Sandy

By Beverly Ann Flynn

Sandy is an 85-year-old woman. All her friends are dead, and she is wondering why she is still here. But as we review her entire life, the answer becomes perfectly clear. As she waits patiently for the next person to arrive in her life, she continues to water her plants, watch the hummingbirds dance in her backyard, and enjoy the musical serenade of her collection of wind chimes. A motivational and inspired tale.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 31, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667877174

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Also by Beverly Ann Flynn

Tangled Lights

Copyright 2022

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 978-1-66787-716-7 (print)

ISBN: 978-1-66787-717-4(eBook)

Contents

1—Dead Pets and New Friends

2—The Visit

3—Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire

4—A Clarinet Worth Two Weeks’ Detention

5—Matchmakers

6—I’ll Always Love You

7—The Popularity Contest

8—Peter and Bill

9—How Sandy met Bill

10—A Lucky Day at the Track

11—Changes in the Wind

12—A Lie Well Stuck to is as Good as the Truth

13—Oh, to be Born Again

14—Count Your Lucky Friends

15—Peter’s Death

16—If Sandy Had Had a Son, He Would Have Been Like Adam.

17—Office Intrigue

18—History Repeats Itself

19—A Case of Serendipitous Synchronicity

20—Confessions

21—The Arrest

22—Mr. Collier

23—The Trial

24—The Jury Deliberates

25—A Toast to Smiling

26—A Life Well Lived

27—Message from a Hummingbird

28—How to Free a Caged Hummingbird

29—Maybe…

1

Dead Pets and New Friends

All of her friends were dead. Brenda was the last to go, so when she died in 1996, Sandy had thought that she would be going soon as well and so there was really no need to make any new friends. And besides, all of her friends had been such perfect friends that she would never be able to replace them and so it wasn’t even worth the effort to try. Their memories were more than enough. That was, however, twenty-some years ago. She had spent the last twenty-two years anticipating her death, but to her chagrin, she was still here. She had not planned on living to be eighty-five years old, yet here she was.

The subject of her death came up quite often in her consciousness. Sandy was not afraid of death. Death, as she had often mused, was a subject with which she was intimately familiar. Not her own death, of course, but the deaths of those around her, beloved family members and cherished friends. Then she laughed out loud as she thought of all her dead pets as well. Her childhood pets were, in fact, her first experiences with death. That’s probably the case with a lot of us. As children, many of us first learn about death through the loss of our beloved pets. We flush dead goldfish down the toilet as our mother tells us they are going to fish heaven. We bury a favorite dog under a tree with a headstone our father designed. We cry when we have to take an adored cat to the vet to be put down. Most of us have had to do that, and it is an experience that can stay with us for quite a while, even as adults. But the experience can be even more traumatic as children because we are still forming our overall concept and understanding of death.

The first pet that Sandy could remember from childhood, a pet whom she had loved and who had died, was a kitten named Silky. She had found Silky buried in a pile of leaves. She had been walking home from school and had heard a faint mewing sound coming from the pile of leaves that had amassed under a rather large oak tree. When she investigated, she discovered a tiny grey and white kitten, no bigger than her hand, which was the hand of a six-year-old little girl. She gently picked up the kitten and knew right away that she would keep her, and that her name would be Silky because she was so soft.

Sandy had only owned Silky for a few months when the dog next door, a brown and white beagle named Felix, crawled under the fence separating the two houses. Silky had been in the backyard perusing the red and yellow zinnias, and so was caught by surprise when Felix grabbed her with his jaws and shook her so hard that he broke her neck. Felix seemed totally stunned by the result of his actions. He stood over Silky for quite a while, puzzled, just looking at the lifeless kitten as if trying to understand why it was not moving or talking. After all, he had only wanted to play. Felix had a favorite stuffed animal that he shook quite often in the same way that he had shaken Silky, and it would make mewing sounds and then run off if the batteries were fresh enough, and he had assumed that the same thing would happen with this live toy.

Sandy had witnessed the whole episode from her back porch. She yelled at Felix, and sensing her anger, Felix whined a bit as if to say he was sorry, then crawled back under the fence. Sandy ran and grabbed the kitten, hoping against hope that it was still alive, although deep down inside, she knew the answer. So she lovingly picked up Silky and very gently carried her inside to show her mother.

Sandy and her neighborhood friends buried Silky in a little shoe box which they had lined with leftover green fabric that her mother had given her. Her mother had also made a little green pillow for Silky’s head to rest on. They held an official memorial service that included a song from Cindy Lee who lived in the next block, and a eulogy from Tommie Walters, who owned the dog that broke Silky’s neck. Tommie had been extremely sad and apologized profusely for what had happened; Sandy had not wanted to accept his apology initially but her mother had told her to be kind and forgiving. It was not Tommie’s fault. Sandy had disagreed, but when Tommie offered to do the eulogy, she softened a bit. The eulogy was beautiful and fitting for a kitten who had only seen a few months of life. And as Sandy thought about it, she smiled as she knew this was a foretelling of Tommie’s adult career choice, as he was now a very famous television evangelist.

That was her first experience with death. Even though she had only been six years old at the time, it had affected her internally in ways that she had not been able to put into words. Her six-year-old mind could not fathom death. She did not even know that the question she wanted to ask was: what was the reason for death? Why didn’t we just live forever? No, she did not yet know how to formulate the right questions to arrive at the right answers. But at six years old, she did learn something from Silky’s death that stayed with her. What she had learned from Silky’s death and what she had not been able to express at the time was that there are no guarantees in life. Nothing lasts forever, and so you have to enjoy every second. She should have played with her more. She should have picked her up and held her and stroked her more. From Silky’s death, she learned that you have to live every moment because you never know which one is going to be the last.

Then there was Wratchet. Wratchet came into her life when she had been around ten years old. Wratchet was an Airedale terrier who loved freedom. He had left behind his original owner long ago, and had had several other owners before he arrived at Sandy’s house. He showed up in Sandy’s front yard in early summer, with only a tag that said Wratchet but no other information. But he had an enthusiasm and joy that was contagious, and Sandy immediately fell in love with him and begged her parents to let her keep him. Initially, they had wanted to call animal control and let them deal with the dog. Sandy, though, kept begging her parents to allow him to stay. It took a few days, but eventually they relented because Wratchet had actually begun to grow on them as well. His enthusiasm for life was undeniable, and so his mere presence made everyone else enthusiastic.

There were, however, a few issues with Wratchet. He loved to run free. He would constantly escape from their yard, no matter what they did to try to contain him. They put barriers around all the possible places he could dig a hole. That deterred him for a while until he discovered that he could simply jump the fence. Sandy’s dad thought about putting barbed wire along the top of the fence, but that was as far as it got--just a thought--because he realized that it could endanger not only the dog, but the humans living there as well. So two or three times a month, Wratchet would jump the fence, run happily down the street until he disappeared, be gone a few days, and then come back home. But then one day he didn’t.

When Wratchet didn’t come home, Sandy assumed that he had moved on to another family. But then they found out later that Wratchet had been hit by a pickup truck as he was racing across the street to return home. He had only been a few blocks away. Tommie had seen him lying in the street, and had also seen the city animal control people remove his body. Sandy was very stoic when she heard the news but cried in private for her friend Wratchet for several days. Wratchet had taught her that running free, spreading joy and enthusiasm, was more important than anything, and he had been willing to die for it.

Throughout her high school years, she had had a cat named Bella. Sandy had always considered cats as the royalty of the animal world, as they were distant cousins to the proud and mighty lion, the king of the jungle. Bella did not disappoint. Bella was as regal as any cat should be. She walked with a natural grace, and any cat owner is familiar with that grace. That natural grace and dignity possessed by all feline creatures, came from, Sandy believed, the innate, internal knowledge that Bella and all her relatives possessed. Bella understood that she was connected to some greatness that could not be denied, and so it was her prerogative to express that universal dignity and royal demeanor with every step she took. Yet Bella was also the most sensitive of any animal she had ever been lucky enough to own, although luck really had nothing to do with it. Bella had her own life, and so was not constantly looking to be held or stroked by Sandy, which Sandy appreciated. Yet on those days where Sandy needed a friend, Bella instinctively knew, and so she would stop whatever she was doing, whether it be personal grooming, or batting at pillows, and would jump on Sandy’s lap and rub her head against her arm as if to say, I know you are hurting. I am here. I am always here to remind you where you came from. You came from royalty. Be strong.

Bella died on the day Sandy graduated from high school. Bella had always been an indoor cat, and so everyone had always been careful to make sure the front door was closed so that she could not get out. But because it was graduation day, and because they were running late because Sandy had misplaced her mortarboard and it took an extra ten minutes to find it, all of the excitement had caused them to rush out of the house without completely closing the front door.

Their house was in an area that backed up to the mountains, and so there were plenty of coyotes around. It was common knowledge that if you owned small pets, you had to be extremely careful that they did not go outside because they were particularly vulnerable to being killed and eaten by coyotes. In the evenings, sometimes you would hear their hauntingly scary howls when they had made a dinner conquest. Many a neighborhood cat or small dog had been devoured during these howlings. So because the front door had been left ajar, Bella got out after they left for the graduation ceremony and unfortunately became some lucky coyote’s dinner.

When they returned home later that evening and realized that the front door had been left open, they knew immediately the dire consequences that it could portend. They began searching for Bella; Sandy checked all of her favorite hiding spots--under the bed, behind the planter, inside the pantry. But after about ten minutes of searching, Sandy and her mother came to the same realization--Bella had ventured outside and had become a coyote’s dinner.

Sandy spent the next few days pondering on and celebrating the life of her departed feline friend. Sandy realized that what Bella had taught her was to never forget where you came from, that you are tied to royalty--and that is always there inside of you--so do not be afraid to show it. Yet at the same time, do not hesitate to aid anyone when they are in that space where they have forgotten who they are.

In her early twenties, Sandy owned a bird, a cockatiel named Cam (short for Cameron). She kept Cam’s cage in her bedroom. Cam loved to sing, and every morning while she was still in bed, she would wake up to his serenade to the new day. Then she would take him out of his cage, and he would climb gingerly onto the back of her hand, and then, at just the right moment, he would begin singing again.

A few years later, Sandy got married, and when they moved into their first apartment, she brought Cam along. Sandy’s husband, though, had not been a big fan of the cockatiel, nor of the attention Sandy gave to him. Cockatiels were supposed to be able to live for ten to twenty years with good care, but Cam died within the first six months of her marriage. He had been only three years old. At the time, while being heartbroken over Cam’s death, she had never made a connection between her husband’s feelings toward the bird and the bird’s wellbeing. But over the years, whenever she thought about Cam, she had begun to reflect on that. Nothing could be done about it now, but she had learned from Cam’s death that thoughts, negative thoughts, do have an actual effect, and that her beautiful songbird may have picked up on her husband’s negative thoughts and died. Maybe it was Cam’s way of warning her of what was to happen. That would have been just like Cam.

What Sandy learned from Cam was joyful expectation. Whatever had happened the previous day, no matter how trying or sad, tomorrow was another day and so we can only hope that it will be better, different. Cam’s joyful serenade to each new day always inspired her to be hopeful, to always have faith that today, the new day, would be better than the day before.

Over the years, Sandy counted that she had owned, or rather shared, an animal/personal relationship with about six dogs, three cats, several parakeets, and one cockatiel, each one going to his or her death in various ways, and leaving Sandy still standing, albeit a little bit taller and a little bit wiser. What Sandy had learned from the death of each of her pets, and for that matter, from the death of her friends as well, is that life moves on, but they always stay in your heart. If you are lucky, sometimes something better comes along to replace what was lost. But then she reminded herself again that there was really no such thing as luck.

Today on the first Saturday in April, Sandy stood at the kitchen sink in the early afternoon washing dishes, distracted off and on by two hummingbirds fighting over the sweet red liquid in the feeder hanging just outside the window. Having seen them fight many times before through her kitchen window, she already knew what the results would be. She knew that the red and green colored male whom she had named Jethro was going to win the fight because Opti, the bluish green colored male, was not nearly as fierce as Jethro. Nor as strategic. Their altercation always started the same way. Opti would fly in from the trees across the street. Jethro was always hovering, as he was the self-appointed emperor and therefore, protector of the hummingbird feeder. Opti knew this, but nevertheless, he would fly directly towards the feeder, and when he was about three inches away from dipping his beak into the feeder, Jethro would swoop in and block Opti from his mission. They would argue, swoop around in a scary fashion, and then finally Opti would fly away to fight again another day. Hence his name. He was Opti, the eternal optimist.

She had seen them fight so many times that it was almost boring, and so her thoughts wandered to a totally different subject, different but familiar and extremely mundane. She periodically had a discussion with herself about the pros and cons of using paper plates rather than real dishes. She had settled the argument in her mind, but every once in a while, it would re-emerge when she had an usually large number of dishes to clean and put away. Earlier that day, she had had the urge for lasagna for dinner, which required a lot of chopping and cutting and mixing and cooking, so it took her a while to clean up from the meal. Hence, the topic came up again, paper plates and plastic utensils, pros and cons. On the pro side, using disposable plates and utensils would save a lot of time, and she could get to her television watching sooner.

Sandy had once actually conducted an experiment to scientifically determine the answer. She had purchased the sturdiest and most expensive paper plates, bowls and plastic disposable cutlery. But after actually using the disposable dishes and cutlery