They Will Always Break Your Heart

I watched Gizmo die on May 1st of last year. He’d had seizures a few weeks before, but the vet said he’d probably swallowed one of my Prozacs. He seemed to be slowing down, but he was getting older.

His back legs stopped working. I heard him yelling in the kitchen, and he was laying there splayed out, trying to walk. I helped him to his feet and he got to the carpet where he could get more traction.

I’d just switched jobs. I was broke. I’d gone into debt as far as I could to help him when he had seizures. I knew he was very sick, and I was going to give him up to the Humane Society the next day so they could help him. I didn’t want to give him up, but I couldn’t just watch him suffer.

I woke up at 3 AM to him yelling from the side of the bedroom. He was struggling to breathe. I knew I was watching him die miserably, and the only thing I could do was sit with him and watch and tell him how much I loved him. I petted him and talked to him while his legs stretched and his back arched horribly and he yowled for me to help him. I told him I loved him. I told him it was okay to let go. I didn’t want him to but I didn’t want him to hurt anymore and there was nothing else I could do.

And then he was gone, and he was so small, and so light. As if life had weight and heft, and without it his body was less.

I didn’t want to get another cat for a while. Friends told me I needed to so I could move on. But I wasn’t ready. I didn’t want to be hurt like that again.

I’m still a little gun-shy. Dmitri makes odd noises in his sleep sometimes, or Ivan cries for no clear reason, and I panic a little. I start imagining the worst case. I start thinking of how much I don’t want to lose my little Karamazovs. But then they take off after some bug I can barely see, and I smile, and I think about how much I enjoy them. How I love the way Dmitri purrs as soon as I touch him, and how his funny little snoot is the first thing I see in the morning. How adorable Ivan is when he ever-so-gently brushes his cheek against me, and how beautiful he is with his soft silver fur and bright green eyes.

Love is a risk. You let down the walls and let in the pain with the joy. You will always lose the ones you love because we live impermanently. I don’t know that impermanence lends poignance or depth or breadth, but even if it’s emotion-neutral it’s a fact.

It’s one thing to begin with the end in mind. It’s another to never begin for fear of the end.

The Weight of a Gold Glass Ball

As I get older, I find it easier to understand why the holiday season is so hard for so many people. Gizmo would have been 11 yesterday. There are people I should be with that I miss dearly every day. My friend Emmy lost her husband this month, and it’s been a year since the Bug left us. This will be my Mom’s first Christmas without a parent.

I don’t dare compare anything I feel for what my friends and my mother are going through. I have my problems,  but beside their grief mine fades as an inkspot beside the abyss. Yes, grief is a relative thing, and there’s no competition among mourners, but I want to keep perspective here.

In the cold of the lengthening nights, we seek warmth and light. In the season where life fades to a bleak struggle, we celebrate all that makes that struggle worthwhile. When the holidays call on us to make our love and faith more manifest, we feel more sharply the absence of those who have gone on.

Let’s all be kind to the people around us. We know some part of their burdens from knowing our own, from knowing that there are none of lucky enough to take every step lightly. Be sure those you love know it in their bones. Be sure you do, too.

Whatever rites give physical shape to your faith this season, observe them with cherished reverence. Share what gives your life meaning with the wider world. And no matter who you think the giver is, remember that every moment is a precious irreplaceable gift.

Learning the Language

Ivan hardly ever hides under the bed any more. He seems to prefer sleeping on the TV stand behind my little flatscreen, which is cute and fun. He’s ignoring the enclosed and collapsible cat bed I got him, even though there’s a pocket of catnip built into it. Apparently he is immune to the Kryptonite of his kind.

I thought Gizmo was vocal, but Ivan makes him seem mute. When Ivan wants something, he can keep meowing about it almost non-stop. This isn’t a bad thing, since I can be a little obtuse and self-centered at times (especially when my fingers are flying over the keys). Apparently it’s a common trait for Russian Blues, along with the bright green eyes and gorgeous silver fur.

When I took his carrier out of the car to go up into the Winter Palace, he made these sweet little sounds – almost musical, like a cross between a kitten’s mewling and some kind of bird. It was adorable and beautiful. (It’s possible my happiness at getting another cat might have biased me.) He hasn’t made that kind of sound in a while, so I’m guessing it’s just something he does when he’s anxious.

He purrs a lot. He meows a lot. And he occasionally makes sounds that very much remind me of the sounds Gizmo made on his last night. Just thinking about that makes me tense up: my heart pounds, my eyes widen, and my mind starts thinking of a dozen things that could be wrong with my new friend.

But every time I check on him, panicked and desperate, there’s nothing wrong. He’s just unhappy that I haven’t responded to him yet – why aren’t we playing, NOW?  Of course Ivan has no idea of the Big Red Button he’s pushing. He’s discovered a great way to be sure he has my undivided attention.

We’re still learning each others’ languages. He’s learned what “no” and “get down” mean now that I’m supplementing my stern tone with a little spritz from the water bottle. I’m learning that his occasional loud yowling is an expression of frustration, not serious hurt.

This is what happens when you bring someone into your life. You learn to listen to what they’re saying, not what you’re hearing. You make space for another way to live, and you modify your boundaries to let them into your space. Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work.

Surprising how much one can learn from an animal with a walnut-sized brain. 

Changing the Sheets

I like changing the sheets on Sunday night. It’s nice to go to sleep in a fresh bed at the end of a relaxing weekend.

He always liked it, too. That was playtime for him. He liked me to try and make the bed with him on it. Sometimes I’d even trap him under the fitted sheet. He’d move around under there like some kind of big ridiculous worm. I’d let him try to grab my hand on top of the sheet. Eventually he’d find his way out and I’d finish making the bed while he settled down in the old sheets. They were his bed now, until I put them in the laundry.

I caught myself wondering where he was tonight when I tossed the old sheets aside. I sat on the edge of the bed and thought about how much I miss him, how much I loved him and enjoyed him. And then my  curiously psychic iPod shuffled up Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel”, which is one of my all-time favorite songs because it so consistently breaks my heart and comforts it. So I lost it. I just started crying. I’m still crying as I write this.

I’m not tortured by memories of that last night any more. I remember the good times, the fun, the love, the companionship. I’m not trying to tell myself he was “just a cat”. He was my friend, and I loved him no less for the fur and whiskers.

And I miss him very much. I don’t know that writing about it helps me deal with it. I think it helps me to feel a little less alone. I think it helps me be honest with myself and really deal with it. Maybe it doesn’t. Part of being a writer is not just the ability to express yourself, but the need to do it – to get what’s inside you outside in a way that speaks to other people.  The more you feel something, the more you need to write about it. At least that’s how it works for me.

I miss my little guy.

Writing a Different Story

I’m still dealing with the loss of Gizmo. It’s not something I dwell on or think about a lot, so it’s not like I’m sitting around sobbing every day. But it still hurts to think of him, and I still miss being able to cuddle him when I come home.

The hardest part for me is the memories. I have about eight years’ worth of memories to choose from, and I keep replaying the worst ones in my mind. Those last awful hours are burned in my brain. Some of what I saw and heard and felt that night will haunt me. I worry that I’m only going to remember that – that all I’m going to carry with me from my time with my beloved cat will be that horrible helpless feeling of watching him die and the ache of loss that sits at the bottom of my heart like a dark deep pool.

I felt much the same way about Taffy’s death for years. I used to imagine her last few moments as a combination of some of my own worst nightmares: abandoned, confused, powerless, and drowning. Then a wise friend helped me find another way. I’d written a bad end for her in my mind when I could write it better. For all I know she drifted off peacefully and fell into the pool. Write a different story, she told me. And she was right.

That’s what I’m trying to do with Gizmo. I remember the sweet, adorable way he would rub his head in the crook of my arm when I picked him up. I remember playing the edge of the bed game: I’d lie on the bed while he sat on the floor, then I’d peek at him over the edge and pull back quickly. He’d reach up and swat me with his paw – I was never anywhere near quick enough to get away, and after a couple rounds of this he’d jump up after me. I remember how much he loved sleeping under the Christmas tree. I remember him climbing up in my lap while I was trying to read and basically shoving my book out of the way. I remember him sitting on my chest while I lay on the couch.

I’m never going to forget what happened that night. But just because it’s the end of my time with him doesn’t mean it has to define my time with him.