We've Only Just Begun

We've Only Just Begun
More Books Beyond Our Trilogy : We'll Be Filling All These Bookshelves!

Monday

Lizard Chapter 22: It's All About Love

If a girl can look at a beat-up lizard and think that he is one of the most lovable and beautiful creatures on the planet, what does God and his angels see when they look at her?  If a seemingly-ordinary lizard can be worth many days of her time and her care, what does God want to do for her.  For all of us?  Lizards, sparrows, dogs, people, we are all loved.  We are all cherished.  We are all wanted.

And when it is our time to go, it is our time to go.  She had learned from me and from her father that to linger is not an answer.  To leave in one's prime is quite good.  As she looks at Mr. Lizard and wonders if, maybe tonight is the night when he will cross over, she knows it will be okay.  She knows that wherever he goes from here will be safer and warmer and kinder than surviving the cold-blooded planet he has called home.   




© 2015 Kate McGahan

Friday

Lizard Chapter 21: Making The Most of Things

Whether he couldn't or whether he wouldn't, Lizard didn't leave.  In the ninth week they decided to make the most of things. She invited him to join her for Happy Hour. 

While she was writing our book, she read aloud to him and he helped her to edit it. It was really fun for him to hear the parts that were written about him. He said, "I must be about the only lizard anyone cared enough to put in an autobiography." 


Actual Photo of Lizard on the Wall and Our .doc Book

She taught him how to use the computer and he even helped us to type this blog. 



Wednesday

Lizard Chapter 20: Giving Him Permission to Leave

Lizard Sits Beneath the Stucco Wall He Used to Call "Home"
She did not know why Lizard wouldn't do anything of his own accord. He would stay wherever she put him. If she put him on the wall he would wait on the wall until she took him off. If she put him on the bench he would wait on the bench. She wished he would take control to take care of himself and return to the wild, but days, weeks, even months passed. She never saw him eat. She gave him water from the dropper every couple of days. She left him outside all night and he would be in the same place in the same position the next morning. 

One morning she picked him up. She told him that it was really okay if he wanted to return to where he came from. She did not want him to feel prisoner. She said she was happy to help him. She also wanted to know he was free to go. 



She told him how much she loved him. She thanked him for taking care of me and her Dad and her.  She looked at his green and grey scaly skin and told him he was beautiful.  She petted his head and his body and his tail and called him "beautiful". 


He replied, Don't take the log out of another's eye until you take the tree out of your own.  She heard this but did not understand. She thought about the cactus needle she had removed from his eye and how it had hurt him to have it removed. She knew it would surely hurt if she had one--a bigger one--in her own eye.  

She nodded off, with him on the warmth of her arm ...and when she awakened she knew what he meant.  

Tuesday

Lizard Chapter 19: THE LEARNING CONTINUES


Reptiles are the oldest beings on the planet. He said he didn't know about alligators and crocs, but that lizards and snakes and others are very wise and are very old souls. They come back again and again and every time they do they learn more and they advance into higher consciousness. Lizard said he probably wouldn't be coming back to earth again. He felt he had reached his highest point and that is why he felt it was now or never to get his message out to others.  

Even Joey, Kate's other dog, an expert lizard hunter and lizard catching would calmly stand by in a vigil for lizard.  




Both of them seem to be frowning...
It had been almost two weeks with Kate. His destiny seems to have been fulfilled. He could have traveled to a house where they would come after him with broom and dustpan just to throw him in the garbage heap. He traveled, instead, to a place that was a safe haven, a house of respect, respite and kindness. 



Lizard Finds a Slice of Shade Atop the Rose Quartz Rock

Saturday

Lizard Chapter 18: LEARNING TO CARE and GETTING TO KNOW LIZARD


Each day was the same, he'd get puffed up and alert. Each night was the same: long nights of not moving at all. Lots of times she couldn't tell if he was alive or not because he didn't move at all. She couldn't see him breathing.

Each night she prepared for his death, but the next day would come again, same thing. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday he positioned himself on the side of the footstool by her chair and stayed there.  From just past noon straight through the evening.  He never moved a muscle. 

She put him on soft pretty fabrics to keep him comfortable, but lizards are not like people. They only get their claws caught in the fine strands of the fabric and then they are prisoners of the fabric until someone comes to let them go. So that wasn't working too well.

She felt kind of bad that she hadn't bought a heatlamp for him so she started microwaving a thing full of beans that would stay warm for a long time. She would heat it up and then lay him on top of it after it was just warm to the touch. Still, every night, he looked just like death.

Every night she sang him "Amazing Grace" and stressed the part about 'I once was blind but now I see".  As soon as she started singing, he would start breathing really deeply and she could see his lungs go in and out. He would seem dead until she began to sing and then he would be very much alive. I think he was responding to her voice, I'm not sure what that was all about. 

If She Sang to Him During the Daylight Hours, Lizard was All Ears. He love to hear her sing.



In the mornings she would take him outside and after about an hour he'd start Coming To. The day came when he would start moving his head back and forth, like a compass, when she moved him. Then he started opening his one good eye. He would open it long enough to look at her and to see where she was taking him; to see that she was there, and then he would close it again. 

"What is it that you want?" she asked him while he sat there motionless.  
"Did you come to me for help?"  
"Did you come here to die?"  She got no answer.  
"Is there something you want me to do for you?" 
She sat with him very quietly, almost as still as he was.  
Yes. Yes he said. There is something I want you to do for me. 
"Just tell me what you want and I will do it for you."



He told her he wanted her to write his story. He told her that a life well-lived needed to be written. He told her of all the creatures of the earth that he had come to this world to help cross over the rainbow bridge. He said that he would be crossing over one day too. Him and many many others. He wanted her to let people know that there is more to the world than meets the eye. He wanted her to share his story so that they would know there is more to a lizard than meets the eye; there is more to everything than it seems at first glance.  

Wednesday

LIZARD Chapter 17: TRYING TO KEEP LIZARD ALIVE

She'd put him outside in the morning in the sun to charge him up. 



But the birds kept coming around and she was afraid they would eat him.  So she found a laundry basket and put him under that to protect him.



...But the moment she walked into the house he got right out.  


So she figured he could get back in if he needed to. She set his favorite red rock outside the basket and he sunned himself on that in the shadow of the basket.

She would spray him from time to time with "Nature's Antibiotic", a natural immune fighter. She figured it couldn't hurt. She was concerned that it had been over a week since he showed up and he hadn't had anything at all to eat.  

The next day she went to PetSmart. She wanted to find food that he would want to eat. They suggested crickets. She cringed. She loved every creature on the earth and she didn't want to buy the crickets just to be preyed upon, but then she figured that this was their destiny anyway. So she bought 20 of them and she bought some mealy worms too. Then she bought an aquarium--not to contain Mr. Lizard, but to contain the crickets and the worms so that he could eat them. 

She would put Lizard in the sun all morning and then she would put him into his Cafe Aquarium for the afternoon. 


It seemed quite a good set up.  Rocks and branches and crickets and worms and herbs and carrots and spinach and a little tray full of water.  


He spent all day one day laying in the tray of water.  Meanwhile the crickets walked all over him -- around his mouth and head. His eyes were still closed. The worms creeped alongside him. He paid no attention to any of them.





The worms ate the carrots and then the crickets started eating the worms.

He didn't seem to be benefitting from the "restaurant".  She bought canned crickets and mushed them up in water and fed him with an eye dropper. He took a little bit of them but not much. 



When she bought the canned crickets she was told "Be careful because they will start eating him if he isn't active and if he doesn't eat them."

This aquarium "restaurant" idea wasn't working out too well. 

Sunday

Lizard Chapter 16: THE CYCLE of DEATH AND REBIRTH of a LIZARD



An hour later the sun was pouring down on him and he was once again puffed up, standing erect and walking and hopping around on her lap and on the bench outside where they were. She was very happy to see him so active.  She thought he might have a chance. There were no more traces of blood on him and his bad eye even seemed to be healing for by morning, Monday, it was no longer caved-in; it just looked closed. 

She placed him on the stucco wall where he had always been at home.
He stayed wherever she put him. He wouldn't move.
Mr Lizard never opened his eyes. She wondered if he was blind. She knew he wasn't deaf because he seemed to hear her in the moments when he was alert. She also found out that he was quite sensitive to her because when she would fill up with tears or fight crying he would respond to her instantly, turning his head towards her.  She never communicated with him quite the way I did, but she and Mr. Lizard, they seemed to be coming to some understandings.




She talked to him a lot. She gave him choices. He could stay inside with her. He could go outside. He could leave. He could stay. He could live. He could die. Whatever he wanted, she said, it was okay. She would help in every way possible to see it through.



 She lay her hands upon him in the hopes of healing him.


She used crystal healing methods.


She surrounded him with warmth and love.


 She was told by the Pet Store expert that she needed to keep him warm, especially while he was healing. She refused to buy a $50 heatilator lightbulb -- but she did set up a little house for him inside until the nighttime temperatures warmed up. She put him outside all day and brought him in at night.
He just stayed pretty much wherever she put him.  


She put a pillow with my photo on it beside him at night so that I could "watch over him". She didn't need to do that, I was watching over him anyway.  

She had concern from time to time about why he was back in her life. The last two times when he was with her, someone died in her family. She wondered if he was an omen or a bearer of bad news, but so far everything seemed okay.

Saturday

Lizard Chapter 15: Caregiving




In the morning she went to him gently to take him and place him in the towel to take him to the path for burial, but he was still alive! So instead she took him outside when the morning sun hit the front porch and he came back to life. He puffed up, stood up, even took an eyedropper of water from her. His injured eye was swollen; the other looked almost shut. She loved and cared for him.




As the day passed he got very quiet and still again. Once again she prepared for his demise. She slept on the couch nearby and in the morning he was in the same position as he was the night before. It was Sunday. She went to lift him off the towel and, once again, very slowly, his head moved from side to side at the disturbance. He was very slow to rouse and this gave her a chance to look closely at his injured eye. She cleaned the blood off of it with sprays of water--he continued to sleep. She then saw something small and thin and straight coming out of his eye and it seemed to be an insect stinger or a cactus needle. She got her tweezers and very very delicately she grabbed the needle and pulled. He coiled around and writhed in pain for about 10 seconds and then he was totally still again. She was afraid she may have killed him.



Mr. Lizard needed all the help he could get.
She started studying up on lizards and found out he was probably a Clark's Spiny Lizard.  

Friday

Lizard Chapter 14: PAYBACK TIME

All of a sudden, Mr. Lizard took her by surprise for he jumped high up onto the right arm of her jacket. His left hand clasped the string of her hood and his other hand and feet grabbed on tight. She didn't know quite what to make of it so she she just walked into the house and sat on the couch and let him cling to her arm. Dinner was in the oven but she turned the oven off and forgot about dinner. She didn't care about anything but Mr. Lizard. 



He would still be clinging to her arm now if she could have been sitting there this long! She eventually slid her arm out of the jacket and left him on it, still clinging to the drawstring. She placed him on a flat pillow on a towel on her jacket and she proceeded to sleep on the couch next to him all night. She was sure he was dying he was so still and silent. She prepared to bury him up on the trail with my ashes the next morning, which was Saturday.



By the way I don't know much about cameras and colors but many photos of Mr. Lizard have purple clouds in them. Maybe it was just the reflection from her jacket, or maybe it was something else.






LIZARD Chapter 13: LIZARD RETURNS

One week in early March Spring broke through. The sun came out and warmed the earth and the trees. It awakened the birds and the bees. Buds started forming on branches and there were even blossoms on the peach trees. She had been healing little by little from the losses. She still had far to go. She wondered if Spring was awakening Lizard too.



It was a Friday night and she was in the mood to stay home, but she had to mail a package at the post office to go out by morning. She got into her car, drove to the post office, ran a couple more errands and returned home. As she drove up the road and approached the house she saw something light-colored on the blacktop ahead of her. "Is that what I think it is?" she asked herself. She jumped out of the car and examined what was lying on the road.  

It was Mr. Lizard. He wasn't moving. He wasn't squashed.  He hadn't been hit by a car. But he was injured somehow and had been crossing the road, heading right towards our house. He was only a few feet away from our driveway. She ran inside and got some cloths and tools.  She came back and pulled his webbed feet off the blacktop just as she had pulled them off the cinder blocks on the fireplace.

He wasn't moving at all. She studied him closely. He looked older. His scales and his body were intact but his eye looked like it had been pecked out by a bird or something. The left side of his face was caved in and had blood on it and he had blood all around the edges of his mouth. She knew enough about medical stuff that if they bleed this way they may have internal bleeding that is fatal. Her tears began to flow again. Losing him somehow brought back a lot of the pain and sadness of losing me and her father too.