In memory of William Vesper Owen IV. 6/15/67 to 2/17/03

It’s been nine years since the day my best friend died. The pain has faded in that time, but isn’t gone completely. The past several years I’ve even managed to forget the anniversary. My last post like this was in 2009. I’m not sure . . . → Read More: In memory of friends who have passed.]]>

In memory of William Vesper Owen IV. 6/15/67 to 2/17/03

It’s been nine years since the day my best friend died. The pain has faded in that time, but isn’t gone completely. The past several years I’ve even managed to forget the anniversary. My last post like this was in 2009. I’m not sure what jogged my memory today, perhaps it was a trailer for a movie I would’ve seen with Bill, or perhaps a video game we probably would’ve played together. Hard to say what it was, but I thought I should post something marking the occasion seeing as I’ve not done so in awhile. I won’t go into long reminiscences about Bill as I’ve said all that can be said about that in the past. I just wanted to say that I miss him greatly.

Give your best friend a hug if you haven’t in awhile. You never know when they’ll be gone.

Part of what the neighbors had to put up with this year.

I did something today that I always hate doing and yet I do it every year: I took down the outside Christmas decorations.

I’m not much of a romantic, but I am very, very sentimental. Part of the reason I’m a huge . . . → Read More: You know you’re getting older when your pragmatism overrides your sentimentality.]]>

Part of what the neighbors had to put up with this year.

I did something today that I always hate doing and yet I do it every year: I took down the outside Christmas decorations.

I’m not much of a romantic, but I am very, very sentimental. Part of the reason I’m a huge fan of the holiday season despite being an atheist is because of all the wonderful memories I have of it from my childhood. The religious aspects of the holiday took a backseat to the whole Santa thing and the cliche that it’s the one time of the year when people are a little more decent to each other. A cliche I bought into as a child with each Christmas special that I watched. It really did seem magical to me as a kid and I reveled in it. When I was finally old enough to participate in putting up the decorations it only added to the excitement each year.

As with most things you highly anticipate, there’s a minor feeling of loss that occurs once it has come and gone. It’s kind of like riding a roller coaster. All that excitement and build-up and then it’s suddenly over with the memory already starting to fade along with your heart rate. When it comes time to take down the decorations and pack them away for the year it brings a definite finality to the events. You can’t even pretend that Christmas was just yesterday anymore by turning on the lights just one more time. In years past I’ve so dreaded this day that it wasn’t unusual for my decorations to stay up until into February. For years I’ve had a standing agreement with my wife that they come done by her Birthday, which is January 30th.

Of course as you get older you don’t get as excited about the same things you did as a kid and thus the let down afterwards isn’t as strong as in the past. Eventually you get to a point where your pragmatism starts to override your sentimentality. Or at least I do. Today when I woke up the sky was clear and almost cloudless with a outdoor temp of 33° – practically a heat wave for a Michigan January — so I went outside and took down all the lights I had put up back in November along with the other miscellaneous decorations.  Didn’t even bother to put on a jacket.  I felt the old familiar pang as I did so, but it wasn’t as bad as in years past. My reasons for doing so were definitely pragmatic. There’s no snow on the ground, as unusual as the temperature for this time of year, and I know that if I let the opportunity pass that the next time I get up the gumption to do it before the birthday deadline will probably be after it has snowed six feet and the temps are sub-zero. Better to get it done now than once the winter finally catches up with us.

But I was still a little bummed while doing it. The only lights still outside are the lanterns that have the fake LED candles in them. We thought they’d make excellent lights for the path to the back door and they aren’t particularly seasonal so they’ll stay up. My Christmas tree is still up and I’m trying to decide whether to take it down today or wait until Courtney visits us next weekend. It’s looking a little sad as the cats have gotten most of the plastic ornaments on the bottom half of the tree off to play with, but if I use the excuse of Courtney’s visit to keep it up then I could at least pretend that the holidays haven’t fully passed for one more week. It’s definitely tempting.

I think this is part of why religion has such a tenacious hold on people. We don’t like letting go of things that make us feel good. We become irrational in trying to hold onto those memories and emotions. We want to keep those warm feelings regardless of the date (or the truth). It can lead us to do foolish things like ignore global climate change or, as I did the first year I lived in my apartment in Canton back in my early 30′s, leave a Christmas tree up all year long*.

Don’t know if any of that makes sense, but I wrote it down anyway.

^{*In my defense I was traveling a lot for a job with GMAC dealing with upgrading computers to prevent problems with Y2K and was rarely home long enough to mess up the apartment let alone put the tree away.}

He's, quite literally, a handful. Click to embiggen.

I rescued him yesterday from the parking lot at work. Apparently a few of the engineers here like to walk the circuit of the lot as exercise after eating lunch (it’s a huge lot that’s mostly empty) and they spotted him in the . . . → Read More: Meet Jasper, the newest member of the Jenkins family.]]> Also, the youngest:

He's, quite literally, a handful. Click to embiggen.

I rescued him yesterday from the parking lot at work. Apparently a few of the engineers here like to walk the circuit of the lot as exercise after eating lunch (it’s a huge lot that’s mostly empty) and they spotted him in the back near the water tower floundering around and looking lost. For some reason they thought to send me an email when they got back in the building letting me know about it and I was surprised that they had just left him out there. It had been raining most of the morning as it was and while the temp outside wasn’t freezing, in combination with the rain it wasn’t exactly balmy.

You’d think being the amoral, heartless, cruel, and miserable atheist I am I would’ve just shrugged and left him out there to fend for himself, but I couldn’t do that. So I trudged out there in the misting rain to see if he was still there. By the time I got to the back of the lot the mist had turned into a moderate shower and I was getting soaked. I didn’t see anything so I turned around and started walking back up the opposite side of the lot along the treeline in hopes that it would cut down on the amount of water I was being hit with. About the time I started thinking of what an idiot I was going to look like walking back into the office soaking wet I heard a plaintive mewing and saw something small and white flop over and start moving in my direction as quickly as it could manage. He was as soaked as I was and it was clear he was looking for help in the way he dragged himself toward me.

So to cut a long story short, I didn’t look quite so much like an idiot once folks in the office saw what it was I got soaked to save. I made an appointment at the vet and left work early. Doc says he was probably out there on his own for a few days and was thinner than he should’ve been as a result and dehydrated. They gave him a little food, some de-wormer medicine just in case, and injected fluid under the skin of his back for re-hydration. He has a wound on the underside of his left hip that has scabbed over that suggests he may have been grabbed by a larger animal and carted off. There’s a known stray calico cat that hangs out near the back of our lot on a regular basis so the popular theory is that he’s one of hers that got separated.

Between the trip to the vet and then to Pet Smart to pick up a couple of supplies to take care of him we’re down to $10 in the checking account until Friday. Sometimes doing the right thing is expensive, but we do it anyway. Melvin was completely uninterested when we brought Jasper home, but Cuddles had a hissing fit. Doc says to keep him separated for at least two weeks to give him time to recover and grow a bit. Due to take him back for a followup visit next Monday. He doesn’t act like a feral cat, but we may have gotten lucky and rescued him before that instinct kicked in. He was curious and playful this morning so that’s a good sign.

Whether he’s a permanent addition remains to be seen in the weeks to come and will largely depend on how well he integrates with the other two cats. I don’t want him to be stuck in a miserable situation if the other cats refuse to get along with him, but for now he’s safe, warm, and dry.

Sound petty? Hypocritical? Might be. I could certainly avoid hurting this person’s feelings by not writing about it at all, but I need to . . . → Read More: [SEB Guest Post] The abyss looking back.]]> Here’s something that’s been bothering me so much that I just have to write about it. But I can’t put it on my own blog; the subject might read it there.

Sound petty? Hypocritical? Might be. I could certainly avoid hurting this person’s feelings by not writing about it at all, but I need to get this said and hear what you think about it. You be the judge; I won’t use any real names.

An old family friend – someone our age – has an adult daughter with bone cancer, which has spread to her lungs. She’s been sending out emails updating all her friends on the progress of the cancer and the treatment, as she takes her daughter to the clinics and nurses put her through punishing radiation and chemotherapy.

Every message is laced with; “Yay God!!!” and “God is so good to us”. Nausea wasn’t too bad this time? “Yea God!” Have to take your beloved cat to the no-kill shelter because her daughter’s white count is down? A major sacrifice, but nary a word about that. Doctor is really on the ball? Sure was great of God to take them to him. The messages all end with Romans 8:28; “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

Please don’t misunderstand me here. I’m not offended by the narrative; it just make me sad. We only have a little time on Earth, we’re pursued by death the whole way, and I get the impression her daughter is not even allowed to feel bad about having cancer. You’d think the threat of death¹ would give us a little vacation from pretense; at least a short while to own our feelings and just be human about it. But no, she has to pretend God is being “good to us”.

I suppose I could send her back a message saying; “There’s no god, and you’re wasting the chance to be human in the short time you have together.” Nope, can’t see myself doing that. In one scenario, she’d just get mad at me and there’s no point giving her any negative emotions at all right now. In the other scenario, supposing – it’s unlikely but just suppose – her faith finally crumbled and she had to deal with her daughter’s cancer and the loss of her faith², both at once? No matter how you slice it, a bad situation is made worse.

If there’s a point to writing this post, it is that religion isn’t coming to terms with death: it’s denying death. And often, even denying suffering too. Stop being human! If you cry out, you are saying God is not merciful. God, after all, restored Job after promising that he would “come to death at a full age”. This empty promise – contradicted every day by the world around us – is somehow supposed to give comfort to us as we face the dark abyss.

I have faced death twice in the last 7 years, and didn’t turn to a phantom either time.  My attitude is;  “All right, this is bad, and I’ll do everything I can within reason not to die. And whatever the outcome, that will have to be enough.”

Fine, but why should I care if anyone else takes that approach? Just this: by denying death, we devalue it, and life, and give license to war and every destruction of the environment for human gain. We throw down moral responsibility, making death and oppression something that God will balance in the end.

That, and not just some comforting platitude, is what surrounds the hospital room, when we just can’t face the reality of death. But not having the stomach for afflicting the already afflicted, I’m damned if I know how to respond.

1: Of course, we’re all, always under the threat of death but sometimes it’s more obvious and immediate.

2: When you have a lot invested in faith, the loss of faith can be as real and traumatic as the loss of a loved one or a partner. You get over it eventually, but it’s a rough ride. /VoiceOfExperience