In Nurture, Parenting, Relationships, Uncategorized

Goodbye Little Rose

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

A few weeks ago we made the painful decision to put our beloved ten-year-old cat Little Rose to sleep.

She’d been sick since late May with what we hoped was only a bout of pancreatitis, but over the summer her health continued to deteriorate. Her appetite decreased. She spun in circles, shaking her head, and eventually falling over. Her skittishness increased. She hid away more and more.

We brought her back to the vet when she lost her balance and rolled down the steps to our basement. That’s when we got the news that her pancreatitis was likely caused initially by lymphoma, some form of cancer which had now spread to her brain. The merciful thing to do was put her to sleep.

I’ve had a lot of pets in my forty-seven years of life but I’ve never had to put one down. Our other pets have been outdoor cats, so nature ended their lives long before they reached the age of ten. We adopted Little Rose and Flower as kittens, when Ava and William were seven and four. They’ve never gone outside (other than on our deck or on a leash), and they’ve both been in perfect health until this May when Little Rose began to hide under Ava’s bed.

When other people told me they had to make end-of-life decisions for their animals, I felt sad for them in a general way but not in a specific way. Now I understand the sorrow they were experiencing. Our pets are so precious to us. So vulnerable when they are sick and in pain.

The kids were at school when I met with the vet and heard about Little Rose’s brain cancer. Telling them was hell. Ava’s sobs tore violently out of her throat. William made little mewing sounds, like his heart was breaking in tiny increments. The four of us held each other and cried until we were exhausted.

We spent one final night at home with Little Rose, cuddling her, taking photos, telling her how much we loved her and thanking her for being such an amazing cat for the last ten years. She had us wrapped around her dainty paw. Silent for the first five years of her life, she made up for it in the last five, by meowing loudly at us when she wanted something. After we moved back to BC, she developed a taste for vanilla ice cream and Pringles, pestering us until we gave her a lick.

She never handed out her affection haphazardly. We all had to work for it, which made it sweeter when she chose to sit with you or allowed you to kiss her velvety head. Little Rose would wait at the top of the stairs for us to go down to watch TV after dinner, meowing if we took too long, then staring at Jason from the coffee table until he said, “Sorry, sweetie” and put his feet up as a bridge for her to walk to his lap.

We all loved her deeply. Our vet broke the Covid rules and allowed us to stay together in the room with Little Rose right until the very end. We were all sobbing, but thankfully we were together, seeing her off into her long and final nap.

I listened to a guided meditation on grief and the woman leading it asked me to tell the source of my sadness what I still wanted to say. I pictured Little Rose’s sweet face, with her tiny pink nose, and I told her, “I’m sorry we couldn’t fix it. You were our responsibility and we tried to save you but we couldn’t.”

Mourning a loved one is an isolating experience. Life goes on for everyone else. People smile, laugh, make chitchat at the grocery store. I feel raw and irritated, with every nerve ending exposed. I know that this will pass. The gaping wound will heal and the scar will remind me of the pain, but it won’t be quite so acute. But for now I’m still devastated and likely to burst into tears with zero notice. Grief is like walking through waist-high mud. It’s exhausting.

It doesn’t seem possible that we now have to live in a world without Little Rose in it. And yet we do. Everything feels colder, harder, more improbable and remote. Coming home to Flower, who has spent a lot of time these last two weeks searching high and low for his sister, didn’t seem real. As William said the first night she was gone, “I miss her every minute.” So do I.

Goodbye, sweet Little Rosie. You were the best. In time we’ll add a kitten to our family to keep Flower company and pour this leftover love into, but we will miss you and love you forever.

In Culture, Identity, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Politics, Relationships, Speaking, University

Fall 2020

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

Deep breath, everyone. Here we go, into a back-to-school season shaped like one ginormous question mark. We haven’t experienced this exact landscape before, one fraught with endless decisions to make, while wearing a blindfold.

Is full-time, face-to-face instruction safe? Is a hybrid face-to-face/online method better? What about full-time online at home for learning? My answer is: I don’t know. We are all whistling in the dark here, exploring the options our school districts are offering, while watching the news to see what’s working and not working against Covid in other areas of the country.

It’s a strange time. Usually I feel a surge of optimism when I turn the calendar to September, but this year the key feeling I have is uncertainty. I’m entering my second last semester of my Creative Writing BA, and I’m wondering why it’s not safe for me to return to in-person university classes and yet it’s okay for my high schoolers to have face-to-face instruction starting next week.

Part of me wants to move on and get back to some version of normal, but another part is anxious about BC’s rising Covid numbers and what that means when thousands of kids and teachers return to classrooms. The public health guidance for months has been around small bubbles, hand-washing, mask-wearing and extreme caution, which feels like whiplash when we contemplate returning to school, even with a number of new precautions in place.

The one thing I know for sure is that this is going to be a school year like no other. It will be disruptive and unpredictable. We will all need to practice patience and grace for one another as we try to navigate these choppy waters. It’s helpful to refrain from judgement when someone else’s Covid plan looks different from yours. We are all doing the best that we can in the midst of trying circumstances.

I spent time last week doing virtual Pro D sessions for some fabulous teachers in Kelowna. Most of them were feeling anxious and concerned. I did my best to remind them that you cannot pour from an empty cup. We have to put our own oxygen masks on before we can assist others in an emergency. Self-care first and foremost. Walk in nature, take deep breaths, journal, draw, meditate, stretch, sleep.

The prescription for Fall 2020 is flexibility, kindness, caution and self-care. Prepare for plans to shift and change with very little notice. Let’s take care of ourselves and each other. Check in with those you love. Acknowledge the fear but don’t let it take over.

We are going to need all of our resources for the challenges ahead. Six months have passed since the pandemic began in Canada, so we know more now than we did at the beginning. The best way to get through this challenging time is by caring for one another.

Deep breath. Here we go, with our fingers crossed.

In Culture, Identity, Minimalism, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

Patience

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

I’m not a patient person by nature. Frustration settles hard and fast in my soul when things go wrong. I get brittle and testy in a hurry (yes, I see the irony of using hurry when I’m writing about patience).

Something in me longs for security. For safety. For peace. And in our pandemic days and months, these entities are in short supply. Where patience is required, I end up spinning my wheels in a state of fear instead. The fear builds, looking for a release, and I realize that I’m far too tense.

I know I’m not alone in these feelings, which helps. When I talk with friends, I hear a similar note of frustration and uncertainty. It’s hard on all of us to peer into the future and see a series of question marks with no ability to plan due to the unpredictable nature of the virus.

And I know that we were never really in control, however, that’s cold comfort right now (nothing is actually cold as we are in a heatwave, but I digress). Control itself is an illusion, but oh how I miss that illusion. My insides are like sandpaper these days, rough and tight. I’m tired but also restless, irritated and somewhat paranoid.

Which brings me back to patience. I need to find my way back to it. When I feel the most stable, I take time every day to stretch my body and do a guided meditation to calm my mind. I’m still stretching, but meditation seems to have disappeared. I also write in my journal, as it’s a safe place to explore my fears and emotions, but lately it doesn’t seem to be helping.

Not one of us knows what’s coming. A vaccine would be great, but this outcome is not guaranteed. For now, we all struggle along in our brave new world of masks, social distancing, increased cleaning protocols and uncertainty about school and work reopening (my God, how I miss our townhouse complex pool in this 32 degree weather!). Over all of it hovers a sense of fear about the virus – will I stay healthy? Will my loved ones continue to avoid getting sick? Is this get-together an acceptable risk or is it reckless?

I’m not sure of anything right now. I know this is a growing place to be, and six months from now I’ll likely have learned something. But I can’t understand or predict that growth right now. This is the survival stage. It requires patience and gentleness, two areas I’m weak in.

Just writing this has helped me to breathe a little bit deeper. I’ve recommitted to the idea that I need to meditate each day to try to counteract my rising fear. It’s always better to swim with the current and not against it (not that I’m doing a lot of swimming but the metaphor still works). For today, I am safe and secure. I can move toward being at peace. And if I continue to feel unsettled, I can attempt to just make it through this stressful time to see how I’ve changed at the end of it. Maybe I’ll develop a bit more patience.

How are you at the 4.5 month mark of this Covid-19 pandemic?

In Culture, Nurture, Personal Growth, Relationships, University, Writing

A Powerful Place

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

“Being okay if it happens and okay if it doesn’t is a very powerful place to be.” This quote by Kate Eckman has been giving me new life in the hot mess that is 2020.

I like to believe that I can attain everything I want, but sometimes this “power of positive thinking” approach lets me down. What happens when obstacles crop up that aren’t under my direct control? Then I’m left spinning in frustration, feeling less-than because I’ve failed, once again, to make my dream a reality.

For years now, I’ve been experimenting with the idea that it’s better to move with the river’s current than against it. I still believe this is true, but somehow combining that visual image with the phrase “I’m okay if it happens and okay if it doesn’t” seems to put a fresh spin on the notion of personal acceptance.

One beautiful benefit of Covid-19 is the move away from individuality and into a renewed sense of community. We are truly all in this together. When I wear a mask in a public space, I do it to protect you as much as myself. When we stay home when we are sick or are asked to quarantine by our government, we do it to preserve our public health. Looking out for one another is powerful. It shows that we care.

It’s impossible to peer into the future and know with any certainty what is going to happen. This is always true, but especially so in a pandemic. “Being okay if it happens and okay if it doesn’t is a very powerful place to be.” This phrase reminds me that I’m not in control of everything. I can choose to fight this or accept it. Many days I fight, before eventually surrendering. Hopefully, in time, I’ll find it easier to choose acceptance first.

Here we are, on the doorstep of the summer, even if it’s unlike other summers we’ve seen before. I’m tired of trying to cajole or force my will on situations. I really just want to let it be, whatever it is, and relax into the uncertainty. It’s easy to type this and much harder to live it out, hour by hour, but we must first set an intention in order to move in the direction we want to go.

Hopefully it helps all of us to remember that it’s powerful to be okay if we get what we want and be equally okay if we don’t. We have lessons to learn in both scenarios. Let us unclench our fists as we practice holding looser to our deepest desires. I hope to meet you in the river, as we move with the current of life instead of against it.

In Culture, Identity, Nurture, Personal Growth, Politics

What’s Underneath

Author Julianne HarveyPosted on

I think of this moment in time as an iceberg. Pre-pandemic, when time moved quickly and we were endlessly consumed by entertainment, money and distractions, we focused the bulk of our attention on the tiny triangle of ice we could see, hear, taste, touch and smell. But underneath is what really matters.

This Covid-19 pandemic has given us the opportunity to go deeper. First within ourselves, then wider into the society we’ve been living in. Staying home and closing down the economy has served as an invitation to examine our usual practices in a variety of areas: how we spend our time, our money, our lives. What are our priorities? What do we want most in life?

Right now, major cities in the US are rising up against tyranny, injustice and brutality. Around the world, including in my own country of Canada, people are protesting in solidarity with those who have long been oppressed, silenced and murdered. We are seeing the visible tip of the iceberg here, but underneath is a roiling tsunami of historical rage that is once again spilling over.

In theory, I am a pacifist who abhors violence, but since 2016 I’ve been angry in every one of my bones (a friend of mine takes this image further by saying the rage has spilled into her very DNA). I cannot help but wonder if this large-scale violence is getting us somewhere new and better. For a long time now, I’ve been questioning if it’s even possible to make a fairer world without destroying our current structure.

Patriarchy requires oppression to function. And secrecy, which means lies. To get to truth and justice, which make up the rest of the iceberg that we cannot see because it’s so far beneath the surface, we might need to destroy some things. I was initially hopeful that the pandemic itself would serve this purpose, by allowing us to reset our understanding of our modern society in order to devise better systems, but underneath the virus is an undercurrent of rage with an incredible amount of force and power in it.

Something important is happening here. I love the conversations online about privilege. Every one of us needs to be involved, in whatever way we can, to care and support and advocate for a world that is actually fair for everyone, not just the rich or the white or the powerful. A rising tide lifts all boats, and what’s underneath this pandemic and these riots is a powerful force of change.

The saddest thing would be to come out of these turbulent months with our society unchanged. Staying on the surface, focused only on the tip of the iceberg, is not getting us anywhere. It’s time to swim, to dive deeper, to allow ourselves to be uncomfortable and in danger, for this is the engine of social change. Keep going lower, even when it hurts. Especially then. The truth lives in the darkest waters. If we want a fairer world we have to build it from the wreckage. This work needs every one of us to swim down to the depths and face what’s underneath.