Step Up. Even If Your Heart Hurts.

Yesterday was painful. Last night was worse. Sleeping with Little Will when Highland was nowhere to be found. He slept in her spot, tail down on the end of my bed. It broke my heart. And when he woke up around midnight? He was all over me. He's never done that in the middle of the night. He draped himself on me, curled himself on me. Didn't let go of me. Even when I cried. He was beside me. And in the morning? Our ritual would be: Highland meow. Little Will bound in. We all head to the bathroom and I turn on the faucet for Highland and Little Will gets in her way and plays while she watches and then drinks around him. When I turned on the faucet today? He didn't jump up. He slinked away. I fed him. He acted disinterested. He used to eat his food and hers.



I'm trying to tell myself that it all happened for a reason. That Highland was there for the last 6 years of my life. The not so great ones. That she absorbed what happened and took it with her. That she's my angel. And she's in a better place. But angel or not, I'd rather have her here. So would Little. And so would Kelly.

I'm thankful though, so thankful for my friends who have been so amazing and supportive. Who knew her. And cared enough to call or email or whatever. And I'm even more thankful for the woman who stayed with Highland and comforted her when she was dying. I talked to this woman-- Bridgette-- twice yesterday. And talk about an angel. She saw the car behind her hit Highland, she went around the corner, came back and took Highland out of the street. She set her down in the bushes, petted her and talked to her through the pain. She called me. She called her friend who is studying to be a vet to find out what she could do and if Highland was suffering. Can you believe that? I'll give up dinner for a night or two. I'm sending her flowers. Because it makes all the difference to know Highland was taken care of. To know how it was for her. And that she felt loved. This woman astounds me. It comforts me to know there are people out there like that. She said that her mother always said that when she got to heaven, she'd have one hell of a greeting committee-- filled with friends and felines. Amen, to that.

Today I went to a Step Up (women's network) luncheon. It was quite fancy -- they honored Geena Davis, the head of CBS and a few other luminaries. There were 700 people at the Beverly Hilton supporting the efforts of this organization. It was pretty remarkable. Oddly and wonderfully enough, I was invited by one of our clients from when I worked in PR. She's an incredibly lovely woman with a great line of products: Pure Hapa. I hadn't seen her in over a year and she said she missed me and wanted to see me. Of course, I would have preferred to be oh-so-on when I saw her or at the very minimum oh-so-me. But yesterday and today, that just wasn't the case. Still, I did feel inspired. I did come home and write. And I cried And I felt really happy to know that someone thought of me enough to invite me to an event, as her guest, when I no longer served a function, but could only be a friend.