Thursday-3am: Ruby

The only way I can even talk right now is to just tell you chronologically.

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Miss Karma has been gradually getting better again.  Still not herself, but better.

I never made it to go look at recliners with Dagan on Friday because I wasn't physically up to it that day, but I made it on Saturday with both Dagan and Leah.  They bought me a little recliner and are letting me pay them back after I finish paying off the vet clinic bill.  (Their idea--and my back is doing the happy dance!)

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I donated the love seat to New Life--a place in town that helps people who are starting over to get back on their feet--like the homeless and battered women, etc.  Two gentlemen came and picked up the love seat on Monday afternoon.

 Looked pretty bare in here. 

I brought in the padded chair and ottoman from the porch... 

...and pulled over a chair from the craft table for Karma.  But she wanted her favorite blue bed to be up on the chair...

...so I arranged my folding stool next to the chair so she could climb up and get in from the side.  

She's still sleeping a lot. 

That meant I had a couple of days without a really comfortable chair that I can sit in for any length of time.  Been restless, taking pain pills, and waiting for Wednesday night when Dagan and Leah's friend Big John was helping Dagan pick up the new recliner. 

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About a half an hour before Dagan and John arrived...I got a phone call that my dearest friend Ruby had died suddenly during the night...from her husband Gust.

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I was stunned.

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Still am.

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I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that she's actually gone.

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It's her birthday today.
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I am SOOOO very, very glad she came to visit and we got to actually see each other again after so many years.  I got to look her in the eye, gaze upon that sweet face, hug her many times, spend days just hanging out gabbing our fool heads off and roaring over episodes of Big Bang Theory.

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I sat here as the darkness and my tears fell...until I heard Dagan and John coming up the hallway...flicked on some lights...and let them in.

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I told Dagan (who has known Ruby since he was about 12) as they unboxed the chair and pieced the two parts together.  John even carried the box to the dumpster for me on his way out.  Such a nice guy!

Leah arrived a little while later and had picked up dinner at Subway.  Naturally we talked over dinner.  Leah lost her dad suddenly when she was in high school and, as you know, she just lost her mom a couple years ago to cancer.  Life is too short and unpredictable to not appreciate every single day you have.  

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Leah went to take apart the laptop table and discovered that it had, quite literally, just plain fallen apart.  Over the years almost every single screw had worked loose...until it had finally fallen to pieces in my lap.     

Leah tightened every single screw from top to bottom...put it back together...and I am comfortably sitting right now in my new baby recliner with my laptop on the rolling table.  This recliner is noticeably smaller than my old one.  I told Ruby that I knew I must look like a muffin top in a muffin tin in this tiny chair--and we had laughed and laughed about my soon-to-arrive baby recliner.  She understood because she was shorter than I am--only 5' 10".  (I just wrote "is" and had to change it.) 

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I had to stop for a while.

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 Ruby and I were soul sisters...champions and cheerleaders for each other...always had each other's backs.  Ruby never made me feel small...never judged...always supported.  She always saw me as better than I was, you know?  Loved me unconditionally, as I did her.  She adored Dagan...and then Leah, too.  We totally "got" each other right off the bat.  Recognized each other's souls.  Ruby could be spouting--"People are just no damn good, I tell you!"--and I could laugh--and get her laughing...because she knew I knew what a huge, generous heart she was protecting behind that sometimes spiky shell.  I knew how she took several forgotten people under her wing and cared for them faithfully until they died...and how it broke her heart to lose them.  Her house always had cats and dogs...usually ones nobody wanted, of course.  She was a regular donor to the humane society.  (Ruby was the one who sent me some money toward the vet bill for Karma.)  Dagan and I met her when we answered an ad for a free kitten...

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  Ruby loved fiercely...with great kindness and patience.  

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I loved that woman so much.

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There is a hole in my heart. 

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"Life is like an onion; you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep."

Carl Sandburg