My cat died. He was one of two kittens that I brought into my life 11 years ago.
The grief of this small animal leaving my life has been overwhelming at times. I knew it would be hard, I’ve stood by friends who have grieved their animals passing on. Sending heart emojis and giving hugs. But all of the heartfelt messages I could craft up can never quite convey the immense feeling of loss until you truly go through it yourself.
Grief is a curious thing, it’s not just the specifics of who someone has lost but the existential wondering that latches itself to sadness. Questions percolate upwards like, what does it mean to live in this world? And, what happens when we are no longer here? Is there something past what we can see, or hear, or feel?
Growing up, death has always been woven into my life even in my early years as a child.
Sometimes it was offered as an empty threat from my exhausted mother, “Oh my god, I just want to DIE!” Which provided her a moment of peace as my siblings and I would finally quiet down and solemnly imagine a life without her.
The passing of countless distant family members whose funerals I attended (All ndn funerals which took me until my teens to learn these were very different than white people funerals).
Driving in the minivan with my family when my mom learned our grandfather passed in a car accident. Grasping at words to comfort her only for my mom to exclaim, “He wasn’t that old, Karlene!” In retrospect, that was true. But my 13-year old self was at a loss of what to say and regurgitating sentimental statements learned from TV was my only knowledge base.
As a teenager, seeing my father walk away from us down the hallway in our childhood home and watching him truly weep when his older brother Jim had unexpectedly passed from a heart attack. Feeling a surge of fear that my father had experienced a sort of sorrow that he wouldn’t normally share with us.
Coming home from school in grade one to tell my mother that our neighbour friend’s father had died of a heart attack. My mother collapsing in the kitchen crying and me finally realizing there was a finality to the word “die” and “death.” That it wasn’t just an exasperated expression or a 2-dimensional threat in early 90s cartoons. It meant someone was really gone forever.
Following the death of my friend’s dad, I began experiencing nightmares and an onslaught of fear at bedtime. I’d cry inconsolably. My older sister would relate to me when we were older, “All I could hear was dad telling you, ‘it’s okay, we are always going to be here’.”
No one in my family connected the dots that my sudden fear of losing my loved ones was the psychological aftermath of my friend’s dad passing away.
The death of my friend’s dad changed our day to day. I played with her multiple times a week and nearly daily in the summertime. Our fathers would often chat when it was time for us to go home for dinner. Laughing while leaning on the fence that divided our properties. Likely smoking cigarettes, puffing outwards to punctuate sentences. My friend and I loved these moments because it meant 10 more minutes of playtime before heading inside.
But afterwards, we didn’t hang out together as much. My friend’s mother turned inward with grief, rarely leaving her house. Weeds overtook the spot near the fence that we climbed over to reach each other’s houses. We changed schools a year or so later and I stopped playing with her entirely.
I was sent to a Catholic school because my mom was sick of me crying myself to sleep wondering about death. She decided that I needed to learn about god. Nothing like a nice little tale about heaven to console a small child’s imagination. This is a different story to tell but it’s safe to disclose I didn’t end up becoming a model Catholic student and I am, for better or worse, an atheist as a result.
Becoming an atheist in my early teens felt rebellious. It filled me with a sense of control over the “what if’s.” I think it scared my parents a bit, my mother is a pseudo Christian due to residential school but with an entirely absent track record at church. And my dad is agnostic. I once told a professor during my master’s program that I’m an atheist. She tried to correct me by saying that I meant agnostic. I knew I wasn’t agnostic but I let it slide in this exchange. Many Indigenous people are agnostic and I suppose they have a better sense of spirituality than I do but it’s wrong to think all Indigenous people think the same way. I’ve had Indigenous people judge me for my lack of spirituality which is more an issue they need to deal with than something that I feel I must respond to. We are all on a journey but it doesn’t mean we’ll adhere to the exact same philosophies or perspectives and it’s not right to turn your back on Indigenous people who think differently from you. As much as I wish I could imagine something else past this physical world, I just can’t find peace or comfort in convincing myself that it exists in the way humans have often imagined it to be.
My cat died from a blood clot condition that paralyzes their back legs. It happens randomly and suddenly and results in excruciating pain. It eventually shuts down the lower half of their body due to the lack of blood circulation and it is fatal. Our vet said in his 30 years of experience, he has never seen a successful surgery. And when the surgery is successful, the cat still deals with pain, they become paraplegic, requires pain relief medication and they pass within a year or so of treatment. We made the choice for compassionate euthanasia.
I have often imagined the pain and grief I would experience with my cats passing on. My current partner has commented on how much death consumes my thoughts and I don’t know how normal it is to consider the sadness of loss when things are good and relatively happy in one’s life. Sometimes, I think it’s a way of processing grief while still living, and to truly acknowledge how much you care for someone before it’s too late. Other times, it feels insane to remember breaking down in hysterical tears when my cat was only five years old, imagining my life without them in it.
But I haven’t reacted this way with just animals, I’ve done this with people, too. I’m not sure if it’s a way to feel “in control” of loss. I’m not sure if it’s actually useful to think of death amidst the good times.
In my early thirties, I had newly broken out of a long term relationship and I was going out with friends a lot. We were regularly partying at a punk rock bar, which sold hot dogs and cheap beer, and bicycling across the city on a regular basis. After feeling trapped in a relationship that I wasn’t happy in, I felt a youthful joy that reminded me of being a kid with a carefree summer. I remember one night as the sun was going down, we were ordering another round of drinks, and I looked at my friends and said, “I know this won’t last forever but oh my god these are fun times.”
I knew it couldn’t last forever because it’s not really something that can last forever. We get older, life moves on, we enjoy different things. In the twilight glow of a hot summer night, I smiled while also feeling the loss of these moments slipping away. Everything becoming a memory while simultaneously living in it.
My cat is gone and it’s not the big, joyful moments that I miss but the quiet ones. It’s the way he’d time his steps with mine up the stairs, often tripping me in the process. It’s him sitting on the ledge near the microwave quietly watching me cook, waiting for dropped food that appealed to him (cucumber or zucchini and blueberries). It’s his ceaseless yapping at me for attention, or his tiny mews for cuddles when he was feeling kitten-ish. It’s his claws that were much too sharp, that he’d never let me clip, digging into my leg while he purred. His annoying habit of trying to run outside the front door every time we came home.
I miss him. He was a shadow to me, a small guardian. Many times I’d share with my partner, I don’t think reincarnation exists but if it does then this cat has definitely lived on this earth before. Have you ever had an animal content to stare into your eyes for minutes on end? It’s crazy feeling.
When they sedated him, before the euthanasia, I kneeled on the floor and stared into his eyes. Holding his paw and petting his head. He was scared but the medication helped him not feel pain. He stared back at me intently, my eyes filled with tears whispering everything in my heart to him.
Then he was gone. His heart stopped. That was that.
I had a dark spell after his death, wondering what the purpose of this life was. Realizing he’s gone and never coming back. The finality of it all. I wondered about myself and my partner and my child. What world do we live in and what’s the purpose of all of this nonsense? Why did the universe allow for this planet to create life like this?
I don’t have any answers. I don’t believe in a higher being. I cried wishing to believe in something but no matter how hard I tried, I know that type of spirituality is not for me.
I am wading my way through grief and can get through days without crying anymore. But I still don’t know how to make sense of loss. I phoned my parents one night and my dad said, there’s something to learn from all of this, like it or not, it is a part of life. And you will need to be ready for more loss down the road.
I’m not an idiot, I know what he was saying. My dad is near his mid-70s. I’m 40. This next decade will likely be filled with some of the greatest loss of my lifetime. People have sold the idea of 40s being great because societal perception of aging has shifted but that doesn’t change the fact that this is a crucial decade of loss for many.
I told my dad, I know there’s a lesson here. I’m just not ready to receive it, not yet.
. . . . .
Outside my window, it’s springtime in a wet Vancouver. The trees are exploding with leaves. Flowers are stretching open and buds are growing stronger.
My child likes to hold her face close to mine when she falls asleep sometimes. I’ll close my eyes to encourage her to do the same and when I open them, her grinning face looks back at me in the dark. She’s supposed to be asleep but I decide to laugh which makes her laugh. What’s another five minutes, I think. What’s another five minutes when I could spend it laughing with her instead.
I’m driving in my neighbourhood trying not to think of the bad times. A driver gives me the go-ahead to turn left and I wave and smile at him through the tears. He smiles back. Tulips on my street are getting so big, they are about to bow over. The bulbs stay under ground and when blossoms fall and the leaves wilt, everyone knows they’ll be back next year.
. . . . . .
A couple of day’s ago, I dreamt of my cat for the first time since he passed. He came to the front door and I let him in. He had that familiar white heart patch on his back. “I knew you’d come back! I knew you’d be okay!” He meowed and I hugged him but somehow in my dream, I remembered he couldn’t come back. The cat in my arms then transformed into another cat and then it disappeared.
I told my partner about it when I woke up.
“I knew he’d visit you in your dreams! What do you think it means?”
“Nothing, I don’t know. I don’t really know what it could mean.”
I don’t want a nicely tied up ending. When people help those with grief they often feel a loss of words, “I am so sorry, I don’t know what to say.”
It’s okay. It’s okay to not have the words. It’s okay to not know. It’s okay.
. . . . . .
There is a lesson here, but I’m not ready to receive it. Not yet.
