Was I thankful? Of course not. I was absolutely gutted. Tater was my constant companion, my velcro dog, my pint sized champion. In all of my life, I have never been so adored by anyone, or anything as I have by that little love. Each and every time I held him for his feedings, or to give him medications, I felt as though I were holding pure love in its simplest form. However, he reached a sudden crisis the day before Thanksgiving, and I could tell by something in his eyes, that I needed to let go. This time, unlike so many other times, it was time. So I did. I let go, and in letting go of him, I think I finally realized that that is what a lot of life is. It is letting go gracefully at those times when the circumstances are forced on you, and all you really want to do is sit and howl at the moon at the unfairness of it all. It seemed like the cruelest culmination to an already deeply painful time in my life.
A couple of months before Tater died, I was diagnosed with Trigeminal Neuropathy/Neuralgia (TN). TN is a condition of the trigeminal nerves of the face, and it is exquisitely painful. I would liken mine to the feeling of someone stabbing me in the face with an ice pick after having worked me over with their fists first. Though it is considered a "rare condition", it seems that there are a fair number of people who have been diagnosed with it across the world, and most of us went years without being diagnosed, until the pain finally become too intense for specialists to ignore. I am one of the lucky ones because I am responding to the medications that were prescribed, but others have needed surgery, and still others...well, it is called the "suicide condition" for a reason. The pain can become unbearable for some. Reading the disease description, no matter which certified medical site that I checked, was a grim endeavor, and I thought at that time that 2011 could not possibly get any worse. Then Tater....
So, when my birthday rolled around last week, the big 5-0, I was ready to move on to a "New Year" for me. I wanted to put the heartache and the pain behind me. So, my birthday arrived, and I ushered out the old year and brought in the new with........the first case of stomach flu I have had in two decades. It was a particularly violent sort, one that will go down in infamy. I was rather amazed at the damage done because I didn't remember eating all that much during the day. Like the loaves and the fishes, my small lunch seemed to have multiplied into something much larger and all encompassing. Cleanup took a lot of bleach and a couple of loads of laundry. And I don't have to say that I was underwhelmed by the Divine Comics choice of "gift". I didn't really feel like shouting out "Thank You", so I responded in the only way situation like that deserves.
I started laughing, I started laughing, not because I was a couple of crackers short of a full box by then, but because it was the one truthful response to that moment. Life is ironic. Life is painfully ironic, to the point of being absolutely absurd, and you always need to laugh at the absurd. I also howled a little at the moon, but quietly. I didn't want to wake up the two new puppies.
