Pretty quick after my horse Tessie died, the tuxedo cat showed up. We first saw him rooting around the hayfield, hunting for mice and gophers. Feral cats are welcome because we have a healthy rodent population and not many songbirds. We set out dry cat food and water.
The black mask around his eyes gives him a hard stare like he’s looking into our souls, when he’s merely sizing us up, deciding whether to stay or leave. He’s shy like a bandit, but I have named him after the cat who befriended the Godolphin Arab, a founding sire of Thoroughbreds, because he hangs around my horse’s paddock, often lounging in the warm dust.
He’s gotten less wary since Tessie died, even stepping into the barn while I’m working because Bruce and I respect his space and don’t try to make friends.
He reminds me of how my grief has been. It shows up like a surprise and the ugly tears flow. Memories well up. And then they are gone. Quiet, happy days return. I drive my other mare along roads with long views of crops and farms and cloud shadows, relieved Tessie isn’t waiting at home, neighing. I think about how hard hearted I am to be this happy.
But then like the cat, the tears show up and I’m relieved that I can remember and honor my good horse by crying. And oddly, like tears, Grimalkin’s showing up to eat our food, drink our water has been a mysterious comfort.
I’m Katie Andraski and that’s my perspective.
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Grimalkin has not shown up all winter. Our neighbor thought maybe he’d found their heated office with a cat door, but the picture she took didn’t match him. We have eagles and coyotes roam through our yard and paddocks so with a sinking heart, we think he is deceased. But what good gift he was showing up in those months after Tessie died. As wild as he was, he was a comfort, as we saw him walking across the yard, or grabbing a bite to eat.
Nancy, the Second of Our Generation, Goes Home to be with the Lord
How do you respond when one of your most enthusiastic fans has slipped from this life to the next? No longer will I read her cheerful comments admiring my photographic eye. She liked my pictures of sparrows in the barn so much, that I sent her a print of a sparrow sitting on a barn rafter.
Her daughter Jen said she was ferocious in her love for her people. My brother and I grumped at her for meddling with his relationship with a girlfriend. I don’t remember the details, but I took his side because at the time I didn’t know the wisdom of letting my brother’s battle be his own. Nancy’s honesty also scared me. I kept my distance for a few decades, even when I visited New York.
But years and Facebook softened my heart. Facebook can heal relationships because you can start by responding on the surface level. We could comment with a sentence or two and gradually build a relationship. I have also learned to sometimes getting over hurts, takes as long as it takes, but the healing can come. For Nancy and I it was simply chat on Facebook. She had softened through the years from my memories of a very fierce woman, who scared me. She was so generous with her support and love and prayers.
I’d missed out on a woman who was beloved by her friends, even the ones with whom she had conflict, by my reticence, but our reconnecting through Facebook, through our stories about cats and her genuine admiration for my photographic eye was good, very good. (I come to my “eye” through my grandfather and my mother and God’s gift and living on this farm, with its beautiful sunset and broken fences.) Nancy lived very fruitful life, being active in her community and church, a loving wife and mother to Jennifer, who is an amazing woman. Her obituary is here.
I like to think the sparrow taking flight, is a picture of Nancy’s heading to her true home with Jesus.
Ash Wednesday
On Ash Wednesday we were smeared with ashes, told that from dust we came to dust we will go. In the Genesis account of our creation, God gathered up dust, not mud, dust and fashioned Adam. Then he breathed his breath into his nostrils to make him a living soul. We are made of dust and God’s air.
Like everyone else I am heartbroken about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. I have read calls for prayer by Ukrainians and am struck by how powerful prayer is. I can join with multitudes of others and pray. In Transfiguring Time Olivier Clement says,”…Those who make even the least gesture in the name of the Lord have more impact on the destiny of the world than any assembly or army. The saints are the true masters of the world: It cannot be overstated how many times the destiny of the world has hung on the prayers of an unknown saint.”
In the Apocalypse the seventh seal is opened. Seven angels are given seven trumpets which are about to announce more trouble on the earth. But before that an angel takes a censor and fills it with the prayers of the saints that rise like smoke before God. He fills it with fire from the altar. Fire-God showing up in a burning bush and not consuming it. Fire-the coal taking from the altar and placed on Isaiah’s lips when he cries out, “I am undone I am a man of unclean lips and I come from a people of unclean lips.” Fire–the coals that Peter warms himself by as he betrays his beloved master, Jesus. Fire, the lashing tongues that fall on the people at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit is poured out. That fire is placed in the censor along with the prayers of the saints and it’s thrown down on earth. And there are peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake–all signs of God’s active presence, his feet touching earth, like when he came down to Sinai to chat with Moses.
This fire, our prayers have been thrown down to earth, and brought God’s presence with it. Pray without ceasing. Pray for peace. I’ll leave you with a prayer from the Book of Common Prayer: “Eternal God, in whose perfect kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness, no strength known but the strength of love: So mightily spread abroad your Spirit, that all peoples may be gathered under the banner of the Prince of Peace, as children of one Father; to whom be dominion and glory, now and for ever. Amen.”
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