daily kaddish: for lyra

[powerpress]

Seven years ago, my friends Kimberly and Paul started a blog to keep friends and family posted on the progress of Paul’s horrible squamous cell carcinoma ordeal, and for the first time, I thought I understood the point of blogging. This wasn’t an exercise in vanity self-publishing, it was an efficient way to keep more people better informed than any of the usual ways of communicating (mostly one-to-one or several-to-several) could accommodate. Theirs was a two-to-many blog, and as they began to move out of crisis mode into healing mode, both Kimberly and Paul broadened their subject matter beyond the day to day medical ordeal and began covering the full richness of the life together they were struggling to keep.

I was a regular reader from the beginning, and a few months into it, I began a much less dramatic ordeal of my own: surviving the remodeling of my kitchen. I decided to start a blog about it, and “So you think you want to remodel your kitchen?” was born. Since my blogging was inspired by Kimberly and Paul’s, I considered them my blog mom and dad. Paul is squarely among the living again, and Kimberly and Paul have gotten back to normal life and gone on to other blogs, and when my blog met Mira’s blog, this “kaddish in two-part harmony” was born. I suppose that makes Kimberly and Paul k2ph’s blog grandparents.

Kimberly and Paul lost their beloved cat Lyra on Saturday. I had the privilege of meeting and being shed and purred upon by this lovely creature during a visit to Seattle some years back, and now it’s my sad privilege to make a Kaddish podcast for her. Since I’m traveling sans instruments in Asia this week, I’ve got limited options. Tonight I attempted to sing the thing and then layered another track attempting to improvise a harmony of sorts.

A modest Kaddish for a modest cat. Lyra, may you rest in peace.