If The Fates Allow

Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Let your heart be light. From now on, our troubles will be out of sight.

Years ago, when our two young sons were not yet in school, my husband took an opportunity abroad to help his brother’s contracting firm early in the US engagement in Afghanistan. This meant our little family of four lived in Istanbul, the closest reasonable place to live. It was an unsettling time, however I thought it would be an adventure to live abroad and experience a different culture, and indeed it was.

My parents back home were nervous about it, given the times. I understood their worry, but then Istanbul seemed reasonable. We happened to be there when talks for EU membership were gearing up, which made for constant hopeful conversation around town. But still, I was torn between opportunity and concern. My solution: enjoy and learn, experience the novelty, but peek around each corner for lurking danger.

On one lovely autumn walk I came across a novelty that proved to be no danger at all and became our future joy by random chance. It was a skinny cat, or kedi as was known locally, and it crossed my path out of nowhere. I stopped. The cat stopped. We sized each other up. Then an idea popped into my head: Max.

Max was my youngest son and he adored cats. We’d never had a cat, but we could reasonably be in the market for one, given we were five thousand two hundred miles from home and sometimes lonely. This cat here in front of me suddenly seemed like a fine idea with great potential, but it needed consensus first. I pulled out the flip phone from my pocket and called my husband.

“Hello?”

“Hi, honey,” I said. “Don’t say no right away.”

“What.”

“I’ll do all the work, every bit.”

“What.”

“There’s a hungry cat on the road, nobody owns it, Max loves cats, and we're lonely.”

“As long as I don't have to take care of it.”

“Deal.”

And with that I picked up our new pet and walked him home, crusty eyes, boney physique, and all.

As we walked, I spoke to this little guy, telling him what was going on, and started to give him the advice I’d repeat many times through his life. “Cat, pay attention. Your life is about to change for the better. You might start to think this is what it’s all about—reaching the next greatest thing—but there’s another option: notice the grandeur in life. It’s there without cause. It’s simply there, and it holds the answers to your questioning mind.”

The cat said nothing, but in his 2”x2” brain he was thinking, “Lady, I question your motives, but you’re warm and have nice fishy breath, so I’m here to see what happens next.” The rest of the way we walked in silence, me carefully surveying our route, him enjoying my exhale.

As soon as I stepped inside our apartment, my two boys spun in circles, ran up and down the hallway in squeals, then jumped for joy over their extravagant luck to suddenly have this soft and funny phenomenon living right beside them. Our first order of business was to name the phenom, so I asked Quinn and Max for ideas. After a two second pause and deep consideration, Max announced this critter would be Cookie. Cookie the Cat.

Our second order of business was to take crusty Cookie to the vet, of which there were few in Istanbul because pet ownership wasn’t much of a market there. This vet was happy to see us and got Cookie in tip top shape for his new life as an entertainer by day and couch potato by night.

Max became Cookie’s follower, and Cookie his. They were fans of each other, in a circular sort of way, with one always trailing the other. This made me happy because even though we were growing close to my sister-in-law and her toddler girls who lived nearby, we still missed home very much, especially at Christmas, which was approaching. It couldn't have been better timing that we now had Cookie, a festivity on padded feet.

Christmas was my family’s big-pizzazz holiday, and terribly hard to miss, so we made plans to fly home. Cookie would stay in Istanbul with my brother-in-law’s family while we visited my close relatives in the eastern US, notably my grandmother, with whom I was close and who was battling cancer.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Make the Yule-tide gay. From now on, our troubles will be miles away.

Istanbul wasn’t into Christmas, of course, having recently packed up its Eid festivities for the year. We lifted off from an everyday atmosphere and touched down onto a land of merriment. My heart desperately missed this aspect of home, not to mention my loved ones, so there was both laughter and tears that holiday. It's so true that you fully notice the value of something as soon as it goes missing.

Flying back afterwards was somber because here we were again distancing ourselves from a place and people we loved, all in the name of adventure and opportunity. But Cookie was waiting for us when we arrived back, and we all cuddled him like no tomorrow. “I thought you’d never return,” he whispered to us in a sad but relieved voice.

Our family settled into life as pet owners, and Cookie into life as a pet. This meant that as we dragged our fingertips luxuriously along his soft cat back and exuded all our love, Cookie purred and noticed the grandeur.

Eventually, Cookie became integral; my kids progressed through kindergarten and pre-school; my husband made the decision to return to his previous career; and we packed our bags one last time for the States. The plane hauled us up through Stuttgart, then across the ocean. After an extended trip due to snow, we dropped ourselves exhausted and happy onto the kitchen chairs of our old house.

Everything seemed foreign at first--for us and for Cookie. America seemed much more extravagant than I’d ever realized. I felt out of place, not part of here or elsewhere, but in time it faded, this feeling. Eventually I adjusted, but now I knew how easy it was to take your world for granted. Cookie tried like the dickens to understand how a cat from the edge of the road could ever end up in such abundance, but then he adjusted, too.

Here we are as in olden days, happy golden days of yore. Faithful friends who are dear to us, gather near to us once more.

Our first Christmas back stateside was joyful, except for the fact that my grandmother was deteriorating. We all made the best of the time we had: did our best gala of a family holiday, laughed, cooked, ate, played cards. Santa came. It was holly jolly, but I feared what the future was going to bring Grandma. In truth, I lived in denial about our family’s impending loss.

That May my grandmother’s body began to shut down, while many of us kept vigil around her hospice bed for days. We sang the songs she loved, and she strained to lift her head to utter a broken moan of appreciation. My cousin zipped herself into the wedding dress that was otherwise secretly reserved for the big wedding coming down the pike. She carefully applied mascara over tears and got bridal fluffed-up to take photos with the woman who partially raised her before it was too late. My grandmother’s life was grand by most standards, and I think so was her death.

And so it went. Life carried on back in Virginia. My kids were happy in school, things were humming along, until the day Cookie decided to leave. On a sunny afternoon he went outside for one of his regular strolls around the back patio, but unlike other strolls, he ventured farther than usual, and no one saw him go. We looked. We put up signs. We waited. Eventually I had to explain to my kids what happened. Max was bereft. How do you explain loss to someone who doesn’t understand it yet? How do you make peace with the fact that life is here one day but gone the next?

The other day my dad called me. He wanted to tell me that his chemo isn’t working, and hospice might be around the corner. I listened not only to his words, but the tone of his voice. Everything sits in the tone. My dad sounded accepting. I was sad, but also awed by the task he took on, since it’s not a task I understand yet—telling others that my time is getting short. How does one say such a thing? I don’t know, but my dad was a teacher to me in that phone call. It’ll be one of his last lessons, I imagine.

Life’s quite a thing. We start out knowing nothing about it and end up knowing just a bit more by the time it’s over. The older I get, the more it seems that paying close attention to the wonder and the grandeur out there is what delivers us insight. There is grandeur in beauty, in overcoming, in the unfathomable. It’s a wonder that we can handle loss and emerge, because one of the most important grandeurs is our love for each other. I know you know this.

Winter seems to be a time when people create meaning. I love that there’s a whole season that encourages contemplation. May this time of year, when we pause to reflect on what we don’t yet understand, be a teacher and a wonder to you.

Through the years we all will be together, if the fates allow. Hang a shining star upon the highest bough. And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

*Lyrics from Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas by Hugh Martin