Ode To a Cat – Rebreaking My Heart

Another tragedy has struck my tiny family unit. Sometimes the universe has a way of making you feel completely useless just when you think you finally have things together.

Despite our best efforts to save the life of our big orange cat, she passed away two days ago. I was hoping this time when we got to treating her illness it would go in the way it did ten years ago with my black cat. This time, I even had pet insurance, and I didn’t have to be comforted about making the payments. But that didn’t make a difference.

It just isn’t fair.

She didn’t deserve that. She was a rescue, and I want to believe that she lived out her best life with us. We certainly pampered her and gave her the best of everything till the end. But it wasn’t enough it seems like and something triggered the liver disease that killed her.

We are grieving together as a family. We lost one of our own and I feel the loss of her big orange fluff. She left an indelible mark on my life. I can’t describe just what I feel when I think of her not being with us anymore. Grief? Sadness? Confusion? Guilt?

I thought I didn’t have it in me to feel anymore. Life in general has been just shitty and sometimes I wonder if it is even worth it to have attachments or emotional investments. Yet, here we are.

Tragedy strikes again

Depression creeps on like a thief in the night to steal the joy in my life. And right now I have a real tenuous hold on joy. There is so little of it, as I am constantly on alert for the next tragedy or terrible surprise to strike.

I can’t say we didn’t see this coming. She got sick, we were preoccupied. I was the worst pet parent (or parent in general). Disconnected, self-absorbed, consumed with my own personal problems ignoring everything around me like if I just didn’t pay attention it would just go away. What good did it do me to ignore the shit show that was my life?

Doing this to myself

I am ashamed of myself.

If I had a therapist, I am sure they would tell me that I am suffering in silence from a myriad of things. Let’s list the possibilities, shall we?

Some complex PTSD from the divorce. Generational trauma, sprinkled with trauma from having a Narcissistic mom. With a heaping load of unaddressed issues from growing up in an emotional volatile household. Abandonment issues paired with daddy issues. And deep hatred for the misogynistic patriarchy that makes up my ancestral pool.

So much to unpack!

Terrible coping mechanisms, compartmentalization where I box everything up and put it away forever. I picture the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. When we get to see the warehouse and the crates of who-knows-what never to be seen again, and the guy pushing that cart that we know contains the ark, but where is he going with it? That warehouse must be in New Jersey.

I shouldn’t laugh at my pain. But what else can I do? I hate crying and when I think of what happened to my cat, that is all I want to do. I just want to sink into the depression and let it take me away from everything that I have to deal with. Forever.

I am complex machine – part whirlwind of emotions (picture the Tasmanian Devil) chained down by responsibilities. Big, heavy chains made of expectations and unrealized dreams. If you’ve seen the size of the link on the anchor chain needed to hold a Navy carrier, you get the idea.

Am I in agony? Probably. That’s a problem for tomorrow me. Spoiler alert: Tomorrow is never here.

Shock is not a therapy

The passing of my cat was shocking and opened up something in me. I had to take some time from work. I think the helplessness of the situation got to me, especially since I had hope. We took her to the hospital, expecting her to come home. Using the overnight observation to clean the house and prepare for her extended care at home. I was changing the covers on the sofa, her favorite place in the house. When I went to sleep that night, I couldn’t fall asleep.

When the call came at 3 am from the hospital, my body had just drifted off, exhaustion pulling me under.

I have experienced shock before. I am sure of it. My brain actually ceased to process the words I was hearing. I had no time to think, I put the clothes back on that I had just taken off that night and we raced to the hospital but it was already too late.

What do I do now?

Terrible coping skills to the rescue. I picked up where I had left off the day before, cleaning the house, telling myself I was honoring her memory. It’s been some months since that time and looking back I am going to call myself out for being a punk bitch and not acknowledging what I was doing again. Avoiding feeling by being busy.

I went back to work and told people that I was moving forward in her name. That she taught me important lessons about paying attention – well that wasn’t a lie. She did. However, I wasn’t being so noble. I was literally avoiding having to deal with my grief. I was racing to beat the depressive wave I saw lurking like a shadow in my peripheral vision.

Am I under spiritual attack?

I know there are energies in this world that we don’t understand, that we can’t truly fathom. Have I considered that my cat’s sudden onset illness was timed to mirror my troubles at work? Have I invited something dark into my life that is causing this chaos? And if I did, would I be able to perceive the attack before it was too late? Was her illness the outcome of unaddressed darkness in my life?

I have already failed her, and looking back I haven’t gotten much better. I am literally drowning everyday. Just barely managing to hold my head above water before I find myself gasping and falling under.

I am stuck for the time being. Every day wash, rinse, repeat. But I have to break this pattern. It is just going to take me longer because I am so very tired. I don’t want to grieve, and I can’t handle this kind of heavy emotion. Give me fire anytime – hatred, anger, fury, rage.

Not this time. This shit is just not fair.

Lessons I have learned from my cat: Life is short and nothing is promised.