For Kitty: Butterflies and Flowers in Winter

For my friend Kitty, aka Kathleen Suzanne Chrusciel.

I have a difficult bit of news to share. Earlier this week, I learned that Kitty, one of my online friends, had passed away. I had not seen her posts in a few weeks on Facebook, and one of her friends asked about doing a welfare check. On January 8, the Granite City, Illinois, police did just that, and discovered the sad news. She was 51.

Kitty was a member of an online group of friends known as the cheezpeeps, or cheezepeeps, or cheezfrenz. In the early 2000s, we hung out together on a website called icanhascheezburger (ICHC), where we all adopted fictitious names (I was Gremlin, named after my big orange kitty-boy), chatted in a variety of pidgin English called lolspeak, and hung out on the lol's (silly captioned pictures, generally of cats) trading witty repartee.

The ICHC site became amazingly popular. In fact, "the website was one of the most popular Internet sites of its kind, receiving as many as 1,500,000 hits per day at its peak in May 2007." Every few hours, a new lol was released. It was considered a challenge to be the "nawt sekkund" (very bad manners to yell "first!") person to post an appropriate and funny comment on a lol.

Eventually, changes were made to that website, and the people of the cheez, as we were known, migrated to Facebook, where we friended each other under our real names, for the first time. We had (and have) groups there, where we interact.

It might not surprise you to learn that there is a staunch undercurrent of animal rescue among this group. Many of its members have cats, love cats, and have participated in one way, shape or form, in a rescue transport; which is to say, getting a cat in need to a forever home, no matter how far away.

Kitty was one of the drivers for one or more rescue groups, offering her time and gas money to transport a needy cat from one place to another. She allowed her home to be used for overnight stays by such cats during transport. I don't know if this link will work for everybody, but here is a public Facebook posting by Imagine Home, a transport group she sometimes volunteered for, to provide a few more of the details.

My friend fell upon hard times, and as with all cheezpeeps, we found ways to help each other out. Sometimes it bears resemblance to having a set of fairy godmothers. There is a thing you need, and somehow, somebody finds a way to get it to you. I have learned first-hand the magic that can happen when even one single person steps forward and says these three special words: I can help.

I have been a helper, and I have been one of the ones who has been helped. A cheezpeep served as transporter from the airport where I arrived to a hotel in central Florida when I attended a conference. One showed up at the rustic cabin my husband I went to in the Finger Lakes for our honeymoon, bearing wine and fancy cheese. 

Yet another (visiting PA, all the way from India!) stood with me at the Nittany Lion Shrine on the day before my wedding, offering me comfort, and sharing big hugs, and listening to my tale of woe, as I explained that the man I loved was dying, dying, and I had to marry him to try to save his life! 

(Mission accomplished, folks; and now ensues the happily ever after.) Oh, and yes, that is the same friend who sent my parents the little elephant for their Christmas tree; and who sent me a set of glass animals you've seen on these pages several times.

I only share these stories to tell you that I have certified PROOF that there are good people out there, every single day, saving the world, or trying to, in every single way they know how, both big and little. My big sister Barb was a transporter on a leg of one of the Pennsylvania kitty rescues, by the way. I think I'm the one who got her into that, by sharing with her the hard-luck story; Barb sure could never resist one of those!

Anyway, I decided that I wanted to celebrate my friend's life by doing a frozen bubble photo shoot in her honor, and so here are some photos. It was 19 degrees out, and I took some of my mother's jewelry, and my bubbles and camera, and a few red berries from that lovely set of Christmas greens my friend Karen sent me, and headed for the backyard.

Above is one of my favorite photos of the set, full of flowers and butterflies and pretty things. In the extras is a shot of one of my bubbles, popping over the little blue circular pendant that reminded me of a mandala. (And by the way, the creation of a mandala signifies the transformation of a universe of suffering into one of joy. Or so I hear.)

I am sorry that Kitty has passed. However, I believe that my friend is not suffering now. She is not sorrowful now. She is whole, and well, and happy. She is not in a place where we can visit her in the same way we might have before. But she is still present, and alive, and permanent, and forever, and full of love and grace.

As I finished my photo shoot, I realized that I had not done one last thing. One year, at the Grange Fair, I bought a huge container of bubbles, with a very long bubble wand. I got it out and I ran around the snowy yard, blowing huge bubbles with it as I went.

The bubbles were so big and they popped so quickly that I wasn't able to capture any photos. They didn't even have time to FREEZE. But as they danced through the air, they put on a real show: transforming back and forth between pinks and teals, flashing in the light. As they popped, they made pink and teal shadows on the snow. It was one of the most joyful things I've seen!

It reminded me of that scene from a Disney movie, and I realized which one. In the end, as she gets her own happily ever after, Princess Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) is dancing with her Prince Charming, and the fairy godmothers are still fighting over what color her dress should be: sput PINK, sput BLUE!

There is one whom Kitty loved best on all the Earth, but he passed suddenly and unexpectedly a while ago. I like to believe that she and that special man have been reunited, and that she is dancing in his arms once again. Maybe her dress is even changing colors as they glide and spin and twirl with joy at being back together again: sput PINK, sput BLUE! Why not? Yes, I believe it's true. The BUBBLES told me so!

Go well, my friend.
We celebrate everything you are and were.
We will miss you.

I usually include a soundtrack song to go with my postings, and here is one that was a favorite of my friend Kitty: Champagne Supernova, by Oasis. So let's let that be our song for the day.

Bonus: further tales of the cheezpeeps:
The Dramagic Sky
And She's Climbing the Stairway to Heaven

Here is a link to more of this photo set on Instagram.
As always, here is a link to my canonical bubble making tips.