Unrelated landmarks

Seven years ago today, our lives changed in three substantial, unrelated ways. After two years with failing kidneys, our cat, Roo, died just before her 18th birthday. After weeks of anticipating it, Sandy got laid off from her job at Microsoft. And after working for months on a committee for the organization, I joined the board of Equal Rights Washington.

In her prime, Roo was a very large, lumbering
cat. She was a tortoiseshell with gorgeous
markings, and a somewhat challenging personality.
She wasn't particularly active - preferred to have
the toy brought to her, thank you very much -
and the only times we really saw her run were
right after she'd pooped in the yard (she ran away
instead of covering) or when she heard the heater
kick on in the bedroom and rushed to get to her
pillow in front of it. Life wasn't so bad for Roo.

I remember parts of the day vividly. Roo was suffering, no longer able to drag herself to the litterbox, whimpering except when she slept in my arms. I called Sandy at work to tell her I thought the time had come, and I called a vet who made home visits to come and euthanize Roo. Sandy had a meeting with her manager scheduled for that afternoon; she came home, stayed with me while Roo died, and then went back to work, saying, "Sorry, honey, I need to go get laid off."

I'd been mourning Roo for two years, since we'd learned that she had chronic renal failure. Initially, we'd tried to give her fluids, but she'd fought them, sending the liquid spraying all over the room. So I'd essentially provided hospice care for two years, as her world grew smaller. She had her pillow a few feet from my desk in my office; her food was there, too, and I'd point it out to her when she couldn't find it. I'd get up in the middle of the night to show her the food, awakened by her yowls of dementia and hunger. Sandy and I had temporarily stopped traveling together because we just couldn't expect a catsitter to do all that we did for Roo.

Fifteen months earlier, a cat crisis and human crisis had occurred at the same time, as Prudence died suddenly and unexpectedly, followed shortly by Sandy's terrifying seizures. That confluence had shaken my belief in the safety of the world; from it, I learned that anything could go wrong at any time.

But on April 5, 2005, the events were very different. Both Roo's death and Sandy's being laid off would have been devastating if they'd been unexpected. But I'd had a chance to spend a lot of quality time with Roo, to appreciate her long life and her eccentric personality. And Sandy had recognized the slow periods in the product cycle and known that her whole team was likely to be shown the door; layoffs at Microsoft weren't uncommon. Microsoft had a policy that after you were laid off, you could continue to use company resources for several weeks to look for another job; most people quickly found work with another Microsoft team. Sandy planned to take advantage of that.

Roo wasn't an easy cat to bond with. Sandy wasn't all that
close to Roo until the last year of Roo's life, when she'd
mellowed a little bit. Then they had some nice time together.

In Roo's death, there was sadness, but also joy that Longfellow, who had been confined to the basement for years, would have the run of the house and get his people full-time.* In Sandy's being laid off, there was a feeling of loss but also of opportunity.

My joining the ERW board was momentous only in that I'd actively avoided joining any nonprofit boards in the past, but this was the only way I could find to make a real difference in the organization. We had no idea that my work with ERW would swallow so much of our time and energy in the coming months, or that I'd leave it when Sandy was undergoing aggressive chemotherapy. At the time, it was just the thing that got me out of the house that night, when I otherwise would have stayed home keeping Roo's body company.

April 5 was an important day in many respects. Sandy didn't end up looking for more work at Microsoft; instead, she decided to go to grad school and pursue her dream of teaching. We had been talking about finally remodeling the kitchen, and we shelved that plan as money grew tighter (never have done it, due to all the health issues). With Roo no longer needing such attention, we were able to travel more. That day ushered in changes, and unlike many days that do, we knew it was a landmark day at the time. 

*Lest you think we were horrible people, the basement is a finished apartment, which includes the TV room, where we spent a fair amount of time. We had two old lady cats when Longfellow joined us (cats he'd already terrified outside), and at first he was FELV+ so had to be quarantined. We expected Roo to die at any time and thought we'd try to integrate the household when she did. The entire time Longfellow lived in the basement, I ate lunch with him every day, we spent time with him every evening, and Sandy spent hours and hours with him on the weekends. But, a herder, he really wanted to keep an eye on his people around the clock.