“God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
(acorn in the leaves / Julie Cook / 2021)
The crown will be given neither to beginners,
nor to the advanced, but to the victorious,
to those who persevere to the end.
St Margaret Mary Alacoque
“What you are is God’s gift to you,
what you become is your gift to God.”
Hans Urs von Balthasar, Prayer
(Michael Davenport, a handicapped Athens street artist)
It was almost a year ago…
We were still living on the western side of Georgia when I caught a news story that was
taking place on the eastern side of our state, in the city of my alma mater.
There was a street artist in the Classic City of Athens, Ga. named Michael Davenport.
Street artists in Athens are nothing new.
I was an Art Ed. major in Athens 40 years ago…artists in any college town tend to
prevail upon the streets.
This story however is not a typical artsy story.
Rather this is the story about a handicapped middle aged man who had lost
both of his arms as a teen.
There was some sort of electrical accident.
Michael lost both of his arms at the age of 13.
Eventually Michael taught himself to write and draw by using his mouth.
I learned about this talented young man about a year ago when there was a news story about
Michael being attacked and robbed.
It seems that some low life thug cold-cocked Michael while he was in a Athens
parking lot doing his art.
Michael was knocked unconscious and robbed of both his earnings and art supplies.
I made a mental note– I wanted to support this young man–I wanted to eventually buy
one of his UGA bulldogs drawings.
Fast forward to yesterday.
My husband and I make almost daily runs to the Lowes and Home Depot in Athens as we continue working
on our new “home” project.
This new home of ours is about 10 minutes outside of Athens.
And as life would have it, it just so happens that Michael stands in front of
the Athens Lowes where he is set up out in the parking, drawing his UGA art.
As I pulled into the parking lot, my husband noted that “‘my artist’ was over there
making his pictures.”
WHAT??
I practically leapt out of the car racing across the parking lot toward Michael.
“Michael, Michael, my name is Julie, I saw you on the news…”
Michael began to tell me his story.
He explained how he was still healing from the brutal attack almost 11 months ago.
Still going to doctors.
He was just finishing up a bulldog that he drew using various Sharpies on a white canvas.
“Michael”, I began, “I don’t have much cash on me, but I would be honored if I could
buy one of your drawings…could I come back tomorrow or would
you be willing to take a check?”
Michael thought for a minute and eventually told me that he would indeed accept my check.
All the while various shoppers were stopping and patting Michael on the shoulder.
Cars would pull up, arms stretched out of windows, each offering cash in hand.
Michael told me to undo the the canvas from the easel and take the pictures he had just finished.
People like Michael remind us all what it means to persevere.
He shares a gift.
A gift that emerged from tragedy.
A gift that has been tested and tried but a gift none the less.
How blessed I was today.
Thank you Michael.
Thank you God.
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/athens-artist-without-hands-inspires-national-audience
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/video/858408
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others,
as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.
1 Peter 4:10
“And I saw that truly nothing happens by accident or luck,
but everything by God’s wise providence …
for matters that have been in God’s foreseeing wisdom,
since before time began, befall us suddenly, all unawares;
and so in our blindness and ignorance, we say that this is accident or luck,
but to our Lord God, it is not so.”
St. Juliana of Norwich
(the odd clouds on a chilly late December Saturday afternoon / Julie Cook /2020)
“Many of the saints tell us that these times of God-ordained ‘desolation’
or dryness are very important times of growth if we persevere through them
by exercising a deeper faith, hope, and love. It is particularly important,
they tell us, not to give up our spiritual practices but to remain faithful.
God in His wisdom knows how long and how deeply we must be tried in order
to come closer to Him, and we should patiently trust Him during the
trial while persevering in our practices.”
Ralph Martin, p.174
An Excerpt From,
Fulfillment of all Desire
(a chilly puffy afternoon / Julie Cook / 2020)
Before surgery…
(James with his daddy walking the halls before surgery)
After surgery
(James headed home after his ordeal)
It was a long day…
James’s surgery was successful…circumcised and his plumbing repaired.
There was an aside thought by some of the medical staff regarding the blue vein that has
been prominent on the bridge of his nose between his eyes since birth.
They have suggested a visit to the pediatrician and a genetic test as there may be an issue
with how his body’s cells process proteins.
But that will be an issue for another day because we are just breathing a heavy sigh of relief.
Thank you all for the prayers that have sustained us…
as those prayers will continue to sustain us throughout his recovery…
and those prayers will also help his sister, the Mayor, during this time
of the most terrible of the terrible twos…
My mom let me know all would be well…as her roses are actually blooming…
coming off such a heatwave followed by now freezing temperatures…
Perseverance…followed by blessings…
It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring
momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them.
The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
(our son and his daughter, the Mayor / Julie Cook / 2019)
Let me tell you a little bit about our son…
He turns 31 later this year and would absolutely die if he knew his mother was
sharing anything about him on her blog.
Oh well.
I’ve written about him before, several times…it’s just that I don’t tell him that I do.
I’ve written about him not because he’s simply my son nor because he’s famous, infamous
or terminally ill…thank the Lord he’s none of those things but just our son.
I write rather because his growing up was not an easy journey…
It was a journey that seems oh so long ago and yet the memories of the difficulties
remain.
Despite that long and often difficult journey, we, his parents, are so exceedingly
proud of the man, husband, and father he’s grown into.
And that is what I want to write about.
But I also want to write, not so much about our son,
but rather about the very surreal time in history in which we are now
finding ourselves living in.
We are living in a dystopian culture that is playing fast and loose with
something so straightforward and simple as the obvious fact of biology and gender…
that being the exacting fact of male and female.
It is a culture that is trying its best to demasculate any and all males.
A culture that is shaming boys, young men, and adult men…for being just that, male.
A culture that allows children to “choose” a gender, with gender being
a fluid notion.
I, for one, believe in and very much want strong men.
I want strong men in my life.
I want strong male role models who know what it means to be a man…
I want men who know what it means to be a Godly man.
Mature men.
Men who understand God’s intention for them as husbands, leaders,
role models, fathers…
And these desires of mine do not equate me with being weak, dominated,
overrun, demure, belittled or abused.
Just shy of 40 years ago, my late godfather, an Episcopal priest,
sat me down right before I got married in order to share a few important
thoughts with me.
As my priest, but more importantly, as my Godpoppa, he felt compelled to tell me that
marriage was not going to be easy.
I think we all know that an engaged bride-to-be lives in a bit of an unrealistic fairytale
of fantasy.
There is a whirlwind of activities, details, and parties to attend to;
reality is not often found in the fanfare.
My Godpoppa told me that I was marrying a good man but a man who had been abused
both physically and emotionally as a child by a hardcore alcoholic father.
He told me that my husband-to-be had not had a positive role model of
what it meant to be a loving husband and father.
He wanted me to keep this all in mind as we prepared to embark on
a life together.
He knew all too well that there would be difficult times.
He already knew, up close and personal, of my own issues with adoption and
dysfunction within my adopted family— but in his wisdom, he knew that
two broken people were about to be joined as one…
as in two becoming one big broken person.
Not only did I have to learn how to be a loving, supportive, forgiving wife and later
a mother–of whom was also working and tending to the house…
but my husband had to learn how to be a good husband, provider,
and an eventual positive father—
the type of father he desperately wanted to be for our son.
(our son and my husband many moons ago / Julie Cook / 1995ish)
And my Godfather was right—marriage was and is hard—add work, bills,
life and parenthood to that and things can become dangerously complicated fast!
I read the following quote this morning from the author Tom Hoops:
People think of “the family that prays together stays together” as a quaint old saying.
But it was a favorite saying of Saint John Paul II and Saint Teresa of Calcutta,
and the daily practice of Pope Benedict XVI’s family, according to his brother’s biographer.
I had to learn the hard way the importance of seeking God first and foremost when
it comes to one’s most intimate relationships.
It is imperative that He be in the middle of all we do because if He is not and
we substitute ourselves in the center, then we have a toxic equation for
stress and disaster.
It is Satan’s desire that the family fails.
If the family fails, Satan gains a greater foothold in our world…as all binding institutions
begin to crumble.
But I suppose I’ve deviated a tad from my original intention with this post…
Yet we need to understand that parenthood, like marriage, is often a learn
as you go experience.
And so it was with us—especially when our 5-year-old son was diagnosed
with a rather severe learning disability and a year later with ADD.
Life suddenly took a difficult turn.
He didn’t learn to read until he was entering the 3rd grade.
We spent the previous summer driving back and forth every day to a
specialized private school in Atlanta that focused on teaching kids with
dyslexia how to read.
We spent our afternoons fighting over homework and driving from tutor to tutor.
It all sounds so matter of fact now…but at the time it was anything but.
There was a father who was gone working 16 hour days, 6 days a week, a wife who
was teaching and commuting 30 minutes to and from work to home while shuttling a
child from school to tutoring to home, to homework, to Scouts, then back home again…
Throw in making supper, tending to the house, washing, cleaning, preparing
lessons for the next day…and life just seemed to get more and more difficult.
There was enough exhaustion, frustration, resentment, tears, fears and worry
circulating in our young lives to last a lifetime.
And there were many times I angrily raised a fist and questioned God.
Yet our son wanted nothing more than to be “normal” and of course we
wanted that for him.
But what was normal?
For him to be “normal” meant that there was going to have to be a great deal of
commitment, time invested, assistance, sacrifice and lots and lots of work.
But of course, you can read about all of that in the following linked posts written years back…
because today is not a day to dwell on what was but rather today is a day to look at what is:
https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/2014/09/28/the-journey/
https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/2016/08/01/a-large-collective-sigh/
I actually had colleagues who openly voiced their skepticism over our son ever
going to college let alone being successful.
It wasn’t easy.
There were hurdles.
There were setbacks.
There were mistakes.
There were injustices.
And there was simply dumb rotten luck.
Then there came a girl.
And then came love.
And then came marriage.
And eventually, there came a degree.
Some very tough jobs followed—they came complete with low pay, poor hours,
dangerous conditions, a lack of appreciation, pounded pavement,
all the way to a shuttered company, a lost job, and then news of a baby.
When things were looking their lowest, a ray of light shone through.
Out of the blue came a new job.
New promises from a prominent company.
A new start.
Along with that new baby.
Yet hours remained frustratingly poor, pay remained minimal and frustration remained high
as the promises kept being pushed aside.
However in all of that remained something more important, something more instrumental,
something more exacting…that being…perseverance.
It was a desire and a will ‘to do’, not only for himself but more importantly the
desire to do, to be and to provide for his young family.
He wanted to be that man he saw in his father.
A man who made years of sacrifices of self for the betterment of his wife and child.
A man who was just that, a man who possessed both determination and a respect
for responsibility.
There was work, there was a growing family as baby number two appeared…
added to all of that was more college work for an additional degree add-on.
A balance of living life while looking ahead.
And just when life was looking overwhelming and growth was looking stymied and stagnant…
along came an opportunity for something different, something new and something that
seemed improbable, unattainable and most unlikely…and yet it came none the less.
After gaining a toehold in the door and with nearly two months of
interviews and scrutiny, the new job offer came last week.
I know I’ll be writing more about all of this change in the coming weeks…
but first, there are the necessary two weeks of finishing up one job before
starting another.
There will be the training, learning the adjusting…for not only our son
but for his entire small family.
Change is good, but it is also hard.
Yet the one thing in all of this that I know to be true is that our son did this on his own.
He earned the opportunity and sold himself as the best asset he could be…
There is God’s hand and timing in all of this.
And I can say this as I’m now looking back.
On the front end, things can look overwhelming and impossible…
Yet my husband toiled to become that man, that father, he so yearned to be…
and now his son is following suit…
Living the life as the man God intended for him to be.
A strong focused man who loves his family.
A man who works to lead his family and honor his wife.
A strong role model for both his young son and daughter.
A man who continues to make us, his mom and dad, so very proud.
Correct your son, and he will give you comfort;
He will also delight your soul.
Proverbs 29:17
“We are in a dangerous place when the church is looking to 20-year-old
worship singers as our source of truth,” he wrote.
“We now have a church culture that learns who God is from singing modern
praise songs rather than from the teachings of the Word.”
John Cooper, lead singer for the band Skillet
(a bit of sea lettuce / Rosemary Beach, Fl / 2019)
I’ve been hearing a lot about a single word as of late.
The word is “influencer”
Now granted, I get it, I understand it…as in I know what the word means and all…
however, I’ll offer it as defined through the lenses of the 21st century…
What is an influencer?
An influencer is an individual who has the power to affect purchase decisions of others
because of his/her authority, knowledge, position or relationship with his/her audience.
An individual who has a following in a particular niche, which they actively engage with.
The size of the following depends on the size of the niche.
It is important to note that these individuals are not simply marketing tools,
but rather social relationship assets with which brands can collaborate to achieve their
marketing objectives.
influencermarketinghub.com
Think social media and those who are constantly in some sort of limelight on
FB, blogging, tweeting or news thread.
They tend to be constantly on the web’s airwaves.
Their names, be it in or even out of their circles, are well known.
They’re usually young, trendy, progressive and the majority worship at the altar of the
latest culture gods.
They are liked and followed by the multitudes.
Matters not too much what they’re worshiping…they are liked and followed none the less.
They want to wield power with both their words and their ways…
all because of their choices and their likes and dislikes.
Their whims and fickleness actually have sway with the whims and fickleness of others.
And we must note that this influencer business has been in the news feeds a lot this
past week as there have been some “Christian Influencers” who have very publicly
recanted their faith.
I don’t know about you but when I feel lost and dismayed, I certainly don’t want to
be grandstanding.
Attention, especially public attention, is the last thing I want.
I actually want to be alone.
I don’t want to publicly shout my dismay or sense of shame over a life I only
thought I was living.
I would instead tend to fall into a deep abyss of introspection and perhaps even a bit
of depression.
Yet isn’t that how we are when we feel angry and disappointed by someone we feel
has deeply let us down?
We want to fuss and cuss the cutting sense of betrayal.
And we usually do so very loudly and very vocally…
We’ve been wronged by gosh and we want the world to know it!
And so I’d like to ask…is that what all of this current trend has been about??
This very public angst offered up by a bunch of young Christian ‘influencers’ who are
feeling wronged and let down by…God Himself?
And for what?
I have written about this before but I think the story is more than worth repeating
right about now…
I think we all know of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
You know…
that tiny little white and blue-clad nun who spent her life tending to the
needy and destitute of Calcutta?
Well—-long before she was known as Mother Teresa…
a young Albanian nun who was a member of the Sisters of Loreto out of Ireland
had gone to India as a teacher. It was in 1946 that Mother Teresa experienced what she
would later refer to as a “call within a call”
She was riding on a train heading off to a retreat when she plainly heard, what she
would eventually write, was the voice of Jesus.
He said to her, “I thirst”
Mother Teresa would go on to say that what she had heard was her call within a call…
her ministry was to change, leading to the formation of the Missionaries of Charity.
An order dedicated to caring for the least of the least.
Mother Teresa would toil from 1948 until her death in 1997, carrying out this
call within a call.
She would spend a lifetime fulfilling the need that Jesus had laid upon her heart.
However, it was eventually made public, years following her death,
that Mother Teresa had confided to her confessor that after that initial moment on the train…
she never heard the voice of Jesus again.
She would lament to a deep darkness and palpable sense of separation.
This, as St John of the Cross, would so famously record, was the Dark Night Of The Soul.
A seemingly and almost physical disconnect from God.
A life within a dark empty abyss.
Anguish filled her soul yet no one ever knew of her pain.
It mattered not that she felt a separation of faith, she had been told what to do and
she, in turn, spent the remainder of her life doing it—
despite the personal pain and suffering.
Doubt mattered not, the poor and ailing needed her.
Day after day, she’d spend hours in prayer—yet there was never again that
audible response.
Never was there that internal sense of oneness with God.
Only silence.
And yet Mother Teresa persisted.
There was no public display of angst or resentment.
There was no recanting of her faith due to a silence from God.
She had been told what to do and she remained faithful to her word despite her own sense
of personal loss.
That’s the thing about faith.
It is not based on feeling.
It is not based on recognition or of the feel good.
It can be very difficult and it can be very lonely.
Yet it is full of perseverance and consistency.
I recently read an article about an interview with Franklin Graham, the son of
the Reverend Billy Graham, regarding this recent spate of young Christian “influencers”
recanting their faith.
Graham said he is especially disturbed by Christians who publicly renounce their faith in Christ,
citing a warning from the Book of Revelation.
“(God) warns churches that turn their back on him and these young men who have renounced
their faith have made it so public,” he said.
“Why did they make it so public?
I think they just want publicity.
Otherwise, why didn’t they just leave their faith and just be quiet about it?”
He wondered if the reason why was so that other Christians might join them
and fall away from the teachings of the Bible.
“Shame on them,” Graham said.
“You’ll stand before God one day and give an account to Him.”
We must put our faith in Jesus Christ, not a celebrity influencer.
And when we find ourselves facing difficulties in life,
we must turn to the Bible instead of self-help books.
Here is to the consistency of Faith…
“Reading the holy Scriptures confers two benefits.
It trains the mind to understand them;
it turns man’s attention from the follies of the world and leads him to the love of God.
Two kinds of study are called for here.
We must first learn how the Scriptures are to be understood,
and then see how to expound them with profit and in a manner worthy of them . . .
No one can understand holy Scripture without constant reading . . .
The more you devote yourself to the study of the sacred utterances,
the richer will be your understanding of them, just as the more the soil is tilled,
the richer the harvest.”
St. Isidore of Seville, p. 201
An Excerpt From
Witness of the Saints
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that?
We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves.
We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.
Marie Curie
(Percy resting in a basket, notice the shaved back leg / Julie Cook / 2019)
Here’s a brief update regarding our patient.
You may remember that on June 3rd our cat Percy had a joint fusion on his back hock.
He is named Percy for Perseverance…all because since a kitten, he came to us
in dire straights when we found him he found us
after having been thrown from a moving car.
He was broken, bruised and dying.
But once we went to work…he not only survived, he actually thrived.
There have been some mouth surgeries and teeth issues along the way
but the biggest stumbling block has been this back hock.
We believe this hock business is due to an old injury with his leg…
and because of the injury, he had worn the skin down
on the hock (aka knee) to the tendon…meaning the tendon was exposed.
Months of all sorts of treatments and minor surgeries didn’t help…
so we had to bite the bullet and pay a small fortune to a Veterinary surgical group
over north of Atlanta for a joint fusion surgery.
It meant a 12-week confinement and life in a cast and a cage and a cone.
Well come Monday we will be 9 weeks in.
Two weeks ago they removed the cast.
I realize that up to 6 weeks in a cast leads to atrophy of the leg muscle…and yes things
can smell rather ripe from having been closed up…
but I knew enough to know that I smelled infection.
The Surgeon told me to keep the cone on and let the leg be exposed to air.
Problem was it was oozing and bleeding.
After 3 days home, I called in a bit of a panic, because Percy was in obvious misery and pain
as his foot looked black. Gangrene fears set into my overactive mind.
They told me to see if I could get him to my local vet before driving the
hour and a half it would take to get to their practice.
I took him to our vet.
The doctor told me to put him on the floor so he could watch what he did with the leg.
He held it up and wouldn’t put weight on it.
Plus the vet agreed with me, he too smelled infection.
Following surgery, they had actually done a biopsy on the leg and found that Percy
had a bone infection.
It was a resistant infection to most antibiotics so he had to have a special antibiotic
I had to order from Arizona.
I think he spit out more than I could get in him via the syringe.
Our Vet was betting that Percy had never gotten over the initial infection.
And so now for every day since our first visit back, two weeks now,
Percy has had to go in for a shot.
And in order to give his body a break, they are now rotating with pills.
And thankfully, he is actually now walking using the leg.
The Vet explained that bone infections are difficult to treat therefore the
treatment regime can be lengthy.
He was also a bit concerned by Percy’s depressed appearance.
So despite the surgeon’s demands that he remain coned in a cage the entire 12 weeks,
our vet told me to give him some freedom.
Of which has made a tremendous difference in his demeanor.
Percy has become a bit of a rock star at the Vet’s office as they all great him the
minute we walk through the door.
We don’t sign in and simply head to the available exam room.
All the vets in the practice know Percy and all the vet techs flock in to visit.
Percy is not the typical cat.
I’ve always said he’s more dog-like than cat.
Personable, loving and intuitive.
Rescues are like that.
Our visits are short and sweet, in and out…only for us to return the next day for
another dose.
His hock is still bleeding so I continue treating it and wrapping it.
He continues to spend each night in the cage with the cone but I try to give
him a break throughout most of the day as long as I am home,
allowing him to lounge on the back deck…
As long he doesn’t insist on chewing on his bandaged leg…which if given any
unobserved time, he would gnaw it off it left to his own devices.
And when I leave the house, it’s back in the cage.
And hence the cone…
At this point, I don’t know if we will ever get the bleeding under control.
And at this rate, I wonder about the infection.
When I walked into the vets that first afternoon, with an infection smelling patient,
I felt an overwhelming sense of desperation and I was in tears.
I practically begged our vet to help us.
As Percy’s mom, I feel a tremendous sense of responsibility for his well being.
I explained to the Vet that had I known what I know now, we never would have had the surgery.
I would have never put him through this misery.
Nor would I have done this to us and what all the rehab is requiring at home.
Problem is that I bet the infection set in while the tendon was exposed.
So we’re living with a catch 22 sort of scenario.
We will head back to see the surgeon in two weeks.
Who will probably x-ray and fuss that I’ve not been diligent with the cage and cone.
But I told this young surgeon during our last visit that if I had to do it all again,
I would have exhausted all other options.
His response was “he’s just a cat, what’s 12 weeks?”
I thought then and there that this guy, Vet surgeon or not, doesn’t ‘get it’…
he’s not just a cat.
He’s more than that.
He’s overcome so much in his 8 years.
And by gosh, I’m not going to let him go backward now.
Just being able to sit with me again in our chair, each evening, wrapped up in a soft throw
has done wonders for his disposition…giving him a small glance of our normal routine.
I don’t care if you are a human or an animal…a regular regime of life goes
a tremendous way toward healing…
Most High, glorious God,
enlighten the darkness of my heart
and give me
true faith,
certain hope,
and perfect charity,
sense and knowledge,
Lord, that I may carry out
Your holy and true command
St Francis
(the current veterinary hospital in my foryer)
We are four weeks and one day into our 12 week period of recuperation from
the joint fusion surgery.
I think from what I know now, I would opt to continue trying to exhaust the patchwork
fixes as this whole business is proving harrowing for both patient and caregiver.
Throw in having to race to care for ailing grandbabies—and you can just throw the title
exhausted nursemaid in front of my name and call it a day!
We have to drive an hour and a half over to the Veterinary surgeon’s office every
two weeks for a recasting and check on the progress of the leg.
In two weeks they will x-ray and hopefully transition from a club leg
to a smaller wrapping.
Oh did I mention that we had to have a special antibiotic compounded out at a
special Veterinary pharmacy in Arizona as he had a rare infection in the bone?
Have you ever tried administering a syringe of antibiotics into the mouth of a cat
who is less than thrilled that you are squirting things in his mouth that he
has deemed no good?!
Didn’t matter they flavored it tuna…he hated it.
The pain meds fared no better.
When it was all said and done, I would have happily taken the syringe of pain meds
squirted in my mouth!
Two weeks ago, they had put the latest cast on a bit too high up the leg for the patient’s liking…
it hit that tender underneath skin (the leg and whole hip are shaved) and it was too
irritating to bear, plus he had peed all over it…
so…. we had to drive all the way back the following day for a rewrapping.
Have you ever seen a poor cat with a club for a leg attempt to get into a litter box???
Bless his heart is all I can say.
He simply lays down to do his business.
And then proceeds to accidentally step in it with the cast.
And of course, the litter box is actually in the cage he is to be calling home for these 3 months.
Making for some tight quarters.
Of which is a lovely addition to the foyer of our home.
Have you ever tried to vacuum and sweep up after a cat who can’t maneuver properly while
scattering cat litter all over the place?
I vacuum mountains of litter up, that have mounded outside the cage, at least twice a day,
all the while practically standing on my head in the cage.
And since cats, and this one in particular, are fastidious cleaners, he is constantly
whacking himself in the head with the club leg while attempting to groom himself.
Sigh.
So we have one miserable patient.
The nurse isn’t too happy herself.
And speaking of cones…
There are times when one just has to be coneless.
Such as when it comes time to eat.
His head is too far into the cone for him to reach the food…so…
when it’s time to eat and have some water, I let him out and remove the cone.
I’ll let him use his scratching post and simply sleep unencumbered but I must sit with him.
He has attempted several escapes by clumping up the stairs, dragging a club behind him..
or he slips and slides back to our bedroom.
He even attempted to jump up on the bed and fell before I could get to him.
And trying to get comfortable is not always easy
So the Vet told me yesterday, after examining the incision, that there is a
small reopening of the wound on the hoc (aka back knee)—of which is a product of the cast rubbing…
and so it is imperative that he remain as incapacitated as possible.
Again, sigh.
You’ve heard the expression about attempting to herd cats right?
Well trying to keep one locked up 24 /7 is just about as equally impossible.
And so I am reminded of the mantra I used as a young working mother.
We can do anything for two weeks.
As a young wife and mother, I loathed having to work when our son was little.
Unfortunately, we didn’t really have any choice–especially since mine was our only insurance.
I was always very selfish with my time outside of school as I wanted my time away from school
to be dedicated only to both my husband and son.
That’s why I never went on to get any advanced degrees after my bachelor degree.
I didn’t want to go back to school, work and then try to squeeze in being a wife and mom.
Something would be shortchanged and it wasn’t about to be my husband or son.
But I certainly don’t begrudge those gals who have to go it alone and have to balance
so many plates in order to make it all work for their kids—I just have a problem with the
“I can have it all” mentality while thinking there are no casualties left in the wake.
See, I’m old school in that regard—I don’t think women can have it all and be successful
at either work and mothering…let alone being a wife for that matter.
One or the other is going to suffer. That’s just a fact.
And if you think you can be great at each, you’re only fooling yourself.
I can remember once lamenting to a principal, who was my boss but also my friend,
that I never felt I was truly good at being both a teacher and a mother as I was
always going to be “half-ass” at best with both.
I could not be 100% in whatever I did because something, or someone, was always demanding
my time and attention and that time and attention had to be split.
Plus I’m not one who thinks that a nanny, an au pair, a daycare, a sitter can ever do the
same thing a mother can do for her children.
And yet my son had to attend daycare.
I absolutely hated it but as my pediatrician always tried to reassure me,
daycare was the necessary evil in the lives of working parents.
I’d drop our son off each morning, then cry my way to work.
Guilt was my middle name.
As it often is with most working moms.
So once the summers rolled around, I guarded each and every precious second that I was able
just to be a wife and mom.
And that was one of the joys of teaching and being a parent—our schedules were in sync.
But as teachers, we were always required to earn hours towards our recertification
as well as participate in various trainings and workshops each summer.
Many of which would require about a two-week time slot.
So once we seemed settled, I’d find myself once again having to disrupt our “home” time
by getting up extra early, get my sleeping son up and ready for daycare as I’d then drive
an hour over to Atlanta for various teaching workshops at The High Museum of Art
or Oglethorpe University.
Returning back to town around 6.
I hated it but for both of us, but I would tell myself, I, we, can do anything for two weeks.
And so we did.
And now, as we seem to visit the Vet’s office for check-ups and recasting every two weeks…
I continue telling myself, as well as Percy… we can do anything for two weeks…
two weeks at a time.
And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.
Galatians 6:9
“The most deadly poison of our time is indifference.
And this happens although the praise of God should know no limits.
Let us strive, therefore, to praise him to the greatest extent of our powers.”
St. Maximilian Kolbe
(poor Percy, not a happy camper—his home for the next 12 weeks / Julie Cook / 2019)
“If, then, we wish to persevere and to be saved—-for no one can be saved without perseverance—-
we must pray continually.
Our perseverance depends, not on one grace,
but on a thousand helps which we hope to obtain from God during our whole lives,
that we may be preserved in his grace.
Now, to this chain of graces a chain of prayers on our part must correspond:
without these prayers, God ordinarily does not grant his graces.
If we neglect to pray, and thus break the chain of prayers,
the chain of graces shall also be broken, and we shall lose the grace of perseverance.”
St. Alphonsus Liguori, p. 201
An Excerpt From
The Sermons of St. Alphonsus Liguori
(a moment of freedom and reprieve from the dreaded cone / Percy / Julie Cook /2019)
(my little boy / Julie Cook / 2019)
We’ve come a very long way.
A very very long way….in 8 short years
(the dying kitten that found us in 2011 / Julie Cook)
(a cleaned up and slowly healing baby / 2011/ Julie Cook)
If you’re not familiar with how this dear member of our family came to be a part of our family,
here is a link from 2013—two years after he had become ours:
https://cookiecrumbstoliveby.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/my-best-friend/
In a nutshell, Percy, short for Perseverance, was thrown from a car,
smacking either a sign or the pavement.
He was a kitten that would fit in the palm of one’s hand.
He had a broken nose.
A broken eye socket.
A smashed mouth full of broken teeth
All of the skin was gone from the left side of his face…
he was covered in maggots and with what I call death flies… all by the time
we had found one another…
or actually by the time he had found us.
Long story short—
he lived!
Despite there being no guarantee he’d live,
he survived and he thankfully thrived.
Hence his name—Perseverance—Percy for short.
It’s amazing what love can do.
It was not easy in the beginning as he had to have rounds and rounds of strong antibiotics
and multiple surgeries while only being a few weeks old.
Over the years, we’ve had to have a tooth pulled here and there…teeth that were still
broken and would eventually become infected.
There have been some urinary issues so there is a special diet.
And due to a lack of teeth, he is more or less an indoor cat…
with the back deck being his backyard.
Plus, after all we’d been through, keeping him inside was a better option for my nerves…
just as I suspect it has been best for all our birds.
A few months back, one morning I noticed Percy walking with a very pronounced limp.
I took him to the Vet and an x-ray later revealed a torn Achilles tendon in his back left leg.
It would be about a $4000 surgery and we’d have to go to either
Auburn’s or Georgia’s Vet Schools for such a specialized surgery.
I went to Georgia and our Vet went to Auburn…sigh.
Neither the money nor time was not on our side due to my having to help on and off over
in Atlanta with our granddaughter Autumn (aka The Mayor)— so I thought we should
keep him as immobile as possible for as long as possible allowing for rest and healing.
Praying for the best.
Low and behold, the leg did heal…well, at least for the most part.
The tendon would never be the same, but blessedly, he was walking without a limp…
however he was now “flat-footed”—cats jump from the ends of their feet…
think off their tiptoes.
Percy was coming up off what I call his back knee, what the Vet calls ‘the hock.’
He had long worn all the fur off of both his back “knees” to this long-standing issue
with both tendons that we were unaware of…
his left leg is the worst of the two “knees” and it recently began to bleed.
The calloused skin was wearing thin.
It could no longer absorb the shock of jumping and landing.
Add in his fastidious licking to the point of being OCD and
he was licking the wound raw.
Another trip to the Vet.
This time she kept him and proceeded with a mini surgery…
cleaning out the wound while attempting to sew the existing skin together.
(Percy with his origianl wrapping following surgery / Julie Cook / 2019)
He kept the bandage on for a few days before jerking it off.
We went back for it to be re-wrapped.
This has now been an on-going, week after week, ordeal…
all over the course of a month.
I’m now changing out the bandages as he’s pulling and biting them off as
fast as we get them back on.
However last night I noticed something troubling.
We were back at the Vets bright and early.
The skin on “the knee” is gone and the tendon is now exposed.
Ideally, the Vet told me that Percy would need to go to Auburn for a skin graft but
with our waiting on a baby to arrive any minute now, that is not an option.
She knows this and told me she would do another surgery.
She’d pull the skin as tight as she could over “the knee”
while stitching it together with stronger sutures.
She would even put him in a cast if she thought it would help.
She then told me she would need to keep him for about a week if not longer…
keeping him in a cage and as still as possible, allowing the surgery to do its job
without him jumping up and down off that knee.
He hates the Vets.
He shakes, is scared and a nervous wreck.
He usually won’t eat if he’s there.
He loves his mommy as he sits in my lap at every opportunity and
snuggles against my back at night.
I left the office and cried the entire drive home.
Percy is more or less my life here at home.
He has decided that whatever is Autumn’s is in turn naturally his.
I think that any time we “rescue” an animal, an animal that happens into our lives on
a wing and a prayer, they become innately intertwined in our beings.
We care for them as babies and we nurse them back to life…practically willing them to live.
And more often than not they, in turn, thrive, making them some of the best pets
we could ever ask for.
I think they truly know the toll their nurturing back to health takes on our own lives,
psyches and hearts, in turn, they are genuinely grateful.
It may be silly for me to ask, but I am asking anyway…I’m asking for prayers for Percy.
Prayers for Percy’s healing of his knee/hock and also for a sense of peace in his spirit this
week while he’s kept away from home, stuck in a cage in a strange place…way out of his
comfort zone.
I’m also asking for prayers for our latest family’s addition to be, baby James.
I pray that he will arrive readily, happy and healthy..and if his mother might add, soon.
Prayers for our daughter-n-law as she prepares to go through this delivery business one more time…
Prayers also for a 14-month old little girl whose neat and tidy little world of
being the single shining light, is about to be turned upside down.
Prayers for mom and dad…and prayers for a worn out grandmother and grandfather!
Thank you!!!
So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
Isaiah 41:10
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