A powerful answer to prayer, Ken.
U go, boy!
Trooly,
Cosmic Birther's Daughter,
Oleta Adams
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Wolman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2005 1:27 PM
Subject: Snap/"Styles of Grief," 6-15-05
> STYLES OF GRIEF
> (25 June 2002)
>
> It was Miles the black cat's turn
> for liver cancer had turned his life
> into something nasty and unmanageable.
>
> So we came to him where we'd left him
> at the vet's earlier that day
> to say goodbye, to witness--
> and, alone with him, I played "Dona Nobis Pacem"
> (of course for myself) on a tinwhistle,
> when all Miles wanted
> was to pry the IV lead out of his paw.
>
> The vet whispered something to the cat
> while the technician held him,
> then hit him with phenobarb so he died at once.
>
> Tears, inevitably. Tears actually
> since 2 that afternoon when I got the word.
> Now, at 7:15, stroked the cooling fur,
> looked into Miles' sightless open golden eyes,
> even the vet weeping because Miles,
> seven years old, died too young.
>
> Cried-out and back home, my S.O. suggests
> I let my other cat smell my hands,
> Pushkin at 11 his surrogate mother and best buddy,
> for she had to find out,
> "Miles is dead" would not cut it,
> but would learn all she needed through her nose.
>
> She sniffed my hands for a few seconds,
> surely nosed her friend's dead-liver rot,
> then screeched and slashed at my forearm,
> purity of grief spoken as rage, but not denial,
>
> only pain and hurt suffered in a great draught,
> pure, poured out as a bitter drink
> that must be consumed at once, not sipped
> to prolong the agony,
> straight no chaser, no way to drown loss.
>
> KTW/6-15-05
>
> --
> Kenneth Wolman
> Proposal Development Department
> Room SW334
> Sarnoff Corporation
> 609-734-2538
>
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