Tuesday And Goodbye To Tom

This morning was a hot hatha class, strong and purposeful.
Then two meetings, loose and funny.

Running parallel was the niggle. You know the one. An insistent little voice, monotoning away in the background like an unwanted guest.

I come home to my desk and there he is. Tom. Purring, trying to stand but legs splaying out, a cartoon figure squashed flat.

Hey buddy, I whisper. This doesn’t look good.

I stand him up and he staggers round and around in circles. Leaning first one way, then the other.

Tom, I say. You’re making me cry.

We confer, my team and me, and decide that when the vet offers options that lead nowhere we’ll make the best, wisest, kindest decision for our boy. In agreement we front up.

Tell us, we say. Tell us what to do.

No, we say. No, not that. Tell us something else.

But we have to say goodbye and thank him for letting us love him and his mad brother, for teaching our girl limitless capacity for caring, for all the long-dead birds, for throwing up in nooks and crannies ready to be discovered months later, for not being able to get out of trees or off rooftops, for breaking bones, catching every virus going and costing an Auckland mortgage every single vet visit and for the undies, mostly clean, none of them ours.

I come home to my desk and he’s not there.

A morning’s worth of emails and social media is looking at me.
I do what any professional does; I ring my mother and cry some more.
Then I cry and open emails at the same time: I am a multitasking griever.
And just like that, delivered to my inbox in a sweet sequence of universal hodgepodery freaking goodness, I get some messages of love. Still wearing my jacket covered in cat hair, not having told anyone yet, I read.
Hey, they say, you’re doing a great job and thank you and seriously, I laughed so hard and other such wondrous words delivered as if specially timed to soften the blow.
There’s also one that offers to grow my penis, which is always a treat.

I look out my window and in the cul-de-sac is a mother with a pram. She goes round and around in circles trying to soothe her baby. It’s really annoying. Each time she goes past me I smile.

© The Yoga Connection 2016