Mark Abukoff
Bio
Stories (5/0)
Tommy and Cappie: A Tail of Two Kitties
Decades ago, my late wife and I went to an animal shelter to adopt a kitten and we found one very young orange tabby named Tommy. We were in the process of adopting him and had already paid our fee and they were double checking his health when they began to be concerned about him. Finally they determined that he had feline leukemia and that he was not going to live very long. We were given the option of picking out another cat to adopt or get a refund of our adoption fee. We couldn’t bring ourselves to choose another cat because we were shocked and heartbroken and hurt to lose Tommy so quickly. But we also decided that we were not going to get our adoption fee refunded and furthermore that we would formally adopt Tommy. So we filled out the paperwork and we adopted him even though we knew we couldn’t take him home with us. What we chose to do was add our last name onto his and buy a few toys that he could have with him for as long as he was going to live. We didn’t want him to die as a cat without a family. Even if he’d never know it or ever come home with us, we wanted him to be loved and to be part of a family. Little Tommy was our cat for a matter of weeks. We only got to meet him very briefly and we weren’t allowed to handle him, but for all the problems he had in his short life, he seemed like a happy little boy and we were overjoyed to watch him play with the toy that we bought him. And he played with joy and strength of spirit and you wouldn’t know that he was sick- that instead of years ahead of him, he actually only had days. Tommy lived a lot in the short time he was here, and we loved him as a part of our family. And then we said goodbye to Tommy, but we were forever changed.
By Mark Abukoff3 years ago in Petlife
Happy Birthday, Billy!
Remember Frosty the Snowman? Every time that hat landed on his head he’d say “Happy Birthday!” I like the idea of celebrating every awakening as a birthday of sorts. Try to keep that in mind as I tell you about a friend of mine. I had a conversation with someone a few days ago, who on the condition of anonymity agreed to let me share his story. I'll call him Billy (not his real name). Billy began the conversation with a stark statement. He said that everything he had ever touched in his life until just recently had turned to c_ _ p. He related several incidents spanning decades of adult life that included careless accidents, mistakes, a few actions taken in panic. There were a few things that he admitted were wrong but done without greed or malice, but simply because he gave way to temptation. He was weak. He made no excuses for his actions, but he has admitted to doing wrong and has paid for what he's done. But he also keeps it in mind. While any others involved have closed the file, as it were, he hasn't. So Billy keeps a list of sorts of things he's done wrong in his life. Everyone makes mistakes, I said. We all do things wrong. We all do things we regret. Sometimes we give in to temptation because we are all weak. But we also all do things right. I asked him to tell me what he thought he'd done right. He thought for a few minutes and told me that when he was much younger he'd introduced two people who had gotten married and had recently celebrated their twentieth anniversary. But, he said, he couldn't think of anything else. Well, first off, I said, not everyone can say that. He has given two people an opportunity for 20+ years of happiness. Every day they wake up with something to celebrate is thanks in part to him. Every anniversary card exchanged has his name somewhere behind it. So he should feel very good about that. Something else about Billy is that he has pets, and every day that those pets have love and shelter and food, he's done something right. Our good deeds aren't always as dramatic and memorable as our mistakes. It is easy to think, especially if we are decent people with a conscience, that we are more defined by what we do wrong than by what we do right. I told Billy that he was right to be aware of what he'd done wrong. To regret being weak and dishonest, and to face whatever consequences there were. But I also told him that once he'd done that- once he's apologized to everyone he needed to and reformed himself and really, really changed, then it was time to move on. Learning from our mistakes is important, and true, missteps and lapses in judgement should be remembered so that they aren't repeated, but once a wound has healed, no good is served by cutting it open again. Just remember how it happened the first time. In the series premiere of Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Benjamin Sisko doesn't understand why wormhole aliens seem to keep returning him to the time and place of his wife's death in battle against the Borg. He asks them why, and they basically tell him that he has never left that moment (I don't recall the exact line). Sisko finally came to realize that he kept seeing it because he hadn't allowed himself to move on emotionally from that point. Billy has been doing the same thing on a number of issues, and I told him that he had to give himself permission to leave all of those scenes behind. Everyone else has forgiven him. It's time for him to forgive himself.
By Mark Abukoff3 years ago in Motivation
Sunset
It’s true that you couldn’t see the sun for most of the day, but once in a while, on a very lucky day, you could see it at sunrise and sunset just as it touched the horizon, as if the edges of the cover of filth over the world were burned away briefly to reveal the sun.
By Mark Abukoff3 years ago in Families
One Miracle Left
It’s a windy late afternoon, like so many other windy late afternoons. I can just see the sun, hidden behind the dust and dirt that hangs in the air as if it’s always been there and always will be. The dust and dirt that must move in the wind, but never seems to change from day to day, as if there’s a filthy lid over the world. It is late afternoon of a day measured not by hours or ticks on the clock, but by the dim light of the sun, masked by clouds thick with sand and dirt. It is measured not by the endless drone of mind numbing television told in thirty minute blocks, but by the stories that the old man relates as he sits on the steps, to anyone willing to listen. There is an old clock in the garage, behind the skeleton of a car stripped of any part that could be used or traded. It’s hands forever proclaiming 3 o’clock, and nobody knows why it stopped just then. Or they aren’t willing to talk about it, because of what happened just then. It could have been so many things and none of them really matter now because there’s no going back. So we move forward, at a pace measured by the sand and the stories and the dim light of the sun. And I think about you.
By Mark Abukoff3 years ago in Humans
Bag, Book, Bundle, and a 38
Michael felt the messenger bag swinging awkwardly and hitting him in the side as he jumped from rooftop to rooftop down a closely packed and filthy part of Chinatown. This was supposed to be a simple job. But then he'd been seen running away, so that added a name to the list in his little black book. And that name belonged to a sister who wasn’t nearly as innocent as she looked. But a risky ‘chance’ encounter in a mostly empty park had at least shown that she hadn’t seen his face, so she wasn’t really a risk. And she’d been nice. In a not so innocent way. So he picked up “Angel” and decided to spend the day with her.
By Mark Abukoff3 years ago in Criminal