Pool Table Gone!

The house felt terribly empty all day without Leon. I kept thinking: This is the calm before the storm for soon we’ll be four bonding and housebreaking together through winter.

Last night, I was content by the fire with The Durrells in Corfu never unaware of the absence of Leon on my chest. I’d keep looking around for him and wanting to call him to come sit on my lap. I feel like I’ve lost my twin.

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The pool table is gone. Jay and Kelly did a skookum job of removing it yesterday and now the building is ready for renovation (once the fence is finished).

Last night I went to bed trying to think of names for the kittens that are coming. I thought of name pairs and rejected every one: I hated Romeo and Juliet, for example, and Orpheus and Eurydice, Sonny and Cher and every combo I could think of.

Then, Sunday morning Jay, Kelly, Paula and I had breakfast together at Robert’s and while we were talking Kelly said Ying and Yang and I thought they were excellent names for my cats. This morning, I’m not so sure.

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The planting progresses: Now when I look out my office windows I see my imprint in the new trees, the fence and planters. It makes me feel overpoweringly happy. When the sunlight hit the deep purples and reds of the leaves on my new trees, it was like I’d been painting with leaves.

There is colour in the yard now. The pots outside my outbuildings add something beautiful and they move me because their part of my home — my home! And I’ve started the garden at my front entrance. It’s really the base of two trees.  Today I’ll bury fifty Narcissus bulbs and some lavender in it— neither of which deer like according to the nursery.

A nice barbeque and blueberry pie felt deserved after the day of work in the garden.

The weather right now is ideal and Peter and Allyson arrive at dinnertime. I haven’t seen Ally, a dear friend, for eight years. They moved to Dubai and the Qatar. Now they live in Ontario. Dinner tonight will be a blast.

The Big Plant

I rose yesterday morning to a flood of tears.  

I lit the fire and tidied up while Paula slept in.

At 9:00 Paula was up. I made her breakfast and then Darrell arrived to pour concrete into his new fence postholes. And Kelly arrived at 9:30 for a really lovely visit. Then Kelly and Darrell left and Paula and I went into the village and bought a whack of lavender, seven trees, a couple of outdoor gardenia (that are quite hardy) and some scented azaleas to plant in my yard.

Then we had lunch at The Kitchen. It was delicious and fun and Paula got to see some of our village. And when we came home, we started planting trees after which we enjoyed a lovely hot tub together. Paula was like me: Uninterested. But when she saw how much I enjoyed it, in she got. We had a late dinner in our jammies and watched Grand Design shows.

At one point, I opened the front door and found a basket from Patsy who read about Leon’s passing. It had delicious soup, scones and an apple for us to share. I love it here.

Another good thing happened too: Out of the blue I got an email saying a WETT inspector was coming to inspect my fireplace. I may be on my way to having home insurance. What a struggle it’s been.

On impulse and overcome with sadness about Leon, I wrote to a cat breeder in Comox about the availability of kittens. He’s just had a litter and so I’ve requested one female and one male, one dark and one light; they arrive until Christmastime. Plants and animals: That’s why I moved here.

Finally, we turned in after a great day. By 10:30 my speech was shot. I hadn’t spent all day with someone for ages and my tongue was a knot. I said goodnight to Paula and went into my room and cried my eyes out.

This morning, Paul and I are meeting Jay and Kelly for breakfast at Robert’s — another first for me. Then Kelly and her brother Jay come to deconstruct the pool table, Paula goes home and I keep working on planting around the yard.

This morning I got up and going without a massive cry but my God I miss him.

Emptiness

Yesterday was the worst day since Steve left me in 1994.

Last night I needed a pill to fall asleep. All I could do was cry. Same thing this morning until Paula got up. Leon used to be at my side every night at bedtime and every morning. I fell asleep and woke with him every single day.

When I forget, I’m fine. When I remember, I despair. Snap. And I’m a wreck. You think each successive pet is your best, but Leon took sociability to a deeply profound and moving level. Euthanizing him was the right thing to do; the vet knew it, I knew it. Still….

Friday day began with me signing transfer papers for my condo. Then I stopped at the nursery and I have two Vine Maples, two Apple trees, three large outdoor planters, five Heather plants and fifty Narcissus bulbs to be delivered with the topsoil. And when I got back, Darrell already had some of the fence posts up!

Darrell is a real find. I love paying someone with such diligent and ethical standards. Soon panels were added to the posts and concrete was going into the postholes. It’s going up fast, my new fence.

I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about the fence. I need it for Sheba but I worried about losing the “wide open spaces” feeling I love about my place. And I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about having a fence made of the standard pre-fab fence panels you see everywhere. But I like it. It’s wood; that’s all that matters. I was giddy. I did not know what was coming.

At around eleven I wrote to the kennel to put off getting Sheba until Wednesday. I wanted to avoid bringing chaos into Leon’s tranquil last days.  Then Leon started crying in a way I knew was the end. From then on, everything was about him.

When I found some kitty litter on my seat when I came home, I absolutely lost it. It had fallen off his paws earlier in the afternoon — I saw a final note.  I wanted to wail but I’m not a wailer. I could barely even write this paragraph.

I caught the 6:30 ferry to Nanaimo to meet Paula at the Duke Point terminal. I found her easily and we raced back and caught a ferry at nine back here to Paradise.

Thank God Paula’s here this weekend — and Kelly’s coming for breakfast.

THANK YOU!! To my friends expressing their condolences. It honours my buddy without whom my sudden transition into having severe PTSD would have been a train wreck. His love has been my best therapy: Leon and Dr. S. My team.