Hello old friends.

Time has been moving in slow-motion with a finger not my own holding down the fast forward button. I can’t keep up and the days never end fast enough. Pip died. The vet asked me after 4 visits, “Do you think it’s time?”

I shattered, the only thing that remained whole were my arms. I looked at Pip, tiny in the yellow blanket. I dangled in the massive space between wanting his pain to end and owning the words, “It’s time.” I pulled him to me and looked at Sean and the vet.

His body felt like nothing, weightless, the blanket sticking to my arms. We were standing in the parking lot, hidden from view of the other masked people there with their creatures. The parking lot backs up to a field, it was filled with birds and the sky overhead was a perfect blue. The sun was hot an unfamiliar and my skin pricked with sweat. I hadn’t been outside or in public in months, the last two nights I’d slept in the dark basement with Pip. He looked up at me.

I squinted my eyes, wiped the tears into the blanket. Murmured his name and then said, “Yes.”

A woman and three teenage girls sit in a circle around a sick tabby cat.

I have not wanted to do or say much since. I have not been here, but I have been working—on my business, on my marriage, on my parenting, on my role in the world. I don’t want my silence here to be interpreted as not participating in what is happening in our country.

Our country is a racist as Pippin is dead.

Anything less than acknowledging that Black Lives Matter is unacceptable to me.

Denying transwomen inclusion is unacceptable to me.

I have been expanding who I follow, amplify, buy from, and support. Get over to Black Vibe Tribe and support a young, black woman who is doing amazing things. She started the company at 14, she is now 17. Her merchandise is beautifully designed and the garments are of the highest quality. Finley is currently learning who Sojourner, Shirley, Daisy, Harriet, Assata, and Septima are.

A black teacher with the names Sojourner, Shirley, Daisy, Harriet, Assata, and Septima with resist spelled out.

 

Our company posted signs.

A building with a #BLM sign in the window.

Photo Credit: Small Town Street Life https://www.smalltownstreetlife.com

 

We’ll be offering to match donations that people make to organizations that support the Black or LGBTQIA+ communities up to $2,000. We will use the blog at Trampoline to highlight these organizations.

 

Double Your Donation

 

I submitted my name for consideration for a vacant seat on the Queensbury Town Board.

We walked as a family during the local Black Lives Matter march.

I’m not done. I never will be. Grief continues, but so does hope.

Please be a part of hope, change, and shattering the silence.