Sometimes Tomorrows are for Feeling Better

We weren’t even looking for a cat.

We were on a vacation four hours from home,
visiting my brother and his family,
when he needed to stop at the pet store for something for his dog.

While my brother searched for what he had come for,
I found something that I had not:
A purring, fuzzy, 6 month old Manx kitten, rubbing its head hard in my palm.

I smiled a half smile, and told Justin to come look.
It was like that little cat was downloading all his love in that pet store into me.

We left having only purchased some dog treats.
I said goodbye to that kitten behind those bars, and took a long last look.
but that night, after everyone was asleep in my brother’s house,
I sat up in the dark.
I obsessed over that kitten.
I felt like he had to be mine.

“On a scale of 1-10, how much would you be opposed to me bringing home another cat?” I asked Justin the next morning.
He answered, “A five” and, frankly,
that felt like a pretty solid “yes.”

So, I set out to track down that kitten.
That next day I called 2 pet stores, and put out a message on Facebook seeking to know if anyone had any private number for the manager of the rescue.
I had my sister-in-law on the case.
It was a Sunday, and the rescue was closed that day, but there is power in frantic networking,
and three hours later I had tracked a woman down who put me in touch with that little cat’s foster home.
She lived an hour outside of town, and no, no one had taken him home.
Two hours after that call, and I was meeting her in the middle of what felt like nowhere, under a huge oak tree, where she pulled from a box that same little cat, and as she handed him to me
she said that the adoption fee had “just been lowered from eighty dollars to ten.”
She said that it was plain to see we were meant for eachother.

He and I fell in love right then.

I drove that kitten home that day from my brothers.
It was 4 hours in the car.
He sat on my lap like a dog the whole time.
Calm, taking it all in, still non-stop still rubbing his head in my palm.

Now, I have grown up with animals.
I’ve had nearly every one in the book.
Ostriches, horses, dogs, cats, rats, rabbits, and even a tame raccoon,
but no animal has ever wormed its way in quite the same way as the kitten I went on to name Cosmo would.

His naming was quite the family debate.
None of us could agree completely.
As a joke I’d suggested we name him the name the girls had said they thought would be perfect for a cat as young children: Shibby Pomo;
But now they were much more refined.
Next I said, “What about Hodgepo?” A character from a story my grandfather always told.
That suggestion had brought on actual tears and a shrieking of “Why do you always have to be like this?”
Jr. Highers just never get old.

In the end we’d settled on Cosmo,
but because of their angst, just for fun, I made his full name Cosmo Hodgepo Shibby Pomo.
We called him “Shib” for short.

Cosmo was more mellow than most cats.
Cosmo came when you called.
He greeted Justin as he left for work every early morning, and stayed right beside me on my walks.
There was a look in his eyes that was different. Something that just kind of stood out.

I remember taking him to the vet the first time for an ear infection that he had.
He just layed on the table letting the vet poke and prod him, and the vet commented on how unusual he was.
“He’s really much more like a dog, I think,” I’d said, and he answered,
“No. Not even dogs are this good.”

Last Christmas Eve there was family tension.
We’d almost erupted into a fight, when suddenly we realized Cosmo had gone missing.
Normally always in by the afternoon, now it was nearing 9pm and he was nowhere in sight.
Immediately we dropped our argument, and headed out into the night.
Shaking a bag of dried cat food, we attracted another large strange cat who followed us on our mission.
For a long time we looked, split up into pairs, girls crying about the possibility that we’d never find him, and we were just about to give up when we heard, far down another street, Justin call to to Tessa,
“Hey! What’s that way up there?”

Their flashlight had caught the twinkle of his collar way up high in a tree.
The collar I’d bought him for Christmas and had fussed at Chloe about for putting it on him early, on the morning of Christmas Eve.

Because he was a Manx he had balance issues, and could not get down from the tree.
There is no telling how long he was up there.
We would never have seen or heard him up there, if that collar hadn’t been on.
That early gifting of his collar thereafter felt meant to be.

Justin borrowed an extension ladder from a neighbor and fought his fear of heights to climb the equivalent of a third story window to reach Cosmo that night.

I put aside my frustrations with him from our argument and held the ladder steady as he climbed.

When, after much prying later, he lifted that cat down, lit by that flashlight under that tree that Christmas Eve night, and we all rejoiced together, joined by the single wandering Maggi cat,
I laughed that we all looked like some strange Nativity reenactment with Cosmo in the place of the Christ Child.
We, of course, did a full skit there in the street after that.

We were so relieved we had found him that he totally saved that whole night.
That dumb cat had saved Christmas.
Bad feelings turned to rejoicing and made it one of our most memorable, all because of a ten dollar cat.

I tell you all this so you’ll know the feelings I had the other day when my neighbor came to the door to tell me he was so sorry.

He had just been pulling out of the driveway and Cosmo hadn’t moved like he should….

I barely understood what he said next other than that he
apologized sincerely and asked if he could lay him in a box.
I said yes, and closed the door behind him, and then a cry came from me unlike I’ve ever done.

I wailed in disbelief for what had happened.
I wailed for overwhelming grief.
I wailed for the way it feels to have something you loved beyond explanation get taken.
It felt like I’d never again feel relief.

The last few days for our family have been terrible.
It’s felt like nothing has made sense at all.
That ten dollar bill had bought a one in a million.
Nothing was more clear than that.

On Saturday we went to the nursery and bought some Cosmo flowers to put on his grave.
We stood in a circle and told our stories.
Laughter breaking up pain.
Paige said she felt like she’d cry until she died, too.
Justin simply patted the dirt and choked out one last whisper.
“Aww…Shib.”

We cry.
We breathe.
We cry again.
Days and days on repeat.

In all this I’ve worried about my girls.
The last few months have brought enough strain on their weary hearts.

I worried how I can help them with processing this loss, when I, too, am struggling with my own grief,
but yesterday as I sat crying, Paige was watching me.

She came and gently smoothed my hair behind my ear, and then she straightened my shirt.
She wrapped her arms around me,
and then she leaned in to prove to me that even an 8 year old can teach us some stuff.

“It’s OK, Mama,” she whispered,
And then

– here is the part –

“Sometimes TOMORROWS are for feeling better.”

I will forever carry that phrase in my heart.

Maybe you are grieving something today, too.
Some love, or precious thing lost.
Maybe you need to hear that it’s OK to just feel your feelings today.
To not worry that you’re not healing fast enough,
or getting on with it like you think you should.

The past few days I’ve gotten frustrated over how I cannot stop crying for this cat.
It’s drained so much out of me I can’t explain.
I loved him and I am so mad that he’s gone now.
It’s really as simple as that.

But then an eight year old girl,
who I was worried would get emotionally lost,
held my hand and showed me down a path she had found.
Sorrow may be for now, and
hope lies in tomorrow for sure,
but we all arrive at healing at our own pace.

Yesterday we rode in the car in silence, and again,
out of the blue,
from the back seat Paige quietly and meaningfully mused,

“Some people don’t like scars, Mama.
But, I’ve decided I do.
I think they make us each more unique, don’t you?”

So often we think we have to be the teachers no matter what we are going through,
but if we listen,
our children are often the ones teaching.

Maybe tomorrow I will like my scars, too.

This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.

Mom Outnumbered

Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.