Life: Saying Goodbye

I haven't written here in a really long time. Mostly, or rather, entirely, because of the last post I had placed on here. It just sort of worked out that way. I was writing about cooking and posted a photo of my sweet cat who was laying on my desk watching me write down ingredients in my notebook.

I didn't know then that it would be one of the last photos I'd take of her.

Four days later, she died.

A little while after that, I was about to write something silly in here about whatever, when I noticed the photo. My heart jumped. I just couldn't write anything. It was almost like I wanted to preserve something intangible - that feeling of innocence that comes with loving something so much you assume that love will be with you forever.

And just now, recalling an unplanned conversation I had yesterday with someone about what it was like to lose her, I realized I was ready to write again. But I wanted it to be about loss. And not because I wanted it to be depressing. But because very soon after she died, I immediately turned to the Internet to find something, anything, that anyone else had written about what it feels like to loose a pet. I was so unprepared for this. And it almost feels embarrassing to have to explain to non-pet people how sad you feel. You expect them to not understand. It's almost like you have to preface everything with, "I know she was just a cat, but..."

But pet-people understand. So, if you're someone who winds up here after googling a similar loss, I hope my little essay helps you through your sadness. Just like stories that people wrote about their pets once helped me.

Bella was a one of a kind. She was with me for seven years. Long enough to become a friend, brief enough to feel like we were interrupted.

She was with me through bad break-ups, big moves, scary thunderstorms, and sleepless nights. She greeted me at the door meowing like she had been desperately waiting to tell me all about her day. She tried to stop me from leaving in the morning. She smiled for the camera and ate chic-peas. She hated cats, but forgave dogs. She traveled. She had such a sweet face and I think if she were a real girl she might have been prettier than me. She was wary of any boy I brought home. As she got older, she never became a lap cat. But she had this uncanny ability to show up on my pillow anytime she heard me cry. When she was a kitten she used to crawl into the refrigerator. I once tried to teach her a lesson about that and closed the door behind her. Ten minutes later, I realized I had forgotten she was still in there! But she was OK and happy to talk about it as soon as I let her out. Sometimes she ate out of a can with her paw, like it was a spoon. She made my Dad laugh and he always used to say that he never saw a cat who loved a human as much as she loved me. She followed me from room to room. In any photo you see of me in my apartment, she's a few inches behind me. Sometimes we'd both annoy one another. Then we'd make up and she'd fall into my arms and purr.

One day I came home and something wasn't right at all. Not at all. I called my sister and said I should probably take her to the vet tomorrow. But Sis was alarmed and said I should take her to the ER right away.

So maybe it was 8 or 9 o'clock at night when I put her in the car and found an animal ER 20 minutes from my home that was open all night. She didn't meow once the whole drive. I kept calling her name to make sure she was responsive.

In the sterile, white and metal room, I waited expectantly for the doctor to tell me that she had some weird acid reflux or some really big hair ball. I waited for it and my heart started fluttering. But he knelt down on one knee and called me Mom.

"Mom," he said, "We're lucky if she makes it through the night."

Here I was, with this stranger, in a room that I didn't even know had existed an hour earlier, suddenly bawling my eyes out. Sobbing. Holding on to the examining table like a life preserver, at the cusp of a moment I hadn't been remotely prepared to face.

He showed me the x-rays, pointing out how a tumor had burst and filled her abdomen. He said they quickly put her on an IV with medicine and she would not be in pain. But she would be very, very tired. They let me see her and she looked so sad.

Into the night, I made phone calls. First to my sister. Then to my parents. Then to my co-workers, to let them know I wouldn't be in tomorrow, because (I explained, as I choked back the tears that were still flowing out of me), I now had to put my cat to sleep. I called friends and anyone I could think of who had known her. Suddenly it seemed like that was the most obvious way I could honor her short life, to have people think of her name and say a little prayer. I wrote emails to people I hadn't spoken to in years, simply because they had once met her and I wanted them to know that her life was ending.

You see, this is the moment when it starts to feel like you have to preface things. You have to say, "I know she's just a cat, but..."

But the truth is, a pet, whom you've cared for, played with, looked out for, any number of years, begins to feel like a friend. Especially in my case, as a single girl, living on my own, making my way in this world with my own two hands, having a sweet little thing to come home to at the end of the day was the greatest gift. To loose her was like going from 2 to 1. It was like a piece of home had evaporated.

The next morning we said goodbye. I wasn't alone. My family came to be with me, to stand in the room with her. My dad, as he promised, stroked her head while I cried into my mother's arms a few inches away, too sad to bear witness to the loss of love. I wanted to be brave enough to hold her until the end. I wanted to so much. But it was unbearable. It was heart-breaking. I will forever be grateful that my dad was her hero that day, and that the doctor was the kindest man you could hope to meet. These two men stood by her, stroking her soft gray fur, guiding her peacefully into another place.

--

Since then, it's been sad. But it also eventually shifts into something else. Like all losses, you find solace and smile once again. I have come up with some really creative ways to hold on to all the memories I had of our time together, and that has been the biggest help. If I could suggest anything, it would be to ignore anyone who doesn't understand the feelings of loss. But talk to the friends who do. Collect your photos and make a book telling the story of your pet's life. Expect to discover an immediate bond with anyone else who has gone through the same thing. Don't worry about when or if to get another pet. Brush off your frustrations with anyone who asks when you'll get another one. Just let time pass and allow your feelings to heal.

And yes. There will always be a loss. It will always feel like your story with your pet came to an end sooner than you expected. No matter how old they are.

But pets are much better at embracing the fullness of life than humans are. So if they were loved, cared for, played with, and adored, then their life was a good one. Better than good. Especially because they shared it with you.

Be proud of those memories and let them make you smile.

Because that is how you keep love alive forever.