Yesterday we had to put one of our kittens to sleep. The black one that L called Boo. He was breathing strangely and not moving much and although he wasn't in pain, something was wrong. I took him to the vet, L at my side, and the vet examined him carefully, sweetly. She let me know we had to have an X-ray to know what was wrong. I drove home and took down the silver pot from the secretary I was handed down from Grandma Elizabeth, and drew out $200 dollars from the Rent Money. I stood there with those hundred bills in my hand and tried to understand what was the right thing to do. If I spent that money, we wouldn't have enough for rent. If I didn't spend it, we wouldn't know what was wrong with the kitten, and we could either let him suffer or have him put to sleep when possibly he was meant to live a long and happy life. I knew there wasn't truly a black or white answer. Morality is not stagnant, when the two questions you ask yourself each could hurt someone. I knew Mr. Curry would not choose to spend the money. He would think of our family first, and how the landlord has already extended so much goodwill when we bounced two checks after my Endometriosis surgeries two years ago, and how very difficult it would be for us to rent a new place, for various reasons. Mr. Curry is the protector of our family interests first and foremost, and because of this he is a sanctuary, my safety. I stood with the money in my hand but I knew I had to get the kitten that X-ray. A gross numbness came over me as I thought of our baby, born at 13 weeks, already gone, which is of course, what I had been thinking of all day. I just couldn't bear how I knew I would feel in the next weeks if I let the kitten die without at least trying.
Mr. Curry came home as I was contemplating, and I swooshed the kids into another room so I could talk to him alone. I explained the situation to him carefully and told him I understood so much how he would feel about it, and how upset I felt thinking of upsetting him. He could have been so angry. It's hard in a marriage when a person makes a decision that directly affects you in a negative way and you didn't have a say in it. He sighed and put his hands around me and I knew by the look in his eye he would let me do this thing, and he would understand. And he did.
The kitten had the Xray, and the poor little thing had his intestines all smushed up into his chest cavity, an abdominal hernia of the diaphram, probably due to our dog Wolfgang and his enormous love of kittens, always licking them. We keep the kittens apart from the dogs all night and anytime we aren't home, but we do let them mix in the living room when we are there, and Wolfgang must have picked him up in his mouth, probably gently, the vet said, but for a kitten that tiny, it's not gentle enough, and the small tear was enough to do this damage. The available surgery was $1000 and without gaurantee the kitty would survive. We had to put him down. Lola sobbed and sobbed and Mr. Curry met us at the vet; he talked to Lola in that soothing, difinitively male voice that has comforted me through so much, and had L and I leave while he held the kitten as it went to sleep.
He came home with the kitten in a box as he promised Lola, dug a hole in the backyard, and L placed a note inside before Mr. Curry buried Boo. We put roses on the top of the cement blocks, placed so no animal dug up the grave. I looked at the header Mr. Curry marked 'Boo' and the numbness began to wear off. I felt sick and sad. Losing the baby makes me hyper aware, as it does with most, of the losses possible in life. I could lose anyone I love at any moment. Death strips away the safety net we have between us and this constant awareness, and I have been left raw and constantly aware of how fragile life is.
Mr. Curry and his strong and loving hand on my back as we sped to the hospital the night we lost our baby. Mr. Curry and his firm voice with the nurses, telling them what they must and would do for his wife. Mr. Curry and his eyes, his enormous Irish long fringed and green-brown eyes, on me like a meditation and a prayer, a conduit that allows me to experience love in a way that I have never before-- love not only as a feeling, but as an action. Love in works. Love in his all night vigil at my side. Love in his constant protection of me, not because he thinks I am weak, or incapable, but because we both deeply believe that marriage is a sanctuary and that sanctuary is built on the knowing that even if we are opening our mouths in ugly pain or anger or having childish tantrums of the spirit or acting out some wounded misunderstanding born of childhood griefs, our hands are linked, our paths are in the same direction: we struggle greatly, neither has had an easy life from the start- but love in action has been our guiding light and has contiunued to surprise me and upflift me at the most unexpected times. Mr. Curry and his smile. Mr. Curry and his sweaty head pressed against my face as the doctor took away our baby. Mr. Curry and his drunken laughter at parties. Mr. Curry and the long fullness of his beautiful body pressed against mine in nakedness. Mr. Curry and our children. This is marriage? I never knew.
I can say my heart is broken. I can say my heart is full. I can say that I have had a terribly hard and sad life in many ways. I can say that few are as lucky as I.
