Wishful Thinking

When my cable provider switched over to digital last summer, I thought I’d never get used to a whole new channel lineup and an imposing remote with 59 buttons. Now I click up, down, left, right without even looking: 311 for MSNBC and 305 for CNN, or 221 for TV Land and 117 for Comedy Central (to escape the depressing effects of the first two).

However, even with the fancy gadgetry, I can still tape only one show at a time, which requires my actually remembering to leave the TV on the channel I want to record before I go to work. No DVR. No Tivo. Maybe Santa will surprise me this year. Ho ho ho.

My ritual is recording the final few minutes of Deal or No Deal, followed by Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! That’s Channel 11 here. Shouldn’t be too hard to forget. Same time, same channel, Monday through Friday, at least when I’m out, which is most weeknights. As I unwind, stretch, and get ready for bed, I love zipping through my shows.

On Wednesday, I got home around ten, changed into my fleece pajamas, fed Sophia and Sascha, and hit the rewind button, eagerly awaiting my nightly game-show fix. PLAY. The screen displayed a green-and-white announcement: Due to power outages in your area, there is no service on this channel at this time. We regret any inconvenience. New Hampshire Public TV, Channel 9.

Channel 9? No! I meant to leave it on Channel 11! FAST FORWARD. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it was just a glitch. I continued to fast forward through what must’ve been a half-hour’s worth of the same green-and-white message. Was I expecting the channel to have changed itself while I was out? Kind of like when I thought my dust-spewing vacuum cleaner would’ve repaired itself after three untouched months in the closet?

Nope. No Deal or Wheel or Jeopardy! tonight. I felt bereft. The empty, sad, pit-of-the-stomach-type feeling that comes when you know that what you wished for simply will not happen. No matter how hard I pressed the button, no matter how hard I wanted it, it wasn’t meant to be.

I lingered in the feeling, trying to understand it. It felt familiar and utterly unwanted. In the space of three or four minutes, I’d gone from a sense of fun anticipation to frantic denial to mournful acceptance. Over TV. But it wasn’t the content of the loss, it was the feeling of being helpless to change the reality. There was nothing I could do. What’s done is done.

Three years ago, on a regular Sunday morning, I woke up and headed outside to retrieve my Boston Globe. I saw my kitty, Jolie, lying on the living room rug, all stretched out. “Allo, Jolia! Good morning!” I said. I stepped closer. She didn’t move. She’s sleeping, I thought. Funny. Usually she greets me, nuzzling, head-butting. I walked past her and bam, it hit me, a fierce punch in the stomach, a rush of adrenaline and nausea and truth.

No. No. It can’t be. I approached. Her eyes were fixed in a stare and her tongue slightly extended from her mouth. Next to her was some food she'd vomited. Maybe she was choking! Maybe I could revive her. I knelt beside her and touched her. Her body was cold. I tried to pry her mouth open to give her an airway. Her body was stiff. Untrained in CPR, I tried to apply kitty-size compressions to her calico chest, at regular intervals. I tried to blow in her mouth, very softly.

No, Jolie, no. I didn’t want to know, but I knew. And yet I didn’t. I called my vet and left a message for the on-call doc. After a few silent minutes, I called Angell Animal Hospital and said, “I think my cat might be dead!” I asked about kitty CPR. I asked about opening her airway. The woman listened and said quietly, “She’s gone.”

“But . . . how? How? She’s only five. She wasn’t sick!”

She said, very kindly, as did my own vet who called later, that sometimes cats die suddenly, same as people. Aneurysm, cardiac arrest, stroke, random act of God. She was gone.

Numbness followed and flooding tears and, slowly, acceptance. I still think of Jolie, every day. And I thought of her on Wednesday, when, unbidden and unwanted, missing my game shows, of all things, I felt that feeling in my gut that tells me I am helpless to change reality. No matter how mundane or profound.

Every day brings a new sadness, it seems—illnesses, diagnoses, in my family, among my friends, among my friends’ families. And every day brings another reminder of the only lesson that seems to make any sense, at least to me, at least today: Life happens. Death happens. Let go. And breathe.