Kitty

Yesterday I put my cat to sleep. Her name was Keycat or Kitty. Keycat was slang for kitty cat. Carol got her when she was a baby kitten. As a kitten she was extremely violent and would try and kill other cats or kittens. She would attack Carol’s face while she slept. Carol took her to the Vet to see what could be done. The vet said the only thing that can be done for this cat was to put her down. She was not going to change. At the Vet’s office was one of Carol’s cousins Kitty. Carol was not about to give up and decided to name the kitten Kitty and learn to figure out how to tame this violent kitten.

Carol went to the book store (years before the Internet) and got several books on aggressive cats and how to tame them. After months of hard work she started to calm down. Carol started dating around this time and went out with a guy who came over to her house. While sitting on the couch he was talking to Kitty when she reached up and opened up is nose. To this day he still has a visible scar on his nose from Kitty. When I met Carol on our first blind date I came unprepared. I didn’t give much thought about blind dates; they never work out. When the door opened and I saw how beautiful Carol was and how grungy I looked I thought, “Shit! I screwed this up.”

Kitty sealed the deal for me. While sitting on the couch, Kitty came up and started to rub on me and purr in a very happy way. For Carol, no matter how bad the first date went, she was going to figure out what it was about this man that Kitty seemed to like.

So there I was yesterday at the vets. I was agonizing over what I was about to do. My heart was pounding and aching. With sobbing tears they came to sedate her. I saw Kitty (Carol’s cousin) and thought she would come in but a mix up of who was doing what prevented her from coming in. I wanted her to come in very much but was so emotional I couldn’t be assertive enough. Then they came and euthanized her. I stayed a few minutes with her. I felt like I had failed Carol.

I went home. My house is empty now. I stood in my house crying. The phone rang and the caller ID said it was the vet. I picked it up and Kitty was on the other end. Now let me take a moment and just say that of all the years I’ve know Kitty she has never been the type of person to show any emotions… ever. Every once an awhile you catch a corner of her mouth upturn to make a smile. But other than that I have never seen or heard her share emotionally. She is just not that type of person. On the phone she said, “Kelly, I just wanted you to know that Carol would have been so proud of you. You cared and loved for her cats and they got to live a lot longer and happier because of you. I am so proud of you.” It was not the words that hit me the hardest. It was she said them through a sobbing voice cracked with tears and grief. I couldn’t speak; all I could do was cry out loud with her.

Thank you Kitty.

Act of Faith

I heard a story a long time ago about the difference between Hope and Faith. When sitting in the audience of a circus watching a tightrope walker push a wheel barrel across the tightrope you Hope they make it across. Faith is when you get in the wheel barrel.

When I met Carol had a high degree of Faith in my life. I had a close relationship with my Higher Power (HP) who was loving, warm and caring in my life. As the years went by living with Carol and her disease my faith began to diminish. It didn’t happen all at once but slowly eroded over time. The last year of Carol’s life was the hardest. It was difficult to be front seat in her life watching her pain and suffering. She would sit up at night and cry asking why this was happening, why she hurt and suffered, why she would go to school or do things for a future she knew she would never have. I didn’t know it at the time but it had a profound effect on my faith also.

After she died my Faith in my HP was very limited. My relationship was one of mutual understand that each exists and is present but not much more beyond that. As events started to happen in my life that would show signs of the active participation in my life of my HP, I would start to get angry. It got to the point were I was up one night crying and screaming at my HP to stop doing things for me. He abandon Carol and would prefer if he would do the same for me. I didn’t want to see wonderful things in my life knowing they didn’t happen for Carol.

I’m losing my job. While searching for a job I found a listing for one in a town that was my first duty station out of boot camp. I left in 1989 and promised I would find a way to return. Then I got stationed in San Diego, then Ventura, and then met Carol. My promise to return never came to be. So now I have an opportunity to return but it is more than that. See, the opportunity to return to work is a very rare opportunity. Jobs almost never open up there. It’s not just any job either. It is a weapons research and development location. Not a place where you think that there might be a job in software development. This job is for software development. Not just a job in software development but a lead for a team.

The hitch is that it is a part of a contract being competed against a company already doing the job. The contract will be awarded in June. I won’t know till June if I have a job. I can’t take another job within my company because I would not be eligible to transfer for six months. Making me ineligible for the job if they win the contract. My last day of work is April 2^nd. I would be out of work and not able to look for another job for two months. There is no guarantee that there would be a job in June.

Which brings us back to the topic of Faith and my relationship with my HP. It came to me last night that this is a direct message to me from my HP. It’s like he (sorry for the use of the male pronoun) is holding up a large bold sign saying, “LOOK, I’M HERE!” The odds of a job, doing what I do, with the opportunity to be a lead of a team, working at a place that does not ever offer the opportunity happening at this moment in time is immeasurable.

So I have decided to put my Faith in action and get in the wheel barrel. I will accept the offer if given and wait till June. The way I see it is that this is not and issue of if I have the Faith of getting the job or not. This is an issue to begin to heal my Faith and relationship with my HP. It is not the results that is the lesson but the act of Faith.

Lost my job

On Friday I was given notice that I no longer have a job. My last day of work is the 2 April.