Ashgrove

I sometimes dream I am living inside my own head. Like the real me is a 3 inch tall person living inside my head, with my eyes pressed up to lenses so I can see out this giant's eyes. And I am piloting it throughout my life. But when I get tired, I could just press the "auto-pilot" button, and lift my face away, and just take a break from the world.

My husband, Hojiro, put up new security cameras today. He had been talking about them for weeks. They're around the house and are supposed to help him keep an eye on our cats. Our cats roam the house freely, and we like to make sure they don't get up into spaces they shouldn't. The eldest, Kioko, would always find ways to get up into the spaces in the ceiling, or on top of tall cabinets. And he'd just mewl for hours until we got home. We always thought it was cute, and he would smile ear to ear when we carried him down.

He had always talked about putting up the cameras, but we didn't have the money to pay for one of those cat-sitting services. Not regularly anyways. But then he found these cameras you can install yourself, and watch from your phone. He said, if I wanted, I could get a new phone so I could watch too. But I don't want to try and learn how to use a new kind of phone.

Our second, Carrigan, was a lot less of a handful. She'd always fight with Kioko, but otherwise would laze around all day. Following the sun around the house, sitting in its rays by windows as it moved across the sky during the day, and then sitting in our laps at night. She was needy, but always talkative. Calling for us whenever she wanted a door opened, or food, or her head scratched. Not like Kioko. He was always trying to figure out how to do things on his own. Try to get at the store of cat food in the upper cupboards, or jump up for the doorknobs he saw us use. She would even talk to the TV screen. We would laugh so hard that we would cry a little as she sang along with Dora the Explorer.

They don't prepare you enough as a child. It's almost like the only options are to have a kid, or not have a kid. That's it. And we'd have these debates when we were younger, usually in our college days, about how old we'd be when we had kids, or if at all. How we would pursue career first, make a name for ourselves and some money, and then have a family. There was always supposed to be time for it. Oh, sure, you shouldn't wait too long. Much older than 30 and there might be problems. But me and Hojiro wouldn't have to worry about that. He had dropped out of university after his second year, shortly after we had met, to join some kind of computer computer. And we knew we loved each other enough, and had just enough money, that we could get married right after I graduated, and have a child a year after that. I'd be 24 and he'd be 26. It was young enough, of course it was young enough. Young enough that some of our friends said we shouldn't rush into it, save some money first. But we knew what we were doing.

Cats are actually one of the first things we ever talked about. I had met Hojiro by chance in a Cat Cafe in Japan. Neko no Asobi. I had been traveling there between semesters and had heard of the place from the hostel I had been staying at. I got there and, since there wasn't much space left in the place, shared a table with Hojiro. His family lived not too far from the cafe, and he was there visiting his parents between semesters as well. By pure luck, it turned out, we went to the same school. We has struck it off immediately. What struck me was how refined he was. We were both conservative in our values and morals. For Hojiro especially it was a little strange; he's not particularly religious and neither are his parents. It was a lot easier for me, coming from a Catholic household. We spent that entire day together, and arranged to meet again once we were both back in the States. I had found him to be a very good friend, but never would I have dreamed that I would end up with that scrawny Japanese boy.

Our first night together, we were both a little scared. We had just gotten married and been cramped on a plane, neither of which was common occurrences for us. We had never slept together, or with anyone else, before marriage. The first night had been nerve-wracking. At least until we had gotten off the plane and into the hotel room in Maui his parents had paid for. We had wanted to go to New Zealand. Hojiro and I had talked many times of going there, and as long as the trip was paid for, why not. But his parents assured us we would like Maui better. His father said "Save it for when you can spend more time watching boring scenery instead", and winked to his son.

My heart had been beating so fast as we got into that hotel room. I was so embarrassed, I took off my clothes under the covers, ashamed to let him see my naked body. But my fears melted away in his arms. I remember the whole night, every touch, every feeling. The newness of it all. The electric shocks and tingles that would shoot through my spine and down to my toes.

The first few weeks were just a meld of eating, sleeping, and sleeping. We couldn't keep our hands off each other. Hojiro was like a beast unleashed, voracious and insatiable. The love we felt for each other burned bright, and even when we were tired, the thought that this time might be the time our child would begin it's existence pushed us on even more.

We were scared of the prospect of a child as well, and the first few weeks we kept feeling relieved when the pregnancy test was negative. But then weeks turned into months. After a year we went to see a specialist. He did many tests, and finally told us. We refused to believe him. We kept trying for another year. Every time we made love, there was a quiet sad desperation to it. I'm not even sure you could call it making love. It had turned into a manic pistoning, trying to conceive a child. There was no room for enjoyment.

I've been taking sleeping pills recently, and I feel like my mind wanders a lot more. I don't stay on an idea for too long, and I feel confused sometimes in the middle of the day. My friend Anna thinks I should be taking it easy. Take some time off work. I had already done that for almost two months, and it's been another six months since then. I should be all right now, no? I had even managed to get a trip to New Zealand out of it after all.

The trip we finally took to New Zealand had been... exhausting. Tiring. I don't remember much of it. I only have one real vivid memory from it: standing on a cliff beside Hojiro, and emptying the urn with Kioko's ashes into the ocean below. I felt the wind get knocked out of me. As if, along with the dust, my own essence was being blown out into the wind. I felt as if the next gust would carry me off like a kite too. Hojiro's hand in my own felt empty and cold. He withdrew it from my own and coughed into it. I looked into his face. It was emotionless, and dry. Cracked by a lack of moisture and salty air, and wrinkled into a gentle frown. As if he was considering a particularly devious clue in the Sunday crossword.

Carrigan had been overjoyed to see us when we got back. We had left her with a kennel for the week, and we could see it had left her a nervous wreck. For the first few days she couldn't be left alone, but after three days of pampering she seemed to be back to her old self. But then a week later, she started to go to Kioko's old bed, and mewl. She would follow us around the house, perhaps hoping that we would go and get him from wherever he was currently hiding. Whenever we left the house, we would come back and find her on top of the cabinets and looking up at the ceiling, calling out for Kioko.

Hojiro was a ghost wandering the house. Moving silently room to room. He had taken time off of work just like me. He just kept going room to room, tidying things up even though they were already tidy, armed with a dustbuster to clean up loose cat hair. He left Kioko's old bed alone.

The first time Carrigan called out for us by Kioko's bed, it sent the initial rush of loss right through my head, and my heart. To see Carrigan experience a loss without even understanding what had happened effected me so deeply. I crawled up right there on the ground into a little ball, and sob silently. Until Carrigan would come and paw and lick my forehead. But after the next few times only hurt a little bit. And then not at all. That's around the time the sleepless nights started. Hojiro came home one night with the sleeping pills for me. He hadn't said anything, he had just put them on my nightstand with the medication instructions beside them, printed on old printing paper, the kind with the holes on the side.

After three weeks Carrigan started sleeping in Kioko's bed. She stopped calling for us. She stopped eating, and would only sometimes leave the bed to drink water or use the litter box. Then she even stopped doing those things. She would just sit in his bed, with her hear on her front paws, looking around slowly. Ignoring us whenever we walked past. She wouldn't even flinch if we scratched her head. A week later she was dead too.

I slept for... I'm not sure how long. I didn't leave the bed for anything. Hojiro at first tried to coax me out of bed. He would bring me food and water, but I only moved to eat or drink when it really nagged at me, and only left the bed to use the bathroom when Hojiro was out. I would sit on the toilet and feel my tears sting the bare skin of my thighs. I didn't speak to Hojiro at all. After a few days, it was my friends who tended to me, and Hojiro disappeared for a few days. They all spoke to me, but I couldn't hear them. I later learned that Hojiro had left for New Zealand again, to spread Carrigan's ashes.

A few weeks ago we had our first guests over since... we lost Kioko and Carrigan. An old friend of Hojiro's and his wife. They spoke mostly amongst themselves, while I watched their three little children. They went behind a couch and came back with some of Kioko's and Carrigan's old toys. Old chewed up stuffed animals and little plastic balls with bells in them. They threw them around and played some sort of game of house with them. I quietly excused myself and went back to bed. I willed myself to sleep, but instead lay there, eyes wide open, as I heard quiet laughter adult laughter, and tinkly children's laughter, waft up from below. I could make out Hojiro's laugh. I hadn't heard him laugh since... I'm not even sure when.

The next morning, I nearly stepped on a small cat getting out of bed. It had turned out that Hojiro's old friends had had their own cat, but with the kids, were worried about keeping them apart all the time. Worried that the cat would hurt the kids, or vice versa. They had given them to Hojiro to make up for our own loss.

Make up for our loss. I was livid. How could they possibly understand. How could they even think that this would somehow make things right. Would this cat be as adventurous as Kioko? As talkative and inquisitive as Carrigan? Who was this cat? This animal. I didn't want it in our house. But Hojiro insisted that we keep it. It's name was Whiskers. An obvious name. I couldn't stand to be in the same room as it.

The next week Hojiro had come home with a box of five kittens. He said that with a recent promotion, as well as some smart manipulation of the stock markets, we had enough to support them all, and even a little left over to fix up some of the disrepair of the house, and to build some of the things he had wanted over the years, like the security cameras. He named all the kittens, and Whiskers seemed to immediately take a parental role over them all. They would move like a pack around the house, with Whiskers breaking up their fights. They ravaged the furniture as I watched them, and Hojiro would chase them with a broom to keep them from eating up the whole house. Soon, most of our furniture was covered with thick plastic tarp to protect it.

The first time we met in that cafe in Japan, a cat had jumped up onto our table, and started lapping up some of the milk tea Hojiro had in his mug. We both laughed, and he mentioned that cats were so much like little children. We both realized we both loved children very much, and wanted our own soon. I had even joked that we should get married just because of that. We had even joked about what we would call our children. I said I always had loved Japanese names, and he mentioned that he had always liked the name Kioko. I loved it instantly. Then I mentioned that if we had a girl though, we'd have to name it Carrigan after my grandmother. It was a tradition in our family to name the first born daughter after a grandmother. He took to it immediately. And then he smiled. A smile that broke into many wrinkles on his face. A face that very obviously rarely smiled. It warmed my heart so completely, to imagine my future family with this man.

Cyclophosphamide

We try and find reason for the time we spend between eyelids opening and closing

Find purpose for each second as they tick away

We try to find love to fill the hole in our hearts,

And hobbies to fill the ones in our minds. 

And yet when you go to bed, you still think of how much better it could be

Of those words you should have said (or shouldn't have)

Of how life wasn't supposed to end up in your bed on this night

And you pray you someday find a way to stop your heart from racing whenever the car stops abruptly

Hope that the moments that flash before your eyes aren't empty when you miss that last stair

Wonder if you've done enough as you wait for the doctor to enter the room, as the cold air wafts up the hospital gown

But no, it's never enough

There is always more life to live

And more lands to see

And more people to love

And more hearts to break

A life lived ten lifetimes long wouldn't be enough

And even then you wouldn't have done the thing you had set out to do from the beginning

So keep calm

Laugh

Drink

Live not for the means to life, 

Live for life itself