Morning Rescue

I had no intention of writing something for my grandma’s birthday today. But then something happened, and this gushed out.

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“That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind; and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.”
―George Eliot, Middlemarch

My grandma—my namesake—would have been ninety-nine today.

What’s in a Name?

Hard to believe it’s been nearly a century since she was born on a snowy June day in Reno, Nevada.

Even harder to believe it’s been almost seventeen years since she departed. Departed, but not gone.

This morning, I glanced out the sliding glass door and saw our cat Secondo frolicking in the dead grass, enjoying the space I’d cleared out after a lengthy weeding session earlier this week.

My smile straightened when I noticed he was tossing something up in the air. Maybe it was just a dirt clod, but I feared it was something living … or formerly living.

I rushed out and found my fears confirmed. Secondo ran into the bushes while I crouched beside the gray mouse, who was lying on his side huffing away.

His mouth was slightly agape, his tiny legs quivering as his toes began to curl. I looked into his shiny black eye, my own eyes becoming moist as I worried I would be the last thing he saw.

Mouser, the neighbor’s kitty, eyed the prey curiously. I pet him, trying to divert his attention. He flopped down beside me.

One of our other cats, Lovebug, was nestled a couple feet away on the other side of the mouse.

They both seemed to sense the protective barrier I had erected.

“It’s okay, baby,” I repeated soothingly to the mouse, whose eye went from wide-open to half-open.

I thought I was watching him die.

I sat on the ground crying. Crying for the mouse. Crying for the loved ones I’ve lost. Crying for the ones I am going to lose. Crying for every suffering creature. Crying for everyone I can’t save.

This is natural, I thought. Nature is cruel. Not cruel … indifferent.