Inherit the sun

Shifting the Sun 
            ~by Diana Der-Hovanessian

When your father dies, say the Irish,
you lose your umbrella against bad weather.
May his sun be your light, say the Armenians

When your father dies, say the Welsh,
you sink a foot deeper into the earth.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Canadians,
you run out of excuses.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the French,
you become your own father.
May you stand up in his light, say the Armenians.

When you father dies, say the Indians,
he comes back as the thunder.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Russians,
he takes your childhood with him.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the English,
you join his club you vowed you wouldn't.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.

When your father dies, say the Armenians,
your sun shifts forever.
And you walk in his light.

~~~

I took this photo of sunset at Lincoln City, Oregon, last Saturday evening. We spent the night there with our two dogs and, quite frankly, my mind has not fully returned from the beach yet.

When I read this poem it seemed perfect for the image. I do not know why. I just feel that someone who has lost his or her father might come upon this post and find some peace.

I do know that, since scattering my mother's ashes into the ocean over ten years ago not far from this beach, visits there have grown dearer with each setting sun.

.

Old Postcard Wednesday--Shiprock, New Mexico

Thirsty Boots

You've long been on the open road you've been sleepin' in the rain
From dirty words and muddy cells your
clothes are soiled and stained
But the dirty words and the mud of cells will soon be judged insane
So only stop and rest yourself and you'll be off again
Oh take off your thirsty boots
And stay for awhile
Your feet are hot and weary from a dusty mile
And maybe I can make you laugh
And maybe I can try
Lookin' for the evenin'
And the mornin' in your eyes

Then tell me of the ones you saw
As far as you could see
Across the plains from field to town
Marchin' to be free
And of the rusted prison gates that tumble by degree
Like laughing children one by one
They look like you and me
So take off your thirsty boots and stay for awhile
Your feet are hot and weary from a dusty mile
And maybe I can make you laugh and maybe I can try
Just lookin' for the evenin' and the mornin' in your eyes

I know you are no stranger down the crooked rainbow trail
From dancing cliff edge shattered sills to slander shackled jails
Where the voices drift up from below as walls are bein' scaled
Yes all of this and more my friend your song shall not be failed
Oh take off your thirsty boots and stay for awhile
Your feet are hot and weary, from a dusty mile
And maybe I can make you laugh, and maybe I can try
Just lookin for the evenin' and the mornin' in your eyes

So take off your thirsty boots and stay for awhile
Your feet are hot and weary from a dusty mile
And maybe I can make you laugh and maybe I can try
Lookin' for the evenin' and the mornin' in your eyes.

Lyrics: Thirsty Boots, John Denver







A beloved family member died in the early hours of Veterans Day. Years ago we called him Boots just to identify the stray with the four huge white paws who roamed the neighborhood alone for a full five years after the family up at the corner loaded everything into a U-Haul and left him sitting on the front stoop. It was simple to feel his heartbreak; he'd been the love and solace of the t'ween girl who didn't seem to have much else to hold onto in her world. Often the first summer after we moved to our house down the street we'd walk or drive by to find her standing in her yard with her cat wrapped in her arms, providing all-consuming comfort for one another to help them survive that day together.

After the girl's horrid-looking father left with the kids (there was no mother evident) the cat stayed on the porch constantly day and night except to venture for some food. After two weeks he skulked away, grown thin from hunger and resignation. I'd never before witnessed an animal withdraw into the depths of itself, to go from pet to a critter with only survival in mind. He made no human or animal friends and was a solitary, and obviously successful, hunter grown into sleek muscle that gave him the edge on dominance in the block. When we'd see him at night in the headlights of our car as we drove to our house Mike would yell out "Bootszszs!" (he secretly admired the big scrappy tomcat and I secretly wanted to re-tame him) and, even with the windows closed, I'd beg him to keep his voice down and not scare the cat. By then I'd named him Bootsie, but lay no claim to him in the slightest. This cat showed no inclination to munch at the big communal bowl I place out in the wildlife area nightly. There stray cats start off on the food and by dark the raccoons and skunks take over.

As adventurous and amorous as the summers must have been for Bootsie, by the beginning of the fifth winter he was really worn from life on the prowl. Many fights had left his ears looking like a scrapbooker with a special tool had nicked the edges into a random outline. One fight had closed and infected his eye and when the eye healed there was a black bump of scar tissue on the lower lid. He was getting old, sickly, skinny, and haunted from years of heartbreak. Those were the first words I spoke to him -- through the wildlife yard fence -- in our backyard in October 2004. He had decided to check out that food bowl back there, finally he really needed it. I sat on the ground and told him all about his heartbreak, relaying the sad story of his little girl and how much she loved him, and I told him there was still love right here. He ran away. This pattern repeated for about three nights and then on the fourth night I put my hand through the fence and he hooked into my finger a claw that looked like an antler it was so long and tough. It hurt like hell and I calmly told him that it did. But, I said, I'm not mad at you. So we stared at one another while my hand bled and throbbed, and then he allowed me to put my other hand through the fence to loosen the hold he had on me, never losing eye contact.

Slowly, as the weeks progressed he began enjoying warm milk back there, and then his own bowl of food. Gradually, he allowed me to lightly pet him. And finally he purred when I did. After that it really was no trouble for Mike and me to trick him into the cat carrier and off he went for the full veterinary work-up, alteration, and shots.

When he came home from the vet he was ours, hands down. His tag said Boots at Mike's request because he thought it a more fitting name for the big boy, but he was my Bootsie. He never left except to walk across the street once in awhile. He came inside and slept by the fire during the day and had his own electric bed in the garage at night. Bootsie was the only cat I've ever had that I could imagine attacking someone who would try to do me harm. He was devoted to me, and he and Mike had a valued relationship.

When Boots began losing weight late this summer I had a consultation and Bootsie had an examination with the vet. The blood work up showed thyroid trouble, a miserable and too common affliction in cats. We'd had the radioactive treatment on my most precious of all cats in 2001, which cured the hyperthyroidism but eventually caused the kidney failure that ultimately caused his death. I made the decision that day to just let Bootsie's life and death take their own course. He's been doing well, even getting a tummy back that had me so encouraged for winter. Two days ago I had the biggest hugging time with him, telling him how much I love him and just soaking up the rich tones of his loud purr.

All these evenings when we walk the dogs together Boots has walked with us to the curb in front of the house, and has waited for our return. On the occasions when we are home later at night he is always the first we see running to the garage to greet us. So, with Mike on vacation this week, we spent Monday away together and when we came home early in the evening Bootsie wasn't there with the other three "garage cats" to greet us, and then when he didn't come to be put inside the garage with his food for the night, I knew something was terribly wrong. I couldn't count how many times I went outside to call for him Monday night/Tuesday morning, and I finally went to bed at 4:30 a.m.

At 10:00 a.m. Tuesday morning Mike gently woke me to tell me that Bonbon, our standard poodle, had pointed him to Boots. He was dead in our fern garden next to the house, stretched out under a giant fern. We put him on a towel in the laundry room and, because he wasn't stiff yet, I was able to stroke his fur and rub his feet. It was surreal to see him dead. There were no signs of a fight, having been hit, or poisoned. We decided to bypass the veterinary clinic altogether (no autopsy, no cremation) and bury him right here in our backyard that he loved so much. Mike asked if I wanted his tag and I couldn't have imagined removing it from Bootsie's neck. He was so proud of his tag, and he's the only of the four outside cats who adopted us to have not lost his original collar and tag.

After the course of action was decided upon I was too much a wreck to do the burial. I took a Lorazepam that I keep for emergencies along this line and went to bed for the day. Feather and Shiva slept with me, affording soft comfort. In the late afternoon Mike woke me to let me know that the t'ween girls next door had come over to do the raking job for which I'd paid one of them in advance so that she could buy something to wear for "Freaky Friday" at school. He put them to work, adding more compensation, and then the girls helped him prepare Bootsie's body after he had dug the hole. Mike lowered Bootsie down onto a bed of ferns as the girls suggested, and covered him with more ferns and roses from our garden.

Tonight I placed his ceramic bowl full of milk next to the little mound in the yard out back.

`

JoAnn

After I posted this about a friend's depression I received comments about the poem by Kirsti A. Dyer, M.D., and the link to her website. A few days ago Dr. Dyer commented at my blog herself and left the link to her more recent website, Loss, Grief and Bereavement. During this time my Aunt JoAnn passed away, the topic of my post preceding this one, and Mike and I visited Dr. Dyer's grief website last night. We found support, a wealth of information, and peace there. This unique connection may be just a random thing, but I really don't think so. People come into and out of our lives sometimes by intent, sometimes by kismet, and, sometimes by grace.



How JoAnn came into my grandparent's home is a certain combination of the three.

She is seen here with my grandfather, JHS, soon after joining the family at around 19 months of age. He is 64 in this photo, and my grandmother, Nellie, was 56 at the time. Aging was different then than it is today, and they were considered old folks at the time (looked it, too), after having already lived full lives. JHS lost his first wife early on, leaving him with two little girls who were raised by Nellie after she and JHS married. Together, they added three sons, and then my mother.

The youngest of the boys, Richard, was only four years older than my mom, Margaret, and, as shown in this photo, they were buddies extraordinaire.
In 1927, the evening before Richard was killed in a car accident on his way to a Santa Monica High School football game, he played jacks with my mother on the kitchen floor, teasingly warning her that she'd better never tell the kids at school about it. Richard died in the hospital the evening of the accident with Nellie by his side. He was a 16-year-old beloved son and brother who left behind a completely devastated family.

The mourning was ongoing even two years later when Nellie rekindled a friendship with an old friend from their years living in Kansas City, Missouri. Now the friend lived near them in Santa Monica, California, where she had a home for homeless children. The closest equivalent today would be our foster care system. Nellie began visiting her friend weekly and she fell in love with an 18-month-old rosy-cheeked, little blond girl (JoAnn) who reminded her of Richard as a baby. Although both parents were alive JoAnn and her brother were at the home due to major concerns about the capacity of the parents to adequately care for them.

Nellie consulted JHS about bringing JoAnn into their home and my mother wrote that, "Pop said it was up to her if she wanted to accept that responsibility after having raised six of their own." Unlike today, the arrangements weren't made with the assistance of attorneys, and the agreement between my grandparents and JoAnn's mother was never legally binding. There was some provision drawn whereby her mother could take her back (with the state's approval) if she changed her mind within a certain time, something like one year. My mother recalled the angst each of them felt in the first months with JoAnn, their love for her being deeper than their panic so that they could bear it. A milestone day came and passed without any word from the birth mother, and so JoAnn was theirs. Without a formal adoption she maintained her birth name that fit her Swedish heritage and appearance. It's such a sadness to think about her brother left behind. I'm sorry I don't know his story and must one day ask my cousins to fill in the years. But I am aware that in at least the later years he has lived close enough for them to become close, for him to know his niece, nephew and great-nieces. I think that is phenomenal.

One of my uncles and his wife had purchased as an investment a large amount of land with a modest house they called "the ranch" in the wilds of Trinity County, California. It was there that Nellie, my mother, and JoAnn (all other children were grown) homesteaded their way through the Great Depression. I love this picture of my mother and JoAnn on a hike in the "Trinity Alps."

While they lived at the ranch my grandfather continued in his once-profitable career in sales of a variety of products, still getting by. He died while on the road in 1936 when JoAnn was seven. This photo is of Nellie and JoAnn at his gravesite. With the end of the Depression my grandmother moved the girls back to Chico, and eventually the Walnut Creek/Lafayette area, where my mother moved on and Nellie and JoAnn lived simply. JoAnn basically lived in that area her entire life. She was a headstrong teen who drove Nellie to distractions at times, but more often was a light in Nellie's life. They understood, respected, and loved one another.

This photo is a marvel to me. Independent photographers once positioned their cameras on the streets in Oakland, snapping pictures of passersby and arranging payment for a mailed copy. This one was called a "Metro Movie Snap" and caught JoAnn and Nellie striding happily along a busy street together in 1947.

She met Bill in the Bay Area, where he rose to Captain in the Navy. He told Nellie straight away that he was going to marry JoAnn. She told my mother that Bill was crazy. She married him. They were a remarkable and interesting couple who raised their family in a beautiful home next to a hill covered with walnut trees. She was widowed in 1994, but was not alone with my devoted cousins nearby.

My aunt JoAnn had flair and a most marvelous sense of humor. As a teen I could listen to her stories endlessly. I realize now that she was like Erma Bombeck in her witty interpretations of daily life in the suburbs. Her speaking voice and intonation were so distinctive that I can hear her easily in my memory. She was also blessed with a beautiful singing voice. And she had the most impressive handwriting I've ever seen. It appeared on cards attached to the most perfectly-wrapped, carefully-selected Christmas gifts any kid/teen could ever wish for.

JoAnn had her paradoxes. She smoked; she skied. She was giving; she was private. She was beautiful; she was self-effacing. She appeared confident; she fought depression. She was sunny; she sheltered heartbreak.

I'm remembering her sunny.