindful while you are working the magic but do not be somber. After all, the intention is to fill the house with light and warmth. When you are finished, pour the remains of the salt water across the bottom threshold of your porch of stoop and ask the Ancestors to watch over you.

May it be so. Ase.

[A combination of “Home Cleansings and House Blessings,” originally published September 21, 2011 and “Spring Equinox Cleaning,” originally published March 19, 2014.]

Our Natural, Magical World

It's sunny in my city, after weeks of being blanketed in snow. It's been a rare winter for where I live. But the ice is melting and the sidewalks and potholes are full of puddles today. The air is warm and I can smell spring beneath the snow. The grackles and robins have made their appearances and over the next few weeks the grass will emerge, the ground will warm through, and nature will reveal itself again. Nature is the seed-source of my spirituality.

One of the moments that developed my spiritual understanding came when I was prompted to read the introduction to David Abram’s book, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. Abram, a philosopher, performer and ecologist worked as a sleight-of-hand magician in his early years in clubs across New England, including the infamous Alice’s Restaurant. In and after college he traveled around the world, studying the connection of magic and medicine in Indonesia.

His own experiences gradually altered his perceptions of native shamanism and the craft of their true work. He describes a significant moment during a stay with a young magic practitioner in Bali. Each morning, his hostess would bring him a tray of fruit. Each morning, she also carried many small green bowls filled with white rice, which she intoned were offerings for the household spirits, the spirits of the family compound.

Curious, David watched his hostess leave the small offerings of rice along the outside corners of the various buildings. When he sought them out later in the day, he found the bowls empty. He hid himself away on the second day to wait and watch. What he witnessed was a line of black ants struggling for hours to drag each kernel of rice away one at a time. He discovered that the same event occurred at each offering place.

“I walked back to my room chuckling to myself. The balian and his wife

had gone to so much trouble to daily placate the household spirits with

gifts--only to have them stolen by little six-legged thieves. What a waste!

But then a strange thought dawned within me. What if the ants themselves

were the "household spirits" to whom the offerings were being made?”

That thought initiated David to take in more of the natural landscape of the village, as well as the compound. He realized that there was a large population of ant colonies surrounding the buildings which should have been more of a nuisance to the family. In placing a consistent daily offering for the indigenous insect inhabitants, his host family had found a way to live with the natural world, assuring their own food and kitchen area to be left invasion free. This notion challenged his understanding of spirit as meaning something more than “not flesh.”

“… my encounter with the ants was the first of many experiences suggesting

to me that the "spirits" of an indigenous culture are primarily those modes of intelligence or awareness that do not possess a human form.”

All living things have spirit. It pushed me forward in my Ancestor work. The Western definition of ‘spirit’ limits them to a supernatural existence, separating us further from the natural world. Clearly we define things too much, and there is a point where understanding takes us out of the moment and into our heads, and definition stunts growth so that we can move on to something else. David Abram could have stopped at the observation of the ants taking away the rice and assumed he had figured out the magic trick. Instead, he allowed the revelation to open his own understanding.

The voices of our ancestors speak to us in the unfurling flower buds and the rippling grains in a meadow. They speak to us in the hatching eggs of spring. Everything of spirit inherits energy from our ancestors. Spirit is the natural world and the natural world is spirit.

It can be hard to garden in the city, where the birds, squirrels and stray animals are also looking to thieve themselves a meal. A full birdfeeder and a scattering of nuts in the side yard once a week stopped the squirrel-sunflower carnage and allowed the vegetable seeds to grow unscathed. We feed them through the winter so they are not starved come seeding time. The stray animals know there is always something for them at the back of the house, so they don’t pillage our garden or root through our garbage. As a result, we have co-existed beautifully together, while the quicker pulse of the modern world flows around us.

[This article was originally published March 9, 2011.]

The Stages of Victorian Mourning

Queen Victoria in mourning with white trim.

The Victorian Period lasted for the reign of Queen Victoria, from 1837-1901. It’s strict mourning structure was influenced by the Georgian Period 1714-1830, and continued into the succeeding Edwardian Period, 1901-1910, though strictures relaxed a bit. Formal mourning etiquette and practice peaked during Victoria’s reign. After the death of her beloved husband, Prince Albert, in 1861, the Queen spent three years in deep mourning, and the rest of her rule in more relaxed mourning attire.

Mourning etiquette was as strictly held in the antebellum South as it was in England. As a cultural custom, it was quite expensive. It either required the immediate building of an entire new wardrobe, or it necessitated that existing wardrobe pieces be “overdyed” black. This process would forever pull them out of daily use. One has to wonder if some poorer widows chose to spend the rest of their lives in black, not out of continued grief, but out of poverty and the inability to create a new wardrobe.

In death, curtains were closed and clocks were stopped. Mourning clothes were meant to serve as an outward display of inner sorrow, in a time when emotional hysterics were taboo. Popular household journals like The Queen and Cassell’s listed proper mourning etiquette in great detail, and were a staple for respectable housewives. It described in detail what was expected of them for the death of a third cousin, for example, or that of a brother-in-law. Children were not expected to wear mourning colors, though it wasn’t uncommon for girls to wear white dresses for mourning.

Full Mourning

Civil War widow in full veil.

The first stage in the death of a loved one was the Full Mourning period, and the most dramatic. The fashion itself became a means of removing oneself from regular society. I can understand the sentiment. It’s the grief period of surreal disbelief, where every mundane is no longer mundane because the deceased is no longer with you.

Women wore heavy and concealing black clothes, and long, weighted crepe veils attached to special hats and bonnets. The term “widow’s weeds” comes from the Old English waed for “garment.” Dresses were made out of flat black fabrics, like a non-reflective parramatta silk, or a more affordable bombazine. Cashmeres, grenadines, and tulles were also acceptable. The dresses were trimmed with crepe, a stiff, scratchy, crimped silk that didn’t combine well with other fabrics.

The main adornment was jewelry made of jet. It was a lesser stone with organic origins, decayed wood under extreme pressure (think ‘hard coal’). The wealthy often wore cameos or lockets which would hold hair or some other relic of the deceased. These items were considered sentimental jewelry and were not specifically mourning ware.

Widows wore mourning clothes for two to four years after the death of their husband, actual time varying by region. She could choose to dress in blacks for the rest of her life. In the American South, the full mourning crepe would be applied as one piece, starting about an inch below the waist and a couple inches above the hem. For a year widows would seclude themselves and see no one but close family. Outside of her home she would wear a black bonnet with a long opaque veil. It was a signal for others to leave her alone, and let her about her business.

"Fell asleep, June 27th 1870, aged 17."

Full Mourning lasted for at least a year and changing out of full mourning dress early was a sign of disrespect. If the widow was young enough, it was also an act that stigmatized probable promiscuity and sullied her reputation. A widow was not permitted to enter society for twelve months. No man or woman was supposed to attend social events while deep in mourning.

Men were not subject to quite the same restrictions as women. Those in service that required a uniform could wear a simple black armband while in mourning. For other men, an armband instead of full proper mourning attire was a break in etiquette. Gentlemen were expected to wear a Mourning Suit, which was a black frock coat, trousers, and matching waistcoat. It included black gloves, hatbands, and cravats. This should not be confused with the traditional Morning Suit, a suit for weddings and other formal occasions that would often include striped or checked trousers.

Husbands mourned wives for six months to a year. Wearing a black armband, he was allowed to business, as well as social parties. The widower could remarry whenever he wished, even within the six month period, at which point his mourning period would be over.

Slighting the Mourning

In some places, at this stage, the crepe trim could be removed from dresses, capes, and bonnets. But the dark dress beneath the crepe remained. Any accessories were still black. In the American South, after a year’s seclusion, the widow would shorten the crepe apron and alter the veil from waist-length to shoulder-length.

Half Mourning

After the crepe was removed, secondary mourning colors like grey and lavender, or mauve, and even white, could be introduced as trim on the black garments. Gold, silver, and other precious gemstones can be added to jet jewelry, but could not replace it. Exact time varies by region, but the move from full mourning to half mourning was gradual and happened in stages.

In the American South, after eighteen months, the crepe was removed entirely and secondary colors were added. The widow was now allowed to go without a veil or she would move from a shoulder length veil to a chin-length one. She could begin receiving visitors in her home and she herself could be seen outside of her home. For six months she would gradually include more of the secondary mourning colors in place of the black.

After two years and a day, the widow could come out of mourning entirely. She would send out cards to her friends and relatives, inviting them to come see her. She would invite them to fill her home up with life again.

Commercialism

Jay’s London General Mourning Warehouse of Regent Street in London, started in 1841, built itself up around accommodating grieving families with new, ready-made wardrobes designed for each stage of mourning. A superstition even popped up alluding that it was bad luck to keep mourning clothes in the home after the mourning period was over, insuring repeat customers. This may have well been the precursor to today’s department store.

Mourning for Other Relations

According to the mourning guides, parents would wear mourning for two years after the loss of a child, or as long as they wished to after the two years were over. Children would mourn the death of a parent for a year. At the death of a grandparent, mourning colors were worn for six months. After two months in black silk with crepe, they would spend the next two months in black with no crepe. The final two months were spent in secondary mourning colors. They would mourn the death of a sibling for six months as well. The first three months were spent in crepe, then two months in regular black, and the last month in secondary mourning colors.

Aunts and uncles were mourned for two or three months in just black garb, no crepe. The first month is observed with jet jewelry only. Six weeks for great uncles and aunts. Four weeks for cousins. And then it gets complicated… the in-laws. A woman would mourn her aunt-by-marriage for two months, same as her own, but only if her Uncle was still alive. If he wasn’t, she may only mourn the deceased for a month. And so on. I think I understand why there was a standard manual.

 Reflections

            Taking the Victorian mores out of the custom, and forgoing the hypocrisy and sexism of the restrictions placed upon the widows (still property of their husbands), I get the ritual aspect. Grief is difficult. We think we know how to navigate it but it always surprises us. Even if we’ve done it before, every time the grief is different.

Often we have moments of feeling like we don’t know how to be in the world and the world doesn’t seem to know how to react to our grief. In the Victorian world, the surrounding community would allow for the family to shut themselves away while they transitioned into a changed household. And those in mourning could attend to the everyday things that needed attending to, certain that no one would interrupt their attempts to see mundane tasks through.

Gradually, it would allow the griever to ease out of the river of sorrow, and gently re-integrate with society. It seems a more human response than what we get in the modern world. When my grandfather died and I told my boss I needed to go home for a week to be with my family, he didn’t have to let me go- although I was going whether it meant my job or not. There are many jobs and he was my only grandfather. As it was, my boss left messages for me every morning while we were grieving and arranging funerals and entertaining others in sorrow, pressuring me to come back to work. I would have much preferred a heavy veil and forced seclusion away from spreadsheets and sales calls.

Wearing White

It may seem strange to hear me say that my Beloved Dead has been heavily on my mind this winter, but my city has been blanketed in white for longer than I remember since I moved here. For me, white is the color I associate with ancestors. When I gaze out at the crystalline snow, I see the sun shining dancing upon those who are no longer here.

My introduction to Ancestor Work was through Ifa, a religion practiced by the Yorubans. They wear white when petitioning the ancestors or dealing with death because to them white is purity; it is the absence of color. When I started doing my own work, I liked that idea of approaching such an emotional space from a place of hope and light and clarity, as opposed to the only visual I had of death, of somber people in black dress.

It is true that when crossing the threshold to whatever other world you wander through, your newness and uniqueness in that world becomes a kind of neon sign, a flashing look-at-me to beings both light and dark. Specifically with spirit world, you attract all manner of energies, good and bad, light and dark. I have found it extremely helpful to approach the work from a place of light, acting as a beacon of light against the darkness that would seek me out. I usually imagine myself as Gandalf’s staff, shining with a light and love so brilliant and warm it hurts that which would hurt me.

2010, photo by Rahdne Zola.

That’s what works for me. Different cultures have different customs and there are many others that wear white around death and grieving. It’s a traditional color in Ethiopia and India. Hindus wear casual, white clothes for funerals and their widows usually wear white for the rest of their lives. Buddhists also prefer white over black to show their grief.

In China, white is the predominant color for funerals. As a sign of happiness, red is an inappropriate color to wear. The grieving family will wear a piece of colored cloth on their arm for 100 days. Children of the deceased wear a black cloth, grandchildren wear blue, and great-grandchildren wear green.

White or black can be worn in the Philippines, heavily influenced by Chinese, Japanese, and Catholic beliefs. Here, as well, red is a taboo color. It is believed that anyone wearing it during a time of mourning will suffer from illness and/or die.

            Black is traditional custom for funerals in Thailand, as well as Japan, whether Japanese kimonos or formal, black Western-style clothing. With Western clothes, a single strand of white pearls is also permitted. In areas of the Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, and Spain, it is common for widows to wear black for the rest of their lives. Black is still considered proper funeral etiquette in the U.S. but no one is expected to wear it for extended periods of time.

In much of the non-Western world, white is the predominant color associated with death, grief, and mourning. But the history of the Western world weaving between the two colors is intriguing:

• Wearing black for mourning dates back, at least, to the Roman Empire. The toga pulla was made of dark-colored wool.
• Black wasn’t just for mourning. It was also a sign of sadness across Medieval Europe, where it was common for conquered people to greet their new lord dressed in black.
• In contrast, Medieval European queens mourned in white.
• In 1393, Leo V, King of France died in exile in Paris. His funeral was dressed in white, not black, to the curiosity of the locals. It became custom for Queens of France to wear deuil blanc, or “white mourning.” In 1938, Queen Elizabeth made a State visit to France while in mourning for her mother. She had a custom White Wardrobe created for the trip by Norman Hartnell.
• Royal funerals were dressed in white in Spain until 1498. Queen Fabiola, of Spain, revived the tradition at the death of her husband, King Baudouin I, of Belgium in 1993.
• 1536, King Henry VIII wore white after the death of Anne Boleyn.
• There is a portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots in a white veil from 1599, in deep mourning after the deaths of her father-in-law, then her mother, and then her husband, Francis II of France.
• White cloth was cheap, undyed fabric, appropriate to mourning as it was supposed to symbolize a neglect of caring for the material world.
• In 1840, Queen Victoria married Prince Albert and she wore a white wedding gown to reflect the economic crisis in Britain. After this occasion, white was not used for mourning again in Europe. (Until the 1930s, wedding dresses were simply fancier versions of contemporary fashion.)
• Victorian mourning customs are strange and complicated… and earned their own blog post. Come back next week for more!

I know that when I die, I don’t want people to wear black. White would be beautiful to me, but I might not be there to see it, so… Maybe blue. Blue is a healing color. Or maybe green, because the Earth is green and alive and because of Her I was alive for a while, too. Or maybe it doesn’t matter what color people wear. Maybe all that matters is that I loved them and they loved me. 

Genealogy and Health Histories

Roy in uniform, Elmira NY.

One of the side benefits to genealogy work is discovering how your ancestors died, and what that might tell you about your family genes. Three years ago I had an accident. In the course of getting treated, my sugar was discovered to be startlingly high. The next day, when my dad and I were distracting me by going through some family stuff, he was talking about his Grandpa Roy, who was a prison guard at Auburn NY. My great-grandpa Roy was injured in a small prison riot. But his official death lists that he died from complications to his injuries due to his pre-existing condition of diabetes.

And it was like an unwanted lightbulb went off. I changed my diet. I changed my lifestyle, hoping to avoid a similar diagnosis, but just before Christmas, thanks to finally having health insurance, I found out that I am also diabetic. Thanks, also, to the concern Roy’s story prompted, I have/had already done the majority of lifestyle changes, and those changes saved me from being sicker than I was.

I know that my Grandpa Mark, Roy’s son, died of cancer that was so advanced when they discovered it, it had already spread to his bones and throughout his body. He was 67. My Grandma Ruth died of cervical cancer at the age of 43. My Grandpa Dick died at 72 of lung cancer caused by asbestos from his stint in the Navy.

I know my great-grandpa Harold Lafayette Riddle (1903-1975) had a heart attack at age 72 and his wife, my beloved Elsie Elizabeth Durant (1904-1994), died of old age at 90. My great-grandma Margaret Loretta Burke (1899-1938) died of renal cancer at 39 and her husband Robert George Art (1892-1974) died of bladder cancer at age 82.

I’ve discovered other stories along the way of my other various levels of great-grandparents that lend themselves to more research:

• 3x Bailey Harrison Whitcher (1799-1865) had become deaf and was hit by a train crossing the railroad tracks when he was 66. His wife Ordelia deLozier (1810-1888) died tragically after falling down the stairs at age 78.
• 4x Peter de Lozier (1786-1849), Ordelia’s father, died of cholera at age 39, after abandoning his family to return to the sea. He was a Prisoner of War at Tripoli.
• 9x William Blackmore (1640-1676) was “attacked by Indians” in Scituate MA and killed at age 36.
• 10x Sgt. William Pond (1622-1690) died “unexpectedly” at age 68.
• 10x Robert Sallows (1626-1663) drowned at sea at age 41, while living in Salem.
• 11x James Chilton (1562-1620) and his wife died the first winter aboard the Mayflower. He was 58 and the oldest man on board. Her age and name are unknown. Their 12 year old daughter Mary survived them.
• 11x Thomas Rogers (1572-1621) died the first winter on the Mayflower at age 49.
• 15x Sir Henry Norreys (1491-1536) was beheaded at the Tower of London for an alleged adultery with Anne of Boleyn. He was 45.
• 23x Sir Edmund Fitzalan (1285-1326) was beheaded at age 41.
• 25x Robert of Artois (1216-1250) died at age 34 “leading reckless attack on Al Mansurah.”
• 28x Frederick Bararossa (1122-1190) drowned at age 68 while on crusade in Silifke, Turkey.

In my research, I pay homage to my ancestresses who are known to have died in childbirth, for their mortality and their sacrifice in birthing those who made me possible:

• 2x Hattie Eva Dutcher (1857-1882) at age 25.
• 10x Ruth Lee (1602-1642) at age 40.
• 13x Anne Walgrave (1495-1530) at age 35.
• 19x Agnes Daubeney (1307-1335) at age 28.
• 19x Aubigny Creake (1335-1355) at age 20.

On a happier tone, I also made note of twenty-nine of my known ancestors who lived to me more than ninety years old:

• 3x Ammi Smith (1824-1918) age 94. 
• 5x Desire Tourgee (1752-1845) age 92. 
• 6x Patience Thomas (1732-1822) age 90. 
• 6x Thomas Boots (1761-1852) age 91. 
• 7x Mary Smith (1701-1800) age 98. 
• 7x Nicholas LaSueur/Lozier (1668-1761) age 93. 
• 8x Lydia Starr (1652-1744) age 92. 
• 8x Elizabeth Williams (1671-1771) age 100. 
• 8x Hannah Latham (1651-1750) age 99. 
• 9x John Bird (1641-1732) age 90. 
• 9x Thomas Andrew Hovey (1648-1739) age 91. 
• 10x Richard Sears (1590-1696) age 106. 
• 10x Anna Reeve (1590-1685) age 95. 
• 10x Mary Clark (1590-1681) age 91. 
• 11x George Dyer, weaver, (1579-1672) age 93. 
• 11x Sir Edward Bishop (1601-1695) age 94. 
• 11x Capt. Richard Walker (1592-1687) age 95. 
• 11x Jean Fafard (1598-1696) age 98. 
• 11x Elizabeth Franklin (1570-1671) age 101. 
• 12x William Jackson (1585-1688) age 103. 
• 12x George Raymond (1538-1632) age 94. 
• 12x Humphrey Pinney (1588-1683) age 95. 
• 12x Maria Hatton (1573-1670) age 97. 
• 13x John Whicker (1452-1556) age 104. 
• 14x Richard Elwin (1555-1647) age 92. 
• 16x Edward Morris (1455-1556) age 101. 
• 17x Katherine Wallcott (1368-1460) age 92. 
• 24x Eleanor/Alianore de Gorges (1270-1375) age 105. 
• 25x Petronella de Gresley (1147-1249) age 102.

The Night Vigil

Zami (l), still kicking around, and Luna (r), about 2001. Photo by Rahdne Zola.

I don’t lay claim to a specific religion, but my spirituality is very important to me. Once upon a time, I didn’t know you could be spiritual without being religious, and thanks to my parents’ love of camping and my love of literature, I discovered that my spirituality resonates strongest when I connect to the natural world.

In a lot of ways, having pets is part of that for me, connecting in to another creature, learning to co-habitat, sharing trust. It’s almost been five years since the death of our petite tiger, Luna. My experience with her loss was the impetus for this blog. We’ve lost another cat since then, and gained a new one.

I was on my way to bed, just after midnight. Luna, our normal bedwarmer, was curled up on the couch, which was strange but not unusual. I might have kept going. I was tired, thinking about my schedule for the next day.

It was a singular moment, where I stopped and I looked at her and she looked at me without lifting her head. It wasn’t a brain moment. It wasn’t a heart moment. It was an intuitive moment. Like when your skin knows a storm is coming. When you know you eyes are watching you even though you can’t see anyone. When you know the house is too quiet and the children aren’t making a peep. In that moment, I knew in my body, in my gut, that something important was happening.

I sat on the couch, waiting for her to climb in my lap, but she just sighed. I scooped her up gingerly and slid her onto my lap, paying attention to her discomfort and distress. I thought I was hurting her more and I tried to put her down, but she grabbed my arm and whimpered. She didn’t want to be alone.

It took her a good twenty minutes to get comfortable and settle, draped in my lap, her head thrown over my wrist. When she finally stilled, so did I. I didn’t move again until dawn.

There’s something about a spirituality that asks you to immerse yourself in the living world that keeps you present in your body, in every minute that ticks by. Luna and I were connected. I could sense death sniffing around her. I was so afraid that she might pass at any moment that I remember every minute of that vigil.

Luna slept for five short chunks of time, touching my bare forearm. When she didn’t feel well, she liked to touch bare skin. It comforted her. As the night progressed I spoke softly to her, telling her we’d get her to the vet as soon as they opened, telling her we’d get her medicine. I tried to keep her calm. I sang to her. And I stayed. Luna didn’t like to be alone.

That last night with Luna was the last night we had together. It felt like such a helpless thing, sitting in stillness for hours, ignoring my own needs so she could sleep comfortably. Her coat was like rabbit fur and she had a mean left hook- and wasn’t afraid to use it if you tried to tell her no and she really didn’t want to hear it. She considered herself part of the family, not a pet.

That night when she lay weakly in my lap, I remembered the small kitten with big eyes and big ears who crawled up me at the open adoption day, digging her claws into my shoulder to keep above the throngs of grabby children, shaking. We learned a lot from each other in our ten years together and I learned a lot about myself that last night, too.

I learned I can set aside my fear for the care of someone else. I learned that I can make hard choices in the face of someone else’s suffering. I learned that it’s more important for me to face a hard truth than to hide from it.

In her last moments, she was curled like a bunny in the vet office, head low, quietly gazing up at us. We were waiting to find out what kind of medicine we needed for her, ignorant of the aggressive tumor that had swallowed up the vital organs in her abdomen. But she knew. Animals are more connected to that spiritual energy than we are. Luna knew. She was just waiting until we were ready to let her go.