Illegal Foreign Object

I never hear the word “scuffling” without thinking of my dad. He used it often to describe a baseball player who was working hard at the plate, but coming up short. Rafael Palmiero had one of the most prolonged bouts of scuffling I’ve ever witnessed during the summer of ’89. He was hitting everything that was thrown at him, and far too much of it found a glove. This isn’t a baseball post, however — just something that popped into my head when I accepted that today, I too am scuffling.

It’s an emotional scuffle — one that was brought about by a cat bed that I saw in a store this morning. It was a tiny pedestal — gold and deep green — and my Magnolia would have loved it because it was most certainly a throne fit my little queen.

You know, the thing about losing someone you love is that you don’t have anywhere to put that love once they’re gone. That love doesn’t just get divvied up amongst the other people and pets that remain in your life because that’s not how that works. We all love each other differently, right? I love my mom differently than my sister loves my mom. I love my friends differently than they love me. Not more or less, just differently, and when you’re no longer able to, for lack of a better term, give that particular love to that particular person or pet, it (at least in my case) manifests itself in sadness.

I still have so much love to offer the world, but it hit me today that that very specific way in which I loved Magnolia will never be expressed or felt again, nor will the way she loved me, and I’d be lying to you if I told you that realization didn’t crush me.

Look, life is good. Life should be celebrated because death is fucking atrocious and I’ll not let anyone tell me any different. I don’t care how bad it gets, this is still better than nothing. Piss on death. All that “great reward” shit does nothing to satiate me — “golden” this and “sapphire” that reads like Liberace’s bathroom, not a sweet-ass eternity. Love hard, folks, because when it’s gone, it’s gone.

Anyway, I’m a rollercoaster, today. Luckily, I’ve got a ballgame to watch and since my beloved Rangers are sitting at home this year, I’m rooting for a buddy’s hometown team.

Go Tigers.