I would like to say a few words about Tux the Kittycat but, first, I would like to talk to you about my Steel Magnolias Experience. If you’re familiar with the movie, it’s about women who come together from different walks of life. They spend time in the salon, talking to one another, visiting with one another, gossiping about neighbors, etc. But then, the beautiful part of this movie that makes me cry every single time is, during times of trouble (and each one of these women has gone through some tough situation), the women come together, hold hands, laugh, joke at each other, tease one another, love each other fiercely, and they have each other’s back: always. That is something that I think was so powerful for me. Now, in the interest of research of course, I watched the movie again, just to make sure I understood which parts I really wanted to share in the context of today’s podcast. The part that came to me was the funeral scene toward the end of the movie, where one of the characters has died and the mother of this character is in despair—horrible grief—doesn’t know what to do with herself, having been so devoted to her daughter over all the years. She wants to be in her own space but the other women cannot leave the funeral. They see her there and they’re drawn to her. They stand with her. And then they start to do what a lot of us do in these situations. They try to make small talk, light of this situation, to help this woman unglue herself from the gravesite and move on with her day, basically. Because that’s what we all feel! We’re so uncomfortable. We don’t want to sit in this really awkward, painful space, and we want other people we care about, who we can see hurting, to do the same thing. This woman couldn’t. She needed to be there. She wanted to be connected as long as she possibly could, to her daughter, even though her daughter had died. So, one of the women starts talking about God and described how she would pray to God, and where her daughter is right now and how that should be such a wonderful thing, and how she should be joyful.
2:25 But the mother isn’t ready to hear that. As a matter of fact, she says, ‘that’s great for you, basically, but, maybe I’m selfish. I’m not ready to do that’. And the other women sit there and they’re not really sure how to proceed, so they’re just quiet. But then, as happens, someone else says something, and the mom realizes a thought. She says, “Men are supposed to be made of steel”. ‘I sat with my daughter. My husband left, her husband left: it was just me and my daughter’. She drifted into my life, just me and her, and she drifted out the same way—just me and her. And the mother went on talking about how she’s all hooked up to these machines but, at the time of her daughter’s death after they had decided to unplug her machines, all there was, was peace—no noise from the machines—just peace. That was such a beautiful moment, and it definitely brings tears to my eyes, because sometimes the last thing we feel at death is peace.
3:33 The mom actually displays this in part of the movie where she starts to shake her head. I’m just going to confess that the actress is Sally Field. If you have ever watched some of her movies, during very emotional times, she shakes her head in a way almost to shake the bad feelings out of her head. I have always been so impressed by her because she does express herself so well as an actress, which—hello—she’s amazing! But anyway, she’s shaking her head, saying, “I just wish somebody would tell it to my heart”. ‘I know what my mind says I should do, but my heart does not feel the same way’. And then, someone else came up to her and put a hand on her, and she would say, “I’m fine.” “I’m fine.”, “I’m fine. I’m fine!” “I’m Fine!!!” Five “I’m fine”s before she just loses control; this control that she has had all along.
4:32 She says, “I just want to hit something!” so, what happens? The other character brings over the punching-bag character in this movie, and she says, “Well, hit her!!” Everyone looks, including the woman who is being offered up as a punching bag. ‘What are you talking about? Are you crazy? I can’t just—no! No! I’m not your punching bag, and no way are you going to let her hit me!’ Sally Field’s character starts to laugh, and then they all start to laugh. And suddenly, that moment of just—aahh, what’s the word? Immobilization–immobilizing grief—has been broken. And there’s a little bit of joy in the darkest day of this woman’s life.
5:30 And there they were together—friends—and then of course, the mom, Sally Field’s character, says, well I’ve gotta go. Gotta get back to it. There’s people waiting for me. I have to get back into life and the expectations that people have on me as the grieving mother. I’ve gotta go put on that mask now. “Hey, anyone got a mirror?”, “Yeah, I’ve got a mirror”, I’ve gotta this-gotta that, and they’re laughing all the down to the vehicles.
6:00 The last part that I want to bring is about the men in these women’s lives. They’re all walking to the cars, preparing to go to the wake and, one by one, each women looks at the mom, Sally Field’s character, and they know they can’t leave. They have got to go her side. And you see the men—they don’t understand it—but they know they’re powerless to try to encourage them to stay, and one by one they get into their car, and they wait.
6:31 So, you guys have heard me mention this phrase that I coined—Whimsy and Tears—and I think that this movie really does exemplify that phrase; that through the worst grief ever, there is laughter. There is another part at the very end of the movie where Sally Field goes to retrieve her grandson who someone else is caring for. She sees the grandson. The woman puts the child on the ground and the child walks to his grandma. The joy that overtook Sally Field’s face in that moment just again shows that even in the darkest times it’s possible to have Whimsy and Tears. This idea of joy in the midst of pain. That was such a beautiful, poignant part of the film, and there’s more beyond that, but I suggest that you go watch the movie and find those parts for yourself that resonate. Find your own Whimsy and Tears. Find your own immobilizing grief and how it can be broken with someone who really loves and cares about you and knows how to intervene when it’s needed.
7:42
So now—Tux. This is a tribute to Tux the Cat. Actually he’s a kitten. He was a kitten. So it was Saturday and I was at the salon, getting my hair colored again, because I can’t stand to go gray. It was a packed house because it was a Saturday. The stylist and I were talking about what to do with my hair next. As she was stepping away to prepare the color she stopped over at the main desk and that’s where there seemed to be a lot of action happening and of course I didn’t know what was happening, but when she came back, she explained that the other stylist had found a kitten in a box and brought the kitten to the salon to care for and take home because, to the woman, she thought the kitten had been abandoned. She took the kitten. She was watching over the kitten. My stylist was watching over the kitten. Other stylists were coming to look at the kitten, as well as a couple of customers, etc. So then my stylist comes over and she is starting to apply color to my hair. If any of you know what this means it’s that they separate your pieces of hair, they put a piece of foil, they put on the color. It’s kind of a long process. So she was about a third of the way done when the cat started screeching. Apparently, according to all of the voices saying, “This cat’s having a seizure”, ‘he’s having a seizure’, and the cat began to squeal. It was heartbreaking to hear. All activity in the shop seemed to stop at that moment. Some people rushed to the kitty cat and were trying to stroke it to calm it down and to help it through the seizure. My stylist was one of them. I’m watching this unfold out of the corner of my eye because they were behind me, and I’m looking at my one-third-done hair and I hear, “This cat needs a vet! This cat needs medical care immediately!” We don’t know what to do!
9:44 So I pick up my phone and I think: who can I call? Who would know the answer to this question of how to take care of this kitty? So I made the call. I got a reference to call somebody else, who then told me to call somebody else, and ultimately I got a hold of Animal Control, and they offered to come over and get the cat, or at least assess the cat and decide what we wanted to do. This was not my cat. I did not find this cat. I did not claim to want to take care of this cat but, I saw a way to be helpful, so I did it. What I did not expect was that the woman who had found the cat and brought it to the salon did not look very excited about the fact that I had called on Animal Control. I don’t know if that’s true, she never said anything to me, but the look on her face gave me this feeling that I had made a huge mistake. So as I sat there with one-third of my hair done and then finally one-half of my hair done, waiting for the Animal Control officer and my stylist running back and forth taking care of the kitten, I began to doubt my actions. I began to wonder if I should have intervened at all.
10:55 Maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut. Maybe I should have just scrolled through my phone and ignored what was going on around me. I couldn’t! I couldn’t because I saw despair, I saw chaos. I saw sadness, and I heard this little kitten struggling. I could not do nothing. I decided at that moment that I was willing to take whatever heat I got from the decision I had made but that I would not interfere any further.
11:30 So, I sat there with half my hair done for another, I don’t know how long, weighed ‘what are my choices here?’ I could ask her to rinse me out and I can get on my way and be done with this. I could sit here with my half my hair colored and let the dye do whatever the dye and the chemicals do and potentially lose half my hair (laugh). I didn’t know. So I waited a little bit longer. I prayed that the little kitten would be okay and that the people that were caring for him wouldn’t hate me. And I decided that if I needed to go bald on behalf of this kitty, I would do it.
12:07 So then logic took over and I decided, rather, to walk up to my stylist, just very quietly, and say, “Is it okay that this color has been on my hair this long?” She explained that it wasn’t a dangerous color and that it would be totally fine. I went and sat down and waited a little longer. When Animal Control came they were able to assess the kitty. They could not obviously determine whether the cat had had a seizure but, really, what the stylist wanted to know was what was the next step. The Animal Control officer was there for quite awhile. She picked up the cat, kind of gave it a quick assessment, reassured the people standing around, that the cat looked maybe older than four weeks but that he didn’t appear to be imminently dying.
12:57 So that brought a bit of elevation to a very dark mood and people had a sense of relief, as I think I saw. For myself—here we go—Whimsy and Tears—as I was getting up to get rinsed off finally, after all the application of the hair color, the Animal Control officer was holding the kitten and that kitten did just one of those kitty-cat stretches that makes me smile every time I see it. It was almost as though, in that second, the kitty was saying, “I’m okay. I feel good. I feel like I’m a kitty”. I was reassured enough, so I got my hair rinsed, and then she blow-dried it, and then I asked, “Can I just touch the little kitty’s head?” They let me do that, so I scratched his little head and he was responsive and sweet. I left that salon looking amazing, because my hairdresser is very conscientious and wants to make sure that she leaves her clients walking out of there—amazing!
14:04 I sat in my car and I cried. I turned off the radio. I couldn’t have any joy in that moment because the feeling of having interfered in a way that made somebody upset weighed on my heart, but I decided that I was just going to go home. I would have a cup of tea, and I would just let this feeling pass. The stylist ended up calling this little kitten Tux, and there was discussion about who was going take Tux home and who was going to be the owner of Tux. Ughhhh.
14:39 So I checked in later to see how little Tux was doing. I didn’t get a response until the next day. Little Tux actually had died that evening. He was doing well after the seizure but then, within a few hours, he started vomiting again and eventually his little body went limp, and that was the end of little Tux. But, in that second, when I got to see his little body stretching, and when I went in to peek on him one last time before I left, his little kitten body was curled up as kittens do, with his head tucked in, and his breathing looked great, and he really did look like he was going to make it. It is very sad that he didn’t. And, for all the people who put in so much effort that day, I don’t think they thought that their efforts were in vain. I don’t think anyone in that room felt bad about taking time out of their day to be with this little kitty, to support the people around this little kitty, to be grateful for that officer who came immediately to respond to the call for help.
15:42 It was in that moment that I was able to let go of the guilt, or whatever you want to call it, for interfering, because whatever preconceived notions those people may have had about Animal Control? She was amazing. She took care of that kitten and she gave us all reassurance. It didn’t come to the end that we had hoped for but, for that little moment, seeing that little kittycat being a kitty was so comforting, and his little face will bring me joy for a long time.
16:12 So, as I finish this message today, I just want to reiterate this importance of looking for the laughter, looking for the joy—not to erase or escape—just to recognize that it’s possible to have joy and sadness in the same situation. One does not hide or cover the other. It’s just the way our heart works.
I’m thankful you listened today.
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Show note:
Podcast: While We’re Still Here
email: [email protected]
Steel Magnolias, 1989, directed by Herbert Ross.