Stay

Stay

Adam makes a joke about snapping Benjamin's neck, and I almost get angry. Of course, he ALWAYS makes the same joke about Benjamin, whenever I ask him to assist me in trimming their nails (I scruff and hold them, and he deftly clips the nails).
“Look at him, he is so ugly. Bald and wrinkled and God, he smells bad.” Benjamin yawns, washing the both of us in breath that can charitably be described as corpselike. Adam shudders, pulls away. “Just juice it,” he says, “or let me snap it's neck.”
“No one's neck is being snapped,” I reply, a little testier than I ought to. It's been a long night, and I am sleepy and a little grumpy. Adam did promise to help, and before he leaves, he is helping. But I am still a little tender about the whole thing.
When I got him, he was a furball. And because he was a “single” ferret for a few months, he bonded to me. Until a few years ago, he was a big, fuzzy ball of energy and mischief. When his cagemate died, he nearly went as well. Wouldn't eat, barely slept, just roamed the apartment, looking for a friend who would never be there again. Getting him another friend helped a little, but by that time, adrenal cancer had taken hold, brought on, I am certain, primarily by stress.
Now, years after I had thought he would have died, he sticks around. Not much going on with him these days but eating, sleeping, pooping, and occasionally trying to dominate his cagemates. Like an old deposed lion, trying to remind the rest of the herd – and himself – that he still rules. But he clearly does not. His cagemate, Duncan, has quietly taken over that role, and does so in a diplomatic enough way that Benjamin does not quite know. Benjamin comes out of the cage during playtime with the others, and sometimes even romps a bit, chases someone through a tube or leaps on a back or two. But within minutes, he crawls into an open animal carrier (I keep one with the door unlocked and a blanket inside for this purpose) to sleep, always with his head hanging out, to be part of the scene, to be in the room, even if he is too weak, too blind, too frail to romp.
He still follows me around, blindly, head bobbing for my scent. He trots into the kitchen, often running into my leg with his nose. Staring blindly up at me, wanting nothing but to be picked up, so that he can lick my nose. When he does, his eyes squint nearly shut, his ears go back, he grabs my chest or hand with one spidery paw, and trembles with adoration. It is all he want now, to be loved. To remember. He just wants me to stay.

I talk on the phone with Mom. At eighty-one, her voice, once melodious, is raspy. An old lady voice. She gets tired easily. She forgets things. She wants me to help take some of the burden from her, by managing some of her finances online. Technology is a leap she will not, or has decided she can not make. She talks about hesitating to drive, especially at night. She talks about a refrigerator full of food, but eating cold cereal because she doesn't feel like anything else. She talks less and less about that cruise to the Bahamas, or that trip to Vegas. She spends more time sleeping in her comfortable leather recliner, upstairs, while basic cable provides company for her. She repeats things, and more and more, I notice.
I have not been to Dad's grave in years. I do not know why. Being there when he died, I really abandoned the notion of the body having any relevance when the spirit was gone. But I dream about him sometimes. Not meaningful dreams, or dramatic ones. Just, you know, stuff. Hanging out with him, watching television, cleaning up the wrapping paper after the frenzy of Christmas Day. Watching him do dishes at the sink. What I wanted most from him was never great advice or monumental deeds. I only wanted him to stay.

And this week, I get a notice that my apartment complex is abandoning the Section 8 housing system in favor of a voucher system, which is legalize for making the Section 8 tenants work much, much harder for their right to stay.

Also, my hair is thinning on top, no matter how I try to slice it otherwise.

I just want things to stay, like they are, a little while. I want my friends not to drift away. I want my Mom to not be old. I want to have a secure, safe place to live. I want my health to be stable. I want my ferrets to be alive and well.I want what is impossible, a static world, that, imperfect though it is, still holds less fear than the inevitable loss I suspect is coming from many sides. I am not prepared for any of it. Benjamin will die, and I will be inconsolable. Mom will grow weaker, and I will be forced to make huge, life-changing decisions. She will also, eventually, die. And I will be messed up beyond belief. Again. I will grow old, or sick, or both (thanks AIDS and the medicines that treat it! That's a freaking bunch). I will lose a friend, maybe two. And maybe along the way I will gain some. I don't know. I am afraid.
But nothing stays. Nothing is safe from change, from decay. From the manufactured obsolescence of the human body – and maybe the spirit too. I am different than I used to be, I know. I am less free spirited and free-willed than I was. I am more skeptical, more careful, more fearful. I do not know how to change back. But I do not wish to continue that mental and spiritual erosion, even as the things I love and treasure and rely upon erode around, and under me.
I cannot stay. And for th elife of me, I do not know where to turn or where to go.

My youngest ferret, Zachary, pokes his head out of the hammock in his cage and looks at me adoringly. He is definitely a “human” ferret, who sees me as a big, more or less hairless ferret who needs constant kisses and cuddles. Unlike Duncan, who is far more serious, Zachary is sweet, and giving, and wants nothing more than to belong, to be held, to be played with, kissed. When I leave the room, he follows me with his head cocked. Waiting for a treat he simply KNOWS is coming, a surprise that he simply KNOWS is going to be fantastic. And when I return, from a trip to the grocery store or a week with Mom, he greets me with enthusiasm, as though all is right with the world again, as if all he wants me to do is stay. Stay and play with him, stay and give him treats, and cuddles, and tickles, and kisses. Stay and watch television while he stares at me, half asleep, in rapture that only an animal can conjure.

I know, somewhere, there is something in me that can stay like that. Or find it again, if I've lost it. I only want to know where to look. I want to live with complete and foolish expectations, with passion, with the certainty that the things, the people I love will stay. I want to live without the fear of change. Because change happens, whether I fear it or not. People leave. People die. I do not want to be so fearful, so cringing, that I expect it. Ever. I want each death to hit me like a ton of bricks, each absence to be keenly felt. Because I do not want to be so jaded, so numb as to expect awful things, inevitable things, sadness and loss. I want to have the highs, since the lows come on their own.

I want to stay. I just want to stay.