Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

Mother's Day for Pet Parents: Respect for the bond, finally

The bonds of parenthood might be a curse.  Across all species and between species - as with pet parents and our four-footed children - the caring is so intense. Yes, it borders on the neurotic.

Finally, others understand.  A man who I was supposed to interview on his niche business finally was free, after traveling for weeks.  However, I had told him I wasn't.  I was overwhelmed.  For one thing I had to get up to speed on a ghostwriting book assignment.  But even more depleting was that I had to continue with tests for my 18-year-old cat Jason.  The businessman agreed to wait another week.  He seemed compassionate.

So far a lot of nasty stuff has been ruled out.  The vet needs to check his kidneys.  The fake litter the vet gave me to catch urine at home didn't work. Jason was having none of that.  So, now I have to go over to the vet's and find out what other ways we can get urine and at what cost.  That will be tomorrow.  Meanwhile I am a basket case of worry.

But come Mother's Day, the pain will be forgotten as Jason and I curl up on the sofa, me reading, he purring.  He will look into my eyes with such trust.  Mothers around the world who earned that should feel such a sense of satisfaction and joy next Sunday.

Pet Grief, Tears, and a New Friend

Yesterday the vet confirmed what I strongly suspected.  Jason, my 18-year-old cat, had lost three pounds since his last examination a year ago.  Scary.  The vet took blood work and the results wouldn't be available until whenever. I went home and went on to have the nightmare that my dog Molly Mittens had died, which she had seven years ago this June. 

Obviously, I hadn't fully healed from Molly Mittens' death and I could be facing the rapid decline of Jason, the last of the brood.  At one time I was the proud parent of three dogs and seven cats.  I was also the foster parent for countless strays until the rescue folks could find them homes.

I truly thought I couldn't bare it, not one more bit of pet grief, not from the past, not what could occur in the future.  I got up from my laptop, starting cleaning the house.  I brought the garbage to the disposal area.  Somehow tears were falling.  The maintenance man was fixing something.  I made sure our eyes didn't meet.

A few hours later, there was a knock on my door.  The man was finished for the day. He asked me how I was.  Not too good, I told him.  Then it all spilled out.  He listened.  He told me his experience with trauma such as when he was recovering for a year in a VA hospital from Viet Nam. It seemed odd that something human could help with something animal.

UPDATE: Jason's tests came back pretty good.  We will do a urine screen to check out kidneys.

 

 

Tsunami, Fire, No Money, After So Much of It: Grief that keeps us stuck

Sonali Deraniyagala joins the ranks of those whose grief may never heal and the best that we can expect is a period of inner serenity, now and then.

As Cheryl Strayed's review in THE NEW YORK TIMES of Deraniyalala's book "Wave" recounts, this economist lost her husband, two sons, and parents when the 2004 tsunami entered their Sri Lankan hotel room.  As yet, there has been no closure. 

Her story mirrors that of former advertising executive Madonna Badger who on a Christmas morning fire in Stamford, Connecticut in 2011 lost her three young daughters and her parents.  Her grief drove her to settle out west to receive intensive counseling.  Last Christmas season, she journeyed overseas to give children at an orphanage presents.  But when the actual day came, she simply couldn't pull it together to leave her hotel. 

Insecure from a Dickensian childhood - my mother was the cleaning lady at my high school - I accumulated material trophies such as a Victorian house on the Gold Coast of Connecticut and a cottage at the Jersey Shore.  By 2003, I had lost everything ( Download Geezerguts ).  Initially I was capable of the magical thinking that, with my new-found strength and wisdom, I would do much better financially than before.  It hasn't happened.  Meanwhile my four-legged soulmates canine Molly Mittens and felines Carlotta, Point Pleasant, Callie, and Sarah have died. Nothing I have devoured on pet grief has helped. 

Perhaps America better back off all the positive thinking about the ennobling power of grief.  Maybe we don't get what we need.  Maybe we just get what we get.

 

Blogging For Eight Years: Everything changes

Eight years ago, thanks to the encouragement of Toby Bloomberg and coaching of Paul Chaney, I started this blog.  Immediately, opportunity began to come to me since blogging was then a novel medium.

Around the nation and right here in Connecticut at the West Hartford Public Library I was invited to speak about blogging.  Audiences were more curious than they were eager to become early adopters.  That was disappointing since I was an evangelist. 

Also, since this is a global medium, assignments for more general kinds of writing came from around the globe.  I was busy both with blogging and client work. 

But the more important development has been that blogging forced me to become a more adept marketer.  Bloggers serve two masters.  One is search engines. The other is the reader.  That demands learning to zero in on topics which involve keywords which are trending and at the same time package them in headlines and content which capture and sustain attention. That ability became internalized.  Yes, I have morphed into a marketing animal.

Also, blogging, as every artist knows, serves as one way to heal. It's cheaper than therapy and is available on-demand.  Six and a half years ago when my canine animal companion Molly Mittens died on the vet's table, I blogged compulsively about that loss.  I am still posting about it, especially around the holidays.  Pet grief remains a mystery to me.  Why does it continue to hurt so much?  

Eventually, as with just about every development, with blogging the novelty wore off, others saw a good thing and moved in, and the rush of stardom was over.  The big brands like Business Insider, Gawker, and Mediabistro now dominate the scene.  Once in a while a post I create does go viral and there is that old rush.  Here is a case study of one such post.  Twinkle twinkle little star.  I was back shining brightly for a few days. 

So, how about now? I have decided to stay with blogging because it's the only part of my writing life that I have full control over.  Editors for my other published work will object to this or be snide about that.  Clients, as Don Draper noted on "Mad Men," come and go.  The print books I published had a relatively short shelf life.  My blog is what I wake up to in the morning and use to sort out the day before bedtime.  Yes, it's the way I have been framing my existence for eight years.  

 

February 2012: Pet grief lessened by responsibility

Carlotta, the new mother the Manhattan SPCA rescued from the streets, died 14 years later in the warm comfort of a New Haven, Connecticut vet office.  I was with her.  I dreaded returning home to Jason without her.  They had been best buddies since she was nursing her kittens and Jason, who adopted me at the Humane Center in Eatontown, New Jersey, pitched in and helped.

My focus had to shift, obviously, from my own grief to keeping Jason functioning.  On the way home I bought chicken I would be cooking for him until the worst of his shock and pain was over.

Usually I take pet grief very hard.  My hunch is that my clinical depression 2003 was precipitated with having to put down two dogs, months apart from each other.  Therefore, it was a surprise to be sorting the bills for my tax return and stumbling on the vet bill for Carlotta's passing over.  It was dated February 2012.  That seemed impossible.  I hardly remembered her.

The lesson in this might be to ease our pain, any pain, by giving to others.  Jason, despite his 17 years, is thriving. 

Christmas and Pet Grief: Comfort from "Going Home" by Jon Katz

Even in those moments when we let down our guard with intimate friends over the holidays, we tend not to share our sadness about our animal companions who have passed over. 

After all, every Christmas society has a fresh human tragedy.  We fear sounding trivial unburdening ourselves about how much we miss our pets.  This year it's the loss of 20 very young children in Newtown, Connecticut.  How can we dare share emotional space with those 20 sets of parents!

Well, we can't do much about how society rules on whose grief matters the most.  But we can help ourselves feel the authenticity of our own loss.   This Christmas animal lovers can give themselves the book "Going Home: Finding Peace When Pets Die" by Jon Katz. In 166 pages, Katz gives us every tool we need to navigate pet grief, even in the toughest times such as Christmas. 

Surprisingly, Katz starts the book out telling us about Orson, the troubled dog who bit people, despite the thousands of dollars he spent on myriad kinds of canine therapies.  The right thing to do, and the vet agreed, was to put Orson down.  That left Katz with a most complex type of grief and he couldn't let it out.

"I resisted telling the people I loved how much I hurt, how much I mourned for this troubled dog." 

Somehow we get the message from society that we better shut down the feelings and move on.  Even Katz, who seems pretty in touch with his emotions, surrended to what he saw as the social norm.

Then he goes on to explain how he has grieved for not only other dogs but also the ewes and steers who lived with him and his wife on Bedlam Farm.  "Pets" come in many forms.  And when they leave, Katz hammers, we have a perfect right and responsibility to mourn.

As I was driving to a holiday party this week, I remembered how Molly Mittens was there for me as I put back my business in 2004.  The vet said she had hung on so long with her bad heart to keep me going.  She died on that vet's table in July 2006.  My tears still come.  No one had ever cared about me as had Molly Mittens.  No, I haven't moved on from the grief, not yet.  Maybe I never will and, according to Katz, so what.

Holidays 2012: Pet grief, some things don't get better

During the holidays, at least with close friends, it's sort of okay to admit missing dead spouses, parents, and, of course, children.  Not that anyone really wants to hear that.  After all, most adults are barely holding on emotionally during this season of lights, joy, and socializing.  But what's still taboo is to confide that we desperately long for our animal companions which have passed over. 

By the Friday after Thanksgiving I had slid into a state of hopelessness about ever feeling whole without my dog Molly Mittens and cats Sarah and Carlotta.  Since I have been in 12-step programs for years, I knew I should have reached out to another member.  I should have said, without self consciousness, what I was feeling.  I should have kept doing that until my spirit lifted.  But I did none of that. 

Pet grief has come a long way from being a source of humor.  On "Mary Tyler Moore," a comic episode was about trying to cheer up a co-worker after his dog died.  Now there are greeting cards for pet grief and individual and group counseling at animal rescue centers.  But, there's a line that can't be crossed when emotionally push comes to shove during the holidays.  That's the line between what society dictates is okay to burden others with during this magical season and what it is forced to not allow.

Every year we do get through our pet grief.  But the amazing thing is that the awful feeling of loss doesn't get better.  I miss my three girls in 2012 as I did the day they died.

Mei Xiang's Grief: Don't ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee

Mei Xiang's grief at the loss of her six-day old panda cub is resonating throughout the world. 

But we humans who have lost our animal companions identify in a unique way.  Her cub and our animals were so little, so innocent, so dependent on us, and in return so loving toward us.  The relationship was as perfect as it could have been. 

When that relationship ends with a death there is a hole in our lives which no other animal or person can fill.  That hole opened up when my canine friend Molly Mittens passed over six years and two months ago.  It's still open.

"Everyone Loves A Good Train Wreck" by Eric G. Wilson

Facebook @20.88.  Conservative media putting the knock on Mitt Romney.  Oprah saying the wrong thing about eating with one's hands in India.  We love it.  As the title of Eric G. Wilson's book states, "Everyone Loves A Good Train Wreck - Why We Can't Look Away."

Inside the covers of that book Wilson offers various explanations, ranging from scholarly to impressionistic, about why the horrific grabs us by the throat and won't let us go.  One of the most persuasive is that death is close to life.  If there weren't death we wouldn't realize we are alive.  So, brushes with other folk's disasters remind us that we are alive and that unlike their day our day is going relatively smoothly.

Loss: Speechwriters have to come up with new scripts

Our emotional lives take place in the small village of the heart.  Lately that village has been hit hard by deaths.  Two human, one animal.  I haven't brought up how awful I feel because I still am too raw to deal with the cliches I will encounter.  Most are without thought.  The ones which involve some thought are too cold.

What we speechwriters have to do is create some new short scripts which one human being can deliver to another who's walking through grief.  After all there are plenty of losses these days. 

To begin with, there are more deaths because there are more people.  Pile on top of that losses of jobs, houses, and dreams. 

Regarding the latter, an acquaintance was laid off from a trade association.  As America conditioned him to, he gave that an optimistic spin.  He could now focus on becoming the musician he always wanted to be.  He huffed and he puffed but he couldn't blow the obstacles down.  The dream evaporated into the ether.

A major public relations agency like Edelman or a prestigious boutique like The Dilenschneider Group should run a contest for the loss scripts.  Winner gets to become the Chief of Eulogies in the U.S.