Update: "Always in Our Hearts" Artistamp Issue 138.05 has been completed to accompany this post. It is now available as a free download at the bottom of this entry.
This may not be about art - technically - but it's about the person behind the art - or - more accurately perhaps - the person inside my artists' skin. The older I get the more I see that it's all connected.
Those of you who know me know that I have a thing for animals. I'm totally taken by furry folk who live with me. Sierra was no different; but at the same time she was special.
Sierra got sick last week and I'm surprised at how much I've been affected. The week has taken a lot out of me - and even now - well I was wondering if tears would short out the keyboard this afternoon as I was attempting this task.
I've been designing a stamp to remember Sierra, and trying to pull myself together enough to tell the story without needing to hold Kleenex with one hand and type with the other.
I guess artists and writers can be emotional at times. But this really has gotten to me on a whole other level than what I would have expected.
Sierra was a little white scrawny kitten back in 1994 when Kerry (that's daughter #2) who was going to college and working full time rescued her from a dumpster. I guess the white peaks of tiny ears reminded Kerry and boyfriend Sean of the mountains because the little bit of fluff was soon christened Sierra.
Just a tiny baby, Sierra with Kerry and sometimes Sean, would come home for weekends to the Delaware beach house. Sierra would ride inside Kerry's jacket snuggled up toasty warm as they drove down from Baltimore. Like an omnipresent shadow, Sierra was wherever Kerry was, including - to my amazement - the shower.
Not long after Sierra came on the scene - and after a hurricane hit the beach -
Kate and I took in a teeny abandoned Tom. Kate is daughter #3 for those keeping score. OK, so perhaps the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
Anyhow, when the Kerry-Sierra team would arrive for a few days Sierra would loudly state her displeasure at being in the presence of the bedraggled looking grey baby who was doing all that pitiful crying between naps and bottle feedings.
A year later we had come back to DC from the beach and Kerry was living at home again when Sierra and our Tom chose Kerry's 21st birthday to present us with a gift. While Kerry was out partying I was serving as midwife as Sierra and Tom became doting parents to a litter of funny, furry and the most sociable babies I've ever had the pleasure of grand-mothering.
And - in our defense - yes we did go the spay and neuter route after that but at the time - well it didn't seem possible.
All three of us were sure that a.) they did not like each other and b.) they were too young for anything to happen for real.
But in the end I wouldn't have missed sharing my life with Sierra and Tom - and their children and grandchildren - for the world.
Fast forward eleven years to last week. After a fast moving illness
put Sierra into multiple organ failure Kerry was devastated but did as
any good parent, pulling herself together to take care of the granny
cat who had once been her baby.
The illnesses were fought with hospitalization, iv medication, and more. Kerry - working with the vets - pulled out all the stops within reason and fought a valiant fight. Sierra decided that she was just too tired and overwhelmed to fight on and Kerry made the impossibly agonizing decision to let her slip away.
That happened last Thursday evening after we all had a chance to say goodbye.
I learned some things along the way. And in the end, even after our offspring have moved on to live their adult lives with along with their little bundles, they - both human and fur babies - still can pull at my heartstrings like nothing else.
Over the next couple of weeks some special Sierra inspired artistamps will arrive as gifts
to the blog readers. And thanks to all of you who wrote to me after I
first mentioned Sierra's illness last week. it means a lot. >> Download 138.05-sierra.pdf <<