If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed . Thanks for visiting! I was raised Catholic and I worked in youth ministry both as a volunteer and as a paid employee for many years. While it’s been many years since I have been to a church for anything other than an occasional Mass here and there (weddings, funerals, sometimes a visit on my own), I always return to the liturgical calendar when it comes to December. Our …
Know what brings me joy? Seeing joy spread into others’ lives. When I started noticing my daily joys, I didn’t think much of it. They evolved naturally, out of a many-yeared gratitude practice. I’d started with finding five things every day that I was thankful for back in 2006. It evolved naturally out of my exposure to The Examen, an Ignatian practice of looking over one’s day. I’d learned it while in college, five years earlier. A friend once told …
“Growing up is at heart, the process of learning to take responsibility for whatever happens in your life.” bell hooks Today it’s been 3 weeks since I put my cat, Jade, to sleep. I don’t remember when I first wanted a cat. It might’ve been when I was young, but my first cat memory is from college, when I spent Wednesday nights having dinner and watching West Wing at my friend’s mom’s house. They had several cats and at one …
I keep telling myself that I’ll get used to the face she makes, but it isn’t true. Or at least, it hasn’t happened yet. Twice a day now, since October, I have given Jade “treats”, and by treats, I really mean treat-coated pills. We’ve dropped her meds down to cipro, pred, and pepcid, twice a day. Back at the beginning, or even a month ago, I could trick her into eating them: I’d prep the pill pocket, then give it …
My cat, Jade, is dying. I’ve heard the line, “well, aren’t we all?”, and while that may be true in one sense, in another, don’t we all know that there’s a difference, really? Since the end of October, Jade’s ‘been dying’: at that point, she was diagnosed with mast cell cancer in her spleen, a tumor in her brain, a heart murmur (which became 2 heart murmurs), hyperthyroidism, and a few other not-so-great bits. The past 6 weeks, we’ve been …
