It’s been a while. I’ve been carrying on as best as I can. The novelty of the pandemic has worn off into a jaded malaise: every day more of the same, every week the dial tipping and tipping a little further into absurdity and chaos. It’s hard to write about it in a way that hasn’t already been said, or in a way that boosts my optimism. I’m also keenly aware that my voice is not the only one, much less among the most important, in this world. Sometimes you just need to rest your voice–literal and literary.

September and October saw a change in pace. My sister, Emily, got married on October 10. It was a welcome, worthy redirection from national and global distractions: COVID, the political hellscape, and the growing inhumanity of people at large. For the first time in months, I wasn’t worried about the election or surging COVID cases but focused on making sure Emily had the best possible bridal shower and wedding.

The wedding was small and sweet. No more than fifteen of us were in attendance (to be mindful of the pandemic). The weather was beautiful; you could not ask for a more perfect autumn day. The cabin was charming and big enough for us to spread out. Emily and Dwayne were married on a hill behind the cabin, and the ceremony went smoothly… apart from the local man who decided that shooting targets down the hill (and startling us in the middle of the vows) was more important than waiting thirty minutes for the ceremony to be over.

It was a good weekend. Despite a few setbacks, everything fell into place at the right time. No one got sick or went hungry. Any tears were happy ones. We had a wedding. They got married. We celebrated. Our little family grew.

My birthday was the next week. It was a quiet but good day. I didn’t (overly) dwell on reaching that semi-milestone year of 35. 🤔 Grateful for the family I have, for the friends who have my back. Grateful that I’m doing “okay” in this Era of Doom. Grateful for what I have, even if my life doesn’t “quite” look the way I expected. There were few worries that week, just writing projects and good health and good coworkers and a safe place to hunker down.

Which brings me to Friday. October 30, 2020. Deep breath. I learned that my little Beatrix cat has cancer.

This is one of those days where we pause dramatically, tip our heads back at the sky and scream “2020!” It was almost five years to the day Ninja was diagnosed–at the same office, by the same veterinarian–with polycystic kidney disease. I found myself being pulled back into the vortex, the extreme unreality of a year that keeps getting worse: my not-quite-six-years-old cat and the four inch tumor growing in her abdomen. I brought her in because of the weight loss, expecting a digestive problem, and did not see this coming. No one does.

You run through the usual gamut of facts. You compare the present with the past. Kidney disease versus lymphoma. In 2015, Ninja had been sick for months, and the diagnosis was the beginning of the end. Ninja would last not quite six weeks with twice daily subcutaneous injections of fluid (a needle under the skin is never fun) and nausea medicine crushed into her food. If she didn’t eat, I’d mix up instant chicken broth and try to get her to lap it off the spoon. Ninja was almost 8 years old, and I never expected to lose her so soon.

In 2020, Beatrix (not quite 6) is in better shape, although her prognosis is uncertain. Beatrix is eating her little heart out, and, thanks to topical steroids, is back to her busy, feisty, independent self. Yesterday, watching her slide across the apartment on Target plastic bags, inspecting my purchases, purring on the back of the couch, you’d never imagine she was sick.

Cats are good at hiding their discomfort… and we in turn aren’t good at tabulating the signs. It’s no one’s fault. It’s just bad luck. It’s so unfair, it physically hurts. Chemotherapy isn’t right for a small creature who only understands wanting to chase hair-ties, eating her stinky meats, and curling up in my lap when I’m reading. She’s made the choice to live well for now, and that’s what I’ll do.

I watch her when she sleeps to check that she’s breathing. I don’t know how long she has–weeks to months, they’ve said. I don’t know when she’ll start to decline. I’m already anticipating the dread of a Thanksgiving and Christmas blighted by this loss, on top of the gloom brought on by COVID 19.

We have all been through so much this year, and it’s not going to be over soon. I won’t put 2020 in rosy terms of “What I learned,” the mindset of which is ingrained in me from my school days. The crisis isn’t over, the election is still being decided, and a long winter is just around the corner. There are no clear answers, no definitive conclusions to draw just yet… if ever.

2020 hasn’t “taught” me anything. Rather it has clarified and reinforced what has always mattered: the start of a marriage, the quality of a little cat’s life, keeping family safe, giving myself grace. It’s not a lesson. It’s a practice. When the city shuts down, COVID cases surge, events get cancelled, and other normal trappings of life are changed or erased, these things remain.

I have two questions for myself. What is true? What is most important? Those are my guard rails on this steep and winding road. I won’t be able to avoid pain and sacrifice, anger and frustration, or a lackluster Christmas, but I will be able to endure. One day we’ll all reach the light at the end of this dark tunnel. We already know what we need to know to get through this. You, reader, do, too.

Thanks for reading! There is hope.

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