Tuesdays with Toes – Mourning

As you may have gathered from my Cemetery Recommendations page, I am a big fan of cemeteries. I visit a number of them here in Atlanta on a regular basis, and I love discovering new ones when I travel.

The day Toes passed away was a sunny one. A nice day. I had to drop David off at work, and afterward, I knew just where I wanted to go: a cemetery. Decatur Cemetery was the most convenient.

I went there, parked, and walked around. I cried a bunch, which I don’t usually do in cemeteries. But this day was different–I was there to mourn in a spot dedicated to such activities.

I visited my favorite part of the cemetery–a small path that’s enclosed by greenery where they have urn burials and a monument dedicated to people who’ve donated their bodies to science.

Wind chimes of all different sizes hang in the trees in this section, but on the day Toes passed away, there wasn’t much wind. To the sound of faint chimes, I scanned the small monuments atop the urn burials and found one that brought me peace: a small stone statue of a sleeping cat with angel wings.

Cemeteries satisfy me because they make me feel connected to fundamental forces that shape the human experience: birth, death, family, and love. When I go to a cemetery hurting or longing or hoping, I often find what I need in that moment.

Release. Perspective. Inspiration.

Cemeteries contain the wisdom of generations. They’re a reminder that life is brief. And they’re a great place to mourn.

Tuesdays with Toes – Cats in Heaven

“You know pets can’t go to heaven.”

I was a teenager when a strange man said this to me at a bookstore. I was browsing the religious section with my younger sister. I’d recently become more involved with a youth group and was looking for books that would support my deepening faith—books that would provide evidence that Jesus was the savior of the world and make me feel good about my choice to follow him.

As a child, my version of heaven had always included pets. Because if heaven’s a perfect place, then of course my pets who I’d loved would be there. Our cat, Jinx, who was hit by a car in the street right before my basketball game. My sister’s pet bird, Tweety, who our cat Clamboy killed when he was on his own deathbed. My rabbit, Hoppy, who was attacked by the neighbor’s dog after the dog had jumped over the fence and into Hoppy’s pen.

I’d been nearby when all of these pets met their tragic ends, and it was a consolation to believe someday I would be reunited with them.

When I met the strange man in the bookstore as a teenager, my faith was at a turning point. I’d grown up Catholic, but it wasn’t until I joined a youth group outside my church that I was introduced to the notion of accepting Jesus into your heart in order to receive the gift of eternal salvation.

This challenged my conception of what heaven might look like. Suddenly, it wasn’t guaranteed that all the people I knew would be up there with me. And if this man at the bookstore was to be believed, my pets might not be there either because—according to him—they did not have souls.

I don’t remember how my sister and I came to be talking to the man in the bookstore or how the conversation eventually landed on the topic of pets in heaven. I do remember, though, thinking he was a jerk for saying animals wouldn’t be allowed.

The man had convictions about Christianity—I’ll give him that. Ones that I would come to share as my faith deepened and ones that would fall away again as I grew older and less sure of things.

I don’t know where Toes is now except in my heart—where she’ll always stay.

Tuesdays with Toes – Time for Goodbye

Toes passed away today. On a Tuesday morning. My mom was with her.

She put the phone near Toes so I could talk to my sweet girl before she passed.

I told her how much I loved her and thanked her for how much she taught me.

I’ve missed her so much these past few months, and I’m going to keep missing her.

I was so lucky to have her in my life.

Tuesdays with Toes – Earning the Pride of Toes

When I studied abroad in college, I regularly received emails from my cat Darcy. She’d update me on her life at home with my parents, my sister, and the other cats and dogs. She’d talk about how much she missed me and marvel at my adventures through Central Europe. For a long time, I was under the impression that my dad sent these emails on behalf of Darcy. It wasn’t until years later when I was talking to my mom about how clever my dad was for dispatching them that she exclaimed back, “I sent those!”

“Toes is proud of you.” I received this text on Friday, a couple of days before my marathon. I was busy when it came through my phone, and again I falsely assumed the message was from my dad. But this time I realized my mistake within a couple of hours when I reread the text.

On Saturday, my mom surprised me by showing up in Atlanta with my aunt, who I knew was coming to cheer me on in the marathon. They’d driven down to Pigeon Forge from Cincinnati the day before to break up the drive.

“You weren’t even with Toes when you texted me,” I said to my mom later on Saturday evening. “How could you know she was proud of me?”

“She was. She is,” my mom assured me.

It’s funny how much I want that to be true even though there’s no way Toes could know about my marathon and why I decided to leave her in Cincinnati. Similarly, when I was in college, I wanted my cat Darcy to understand why I wasn’t living at home anymore and to be proud of the risks I was taking to discover the world.

“You think cats are a lot more complicated than they really are.”

Another aunt said this to me during my last visit to Cincinnati in response to a statement I’d made about how much Toes probably missed me while she was staying with my parents.

My aunt is right, but at the same time, I know I find comfort in attributing complex narratives to cats. It’s as if they are an extension of me–a way of viewing myself and my actions from the outside and making peace with them.

Toes may not have known that I was running a marathon on Sunday but believing she wanted me to succeed (and thus believing in myself) helped me cross the finish line.

If you can finish a dissertation

When I was in graduate school, there were a couple of students in my department who ran marathons. They were a few years ahead of me in the program, and I remember distinctly the advice one of them received from their advisor: “If you can finish a marathon, you can finish your dissertation.”

I’m set to run my first marathon tomorrow (the Publix Atlanta Marathon), and I’m going to use the converse of that statement as a mantra during my run: “if you can finish your dissertation, you can finish this marathon.”

Obviously the marathon requires it’s own set of prep work which I’ve done through training. I’ve followed a plan that’s given me a sense of how tough it’s going to be physically and mentally to finish 26.2 miles. I’ve gathered my gear and put together a racing strategy. When people ask me if I’m ready, I answer affirmatively. But I have doubts.

There was an occasion when I definitely wasn’t ready for the physical task at hand–during my first year of grad school when I went running with the marathoners. At the time, my regular running routine consisted of a mile or two in the flatter sections of Berkeley near the bay. I ran with the marathoners in the opposite direction–up into the hills behind Berkeley’s campus.

Less than a quarter mile into the run, I was already finding it difficult. I’d overdressed and was having trouble talking while the rest of them chatted comfortably. The incline grew steeper, and about a mile or so in, we came to a hill that looked like a wall. I excused myself while the rest of the group ventured forward on the trail.

I jogged back down to the department humiliated. I never tried to go running with the marathoners again although I continued to admire them from afar as they ran their marathons and finished their dissertations. I hoped to be like them one day, and perhaps tomorrow I will.

Tuesdays with Toes – Where Love and Practicality Meet

Eight hours I drove alone from Atlanta to Cincinnati stopping twice–once at a gas station and the second time for gas and a brief stay at a Starbucks where I sat inside my car eating a salad I’d packed for the road. It was a good salad and a great break from the steering wheel gripping journey through heavy storms. Thoughts of Toes kept me going through the rainy misery. I was finally going to bring her home.

Or was I? No, I was.

The doubts didn’t start creeping in until the day before I was supposed to leave Cincinnati. I’d been hanging around Toes for a few days at that point (visiting her at my parents’ house while I stayed at my aunts’ cat free house). The tell tale signs of my allergies had returned–itchy eyes, nasal congestion, and difficulty breathing.

Have I mentioned I’m signed up to run a marathon this coming Sunday?

And I didn’t think through the timing on that when I scheduled my trip home to pick up Toes. Bringing her back and stirring up all my allergies a week and a half before I’m scheduled to undertake the biggest physical challenge of my life so far. Probably not a great idea.

So the morning of my departure, I asked my parents if they’d be okay keeping Toes longer, and they were. I called David and tearfully explained I’d be leaving her there, and he said that made sense. And Toes sat in her cheetah taco bed content with everything.

Church Hopping – Drive Thru Services

I started a photo series on my Instagram recently called Church Hopping where I post pictures of churches and church related things on Sundays. Since I’m currently on a Lenten break from Instagram (which is going great by the way), I thought I’d continue the series here.

I’m interested in releasing pictures in sets that connect churches by a theme. In Cincinnati last week, I snapped a photo of a sign for drive thru ashes. Back in Atlanta, I found a similar advertisement at a local church for drive thru prayer. Can’t remember seeing any signs like this before, and then there were two in one week in two different cities.

Tuesdays with Toes – Taking a Break from FOMO

I’m up in Cincinnati this week picking up Toes to bring her back down to Georgia to enjoy the spring sunshine. Toes’s ability to laze in the sun is something I envy about her. That and her tail.

At times I look to Toes as a kind of spiritual teacher. The simplicity of her everyday activities–sleeping, eating, walking around the backyard, etc.–captivate me. I want to be like Toes. Just living.

One of the major barriers for me to living the Toes life is being active on social media. Those moments I might drink in the sunshine in the backyard are accompanied by an irresistible urge to see what everyone’s up to. As I scroll through my feed, I try my best to be happy for my friends and their cool lives, but I often find myself like a kite yanked upon by the winds of FOMO and think maybe I should…

FILL IN THE BLANK with the solution to my life’s problems.

Problems I’ve likely only been made aware of through comparison or through a thousand sponsored ads looking to fill my needs. Some of those needs are spot on. I do need sports bras that offer superior support and athletic shorts that don’t ride up. Others, like real estate in the West End of Atlanta, are just a distraction.

I want out of the whirlwind, and yesterday I spotted a way. A friend posted about taking time off of social media for Lent which brought to mind the Lenten victories of my youth. I’d set myself up with big challenges–giving up chocolate chip cookies and Saved by the Bell–and knock them out of the park. I crushed Lent as a kid.

And now, even though I haven’t given up anything for Lent for years, I’m going to give it a go and try to give up Facebook and Instagram from Ash Wednesday through Easter.

I’ll still be posting on my website. My hope is this will provide time to write more.

And I’ll also be enjoying my time with Toes out in the backyard–a spiritual teacher and her disciple just living our simple lives.

Tuesdays with Toes – The Worst Part of Life So Far

Yesterday I ran past a man who was walking and talking on the phone. As I passed him, I heard him say, “Ive found breakups to be the worst part of life so far.”

His phrasing intrigued me–both the deliberate act of naming the worst part of his life and smartly qualifying it with so far (because who knows what’s to come).

Overhearing him brought to mind potential candidates for the worst parts of my life. There are a few choices I won’t delve into today because I’m not up to sharing them, but I will mention one that ties into Tuesdays with Toes: my allergies to cats and dogs.

I’d love to wake up with Toes beside me in bed or cuddle up with her on the couch but my allergies keep our together time confined to the deck or the garage. It’s not the worst part of my life but missing out on the joy of living side by side with a pet is definitely something that makes me sad on a routine basis.

Tuesdays with Toes – Toes as a Kitten

“Toes as a kitten.”

It’s a phrase David and I say to each other when we want to bond over our shared cat parenthood and feel the feels.

We say it even though we didn’t know Toes as a kitten. She came to us as a full grown adult cat. But I can picture her in her younger days—tiny white toes on tiny black paws.

She appears to me that way in my dreams sometimes–small and meowing and crawling all over me–a little ball of need. And in these dreams, I feel as close to motherhood as I might ever get.

It happened the other night in what ended up being a nightmare. Toes had been born recently, I was her mother, and she wasn’t gaining weight at the rate she needed to be. I picked her up, and she was too light. Barely responsive.

“You’re a terrible mother,” I thought as I jerked awake.

There are many reasons David and I haven’t pursued human parenthood, but being afraid of how worried I would be as a parent has been a major one for me. I concluded in my early thirties that I was just too anxious for parenthood.

Taking care of Toes has softened me on this stance. Kitten nightmares aside, I’ve enjoyed being there for Toes, and when problems have arisen (like her need for subcutaneous fluids every other day), David and I have been able to address them together pretty well. Plus, my family has been a huge help. (Shout out to my mom and dad who are housing Toes this winter!)

My childbearing decisions these days are less influenced by fear of the anxiety parenthood would cause and more a response to the volume of responsibility parenthood entails. I fear fear less, and I have Toes to thank for that.