Just that kind of week

Ten days ago I went to my usual Wednesday playdate. Still at home was dad of the family, bags all packed and ready to head off to a backcountry glacier ski adventure. He does this sort of thing yearly; he and his two friends are extremely experienced, one of them a member of the search and rescue team for this area. While I was standing outside, his two companions arrived and they said goodbye and headed out to a place north of Whistler, where they were flown into the glacier and set off.

When I called this Wednesday, he was home again, because one of his companions -- a man I had greeted and shook hands with mere days before -- had fallen into a crevasse, fallen 30 meters, and died. The dad was the first one there, had to administer CPR on a dear friend who wasn't breathing, before they used their sat phone to call for help and were evacuated by helicopter. 

I can't imagine how they are feeling -- he, watching his friend die before his eyes, she, knowing it could easily have been her husband and the father of her two young children. A wonderful, strong, young life, gone so easily. It was no one I knew, and I can't stop thinking about it.

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This morning my favourite Aunt emailed. She's no longer married to my uncle; they divorced some 25 years ago. But I was the youngest of my cousins as a child, and she was always extra kind to me. We had lost touch after her divorce, but when my ex left and I went through the same thing, she got back in touch, with strong, encouraging words and support. I wrote back, and we've kept up our correspondence. She's tough as anything, and buys my son weird and wacky presents, and offers love and support and silly chain emails. Her two sons are grown, but she is very keen on female solidarity.

She told me this morning that her breast cancer, beaten back 19 years ago, is back. They caught it early, the nodes are clean, and her older son, an oncologist, has called in a few favours and gotten her the best surgeon he can find. The prognosis is good, but it's cancer, returning, to a woman who is over retirement age. 

I don't see her much, we don't write as much as we used to, but I still greatly value her support and I know that her reaching out to me at that crucial time seven years ago was a very important part of me getting back on my feet. She knew. She knew what I was going through, and it made all the difference in the world. And I can't help but thinking of the hole in my life that will appear if she goes.

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One of the two older cats we have has suddenly decided, with no apparent provocation, that she cannot share a house with a preschooler and two other cats, and has started peeing outside the box. So far she's kept it to bed covers and dirty laundry, and we've changed bedclothes to stuff that can be washed and have taken out stock in baking soda, gotten a new and another litterbox, tried giving her more attention and making sure the doors to the bedrooms are closed, and there's no sign of it abating. 

We're fairly sure that this isn't an illness problem -- if we are absolutely militant about closing bedroom doors and making sure there is no clothing on the floor, she will use the litterbox. It's not random; it's not everywhere, as one would expect were she ill. It's certain things, every few days, as soon as we let our guard down. It's emotional, we're fairly sure, perhaps -- I suspect -- as a cat who is getting older and perhaps losing her good judgement. 

We're not the type of family to give away (although ... who'd take her?) or put a cat down because she's stressed out, so we're going to try tranquilizers, but ... what else can we do? We have a tiny space and no more room to try extra litterboxes and ensure that all the furniture / beds / clothes  are protected. If this is the way things are going, it seems only a matter of time before she starts on the furniture, and then the only way to protect things perfectly would be to put her in a large cage whenever we are not home. And I have to think that that's not a great life for a cat.

I can put up with a certain amount of extra laundry. And so far, the house doesn't smell of cat pee, because we're able to launder everything she touches. Dear God, I hope the tranquilizers work, because if not we're going to really be in a world of trouble figuring out what to do. How we can live in this tiny space with a preschooler and three cats one of whom pees inappropriately is impossible to tell. I think that it will make things hard for us all.

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Add to this an office move and a daycare move and a week off work where I have to parent full time which is not something I am used to, and in which I will have no time alone nor any time to sort out my office and there are work deadlines building up and I don't know when I'll be able to get to work to deal with them, or if I do whether I will have a computer to even work on and AIIIIIEEEEEE.

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And yet? Despite all this? I'm doing ok. I'm tired, and I'm unhappy with some things, and I'm sad. But life is what it is, and things will be how they will be, and we just have to try and roll with it as much as possible. I think if we get the cat sorted out, the rest will fall into place. I can't control the cancer, and work will fall into place, and the new daycare will be painful at first and then settle into a good rhythm. I know a year ago, six months ago, it would have felt like the world was ending.

But I cleaned the kitchen this morning and am doing more (stinky) laundry and I guess we'll just keep on keeping on.