I dug myself into this hole. I spent the better part of my life digging
it, and now it's so deep and I'm at the point of my life that I know
I'll never be able to climb *completely* out of it in my lifetime. My
lifetime. I think of what that means: That I will absolutely, without
question, die before I get to where I might have gotten, and do what I
might have done before I started digging this damn hole.

But I *did* stop digging and started climbing. There's always a point
(and one would think that it would be obvious where that point was, but
it's not) that one realizes the hole he's been digging has only gotten
him tired and dirty. It's at that point, if one is brave enough, one
stops digging and looks up to the light of day. It's where it always
was, you silly mustelid; it's you that's been digging.

I've gone back to reading the FML on a daily basis. Each day I read
the collective details of your ferret's lives - the ones that you love,
the one's that are a part of your family. I also read about the ones
you are trying to save; the ones whose lives have been dismissed and
debased, as if they were worth nothing. You people, in your words,
bring these fuzzies to life and make their lives personal and real to
me. Sometimes it's painful. And I suppose, well maybe sometimes, it's
supposed to be... 

Each day I'm taught something new. And each day I'm also reminded of
things that I've painlessly forgotten. I am the better for it. I am
learning not to focus on the depth of the hole, or the impossibility
of the climb, but on the light of the opening. Even down here, dirty
and grimy, I can see it. The light is just as much mine to look to as
anyone's. So there it is.

Jackson is all over the place, lately. He was a throwaway, given up
because a grown man's girlfriend became more important. He's lost
most of the hair on his back due to adrenal disease. It's ironic that
the disease that is slowly killing him is also pumping adrenaline
throughout his body, giving him the ability to be more active and
alive. And even though he's had a hard life, alive he is.

Jackson's back is perpetually scratched and red because he does not
differentiate between hair and no hair. He pries open the same bathroom
cabinet doors he did when he had hair that protected his back. Nothing
stops him. He goes where he can go, and does what he can do, curious
and innocently unafraid. He fills me with a wonder that lets me, for
just a moment, live a tiny piece of my life through him.

I will do what I can do to help him. I owe him. Jackson came to us at
night, along with his cagemate Rascal. Both of them were stressed and
exhausted. Jackson was nearly sleeping when I picked him up out of his
cage, so I held him to my chest. The next thing I remember, he was
asleep on my chest. Ferrets hardly ever do that. Even if you can get
one to stay with you for a few minutes, it is not long before they
start squirming and turning to get down. There's always some more
important business to attend to than remaining a furry security
blanket for some cuddle-deficient human.

But Jackson was sound asleep on my chest, as if to let me know in his
own way that he finally felt safe. I lay on the couch and soon I was
asleep as well. And when I woke up it was early morning, and Jackson
was still with me, yawning and warm on my chest. In that moment I felt
worth something to another living being, worth something to another
old man like myself. I will always remember that morning as a gift
from Jackson.

I wish I could tell him how I feel about things, but I can't. I know
he's eventually leaving me. When, I don't exactly know... a year,
maybe more? I just don't know, and even if Jackson could talk to me he
wouldn't know either. But I'm the self-aware and so-called intelligent
being here. I know what's coming, and it's for those times that I
really wish I could talk to Jackson. But I cannot. In all my
self-awareness, I am frustratingly deafened and silenced.

I know that I call him an old man, but he's really just a six-year-old
boy. It is easier to think of him as an old man. Everything makes more
sense, then. But one day this little boy is going to start hurting, or
something will go wrong and he will not understand what is happening
to him. I will not be able to tell him what is wrong or what to do. He
will feel weak, or feel pain or some other state of discomfort, and
will not be able to communicate to anyone what it is. I will have to
take my best guess.

I will take him to see the vet (who loves ferrets very much), but
Jackson will not know why he has to travel in a carrier to see a
stranger, especially when he doesn't feel so well. I won't be able to
tell him that this stranger loves those of his kind and is trying to
help him, maybe even save his life. I mean... I *will* tell him, I will
speak aloud and tell him with my words as I always do, but in my
rational mind I know that he cannot put my words together to get their
meaning. To Jackson, it will be me turning him over to a stranger who
will poke and prod him, or maybe stick a needle into his sore and tired
body. It will hurt, and Jackson will not know why I am letting this
stranger hurt him and take his blood, and he might think that in some
way I am betraying him, when I am really doing my best to hold on to
him. And my mind will plead with itself to have Jackson understand,
but I will be helpless, wide-eyed and staring into those hurting and
frightened eyes, and I will never be able to make him understand, no
matter how hard I try.

And I will have to settle for only being able to look at him, knowing
in my own frustrated heart that I did my best for Jackson (and for all
my guys). Best case scenario - this painful trip to the vet will be
forgotten, just a puzzlement as to why he had to do any of this at all.

But worst case scenario - well, worse case scenario is certainly
coming. Jackson will not feel good, or hurt, or something I cannot see
or smell or hear will be wrong, and once more he will not be able to
tell me. I will be left to my best guess again, but this time there
will be no good guesses, and the only thing I will know is that he is
dying. I will want so bad to know whether he is suffering or not, but
unless he shows me some visible sign, I will not know. And if I can't
know, how can I possibly help him? I will not want to stand there,
helpless. I hate being helpless. But sometimes even knowing things
still leaves one helpless.

But I can be there with him. All I can hope for is that Jackson knows I
am there with him. I will put my hands and face close to him, to feel
his nose on my face, to smell him, not as much to make him feel better,
but to make *me* feel better. And I will tell him that I love him, and
try to tell him goodbye, but I will only be able to do it with words
that Jackson cannot understand. It will be for my benefit only, and it
will be maddening. Then I will do the only thing I can do -- let go --
and I will close my eyes and cry.

But maybe I won't be there at all. Maybe I will find that he's passed
while I slept. Maybe I will never have the chance to say goodbye. That
is a gift when we get it, the chance to say goodbye. But goodbye or
no, we are left with the hole our companions make when they leave. No
matter if I am there or not, or I say the physical words or I don't, or
if I let him go (... or I don't) -- what I will have left is Jackson's
hole. It will be a hole in me, a part of me that is no longer there -
not quite big enough to harm me, but big enough for me to notice that
something is missing. I will hope that Jackson knows that I loved and
cared about him, but even if he doesn't, I will still know. But as much
as we want to divert ourselves with knowing or not knowing, it's all a
three-card Monte we use to distract ourselves from what we're tryin
so hard not to notice.

But I remember my lessons. I will fill the hole now, while Jackson's
still alive and here with me. I will do it while I still can. I will
chase him and he will chase me, and I will continue to laugh at the
silly ways he explores his and my world. I will turn his image into
war-dancing electrons. And I will look up and try to ignore the
holes -- the ones I've dug, and the one's I've been left -- and I will
set my eyes on the light of day. It will be right where I left it. And
for a moment, I will close my eyes and allow myself to feel it's warmth.

Roary
35.246302 ~ -106.717857

[Posted in FML 6097]