When I came home from visiting friends in Kentucky after the Fourth of July, I noticed that my oldest cat, Gabby, wasn’t eating very much. At first, I thought this was yet another fussy food escapade since before I left we found out his kidney disease had advanced and he had to go on yet another new food regimen.
Then his breathing got labored and fast and stayed that way. And he wouldn’t even eat canned salmon, a treat he once loved so much he got to eat his fill of it on special occasions.
Over the course of the next two weeks, we took multiple trips to the vet as his eating eventually stopped altogether, his breathing stayed labored, and we couldn’t find a cause of the distress no matter the tests or scans or experts consulted.
I was terrified every time we went that I’d be told I had to face the decision to end his life, and that visit eventually came when blood tests revealed liver and kidney distress and his breathing was clearly signaling respiratory and heart distress.
He died on the way to the euthenasia appointment on Friday, July 23. He was 15.5 years old; it doesn’t feel like enough time. I want to be able to go back to the July day in 2006 when I walked into House of Mews and the owner Elaine brought him out to me and he lay in my arms like a baby, and adopt him all over again.
I’ve been shielded from a relationship with grief up until now. I have lost pets in the past, but I wasn’t wrecked by their losses. I’ve only lost one person I was sort of close with and grieving him wasn’t allowed. Outside of these losses, I’ve been a bystander to grief. I’ve attended funerals, memorials, and actions where others’ grief has been raw and unbearable, but not mine. I’m not sure if this makes me lucky, but I knew in the weeks of vet appointments, that I was unskilled in grief.
I feel incredibly fortunate to have been learning, practicing, and communing in the ways I have and with the people I have over the last several years. I know it made these last two weeks just a bit easier and more bearable as I’ve begun my life-long relationship with grief. Loss is, after all, inevitable. As Octavia Butler tells us repeatedly in her work, and especially in the Parable series, “The only lasting truth is change”, and change means loss just as much as it means possibility.
Earlier in July, before Gabby’s health began to deteriorate, I started a book (Holding Change, by adrienne maree brown) and in it, there is an essay on grief by Malkia Devich-Cyril. It is a stunning contribution and I remember underlining nearly the whole thing and wanting to memorize it in preparation to support a dear friend of mine whose mother is unwell. I didn’t expect to need to return to its pages for myself, and certainly not so soon after reading it. I recommend buying the book for a number of reasons, but especially for this essay that speaks to grief in our individual lives, grief in our collectives, grief in our movements, and how to come into a relationship with grief that transforms us and liberates us.
In the essay, Devich-Cyril shares four steps for moving through grief that were shared with them by Cheryl Espinosa Jones. They have supported me immensely these last weeks and I know I will continue to come to them in the months and years ahead as I move through the grief of losing Gabby, and the future losses that are, themselves, inevitable.
First, they share to feel the loss fully. I cried with my ex-husband when he came over to say his goodbyes. I cried with Gabby when we woke up at 5:30 the morning of his appointment, knowing it was the last precious hours we’d spend together. I bawled when a very dear friend came to get us for the appointment and absolutely lost it when Gabby died in my arms on the way to the vet. In the office itself, I was inconsolable. I was ugly crying in a way I’m not sure I ever have in public. I cried for days. I lay prostrate, belly-down on the earth and I asked her to help me hold this grief that I could not bear on my own. I cried every day for 10 days.
But sadness isn’t the only emotion of loss and we miss something if we collapse or reduce it down this way. I also felt the pride of knowing how many cats Gabby brought into safe homes when my parents and friends fell in love with him and wanted their own snuggler. I felt (and feel) the love that Gabby had spent 15 years impressing upon me when he would lay on my chest. I felt the tenderness with which he loved Piper when I watched Laz move in the same way with the new stray kitten. I felt the joy Gabby brought into my life and laughed again as I recalled their memories. I’ve spent two weeks feeling the feels and I know I’m not done yet. As my meditation teachers tell me all the time to do, I practiced inviting what I was feeling to come closer to me, instead of pushing it down or away.
Grief isn’t just in our hearts to be processed in our minds. I learned that grief moved through my body, too. Is still moving through my body. My sleep, my skin, my hunger, my thirst, my energy levels, my digestion, my hair, my breathing, and my cognition have all been impacted as I process this loss. I’ve moved through this current week without crying (so far), but I haven’t been able to focus and my client meetings have been shit. I’ve lost words before I could say them. I’ve been in a daze. I’ve been confused when I know I otherwise wouldn’t be. I’ve felt guilty that I’m still grieving my pet when so many have lost and are losing so much more. I’ve felt guilty that I am able to keep moving forward, even though I know that’s the only thing to do.
Second, seek solace and comfort. I remain so in awe and full of gratitude for the people around me who helped me through these last two weeks. My friend who insisted on taking me to the vet and then stayed the whole day with me after. My dad who immediately came to town and stayed longer than he ever has and kept me distracted with endless trips to Home Depot. My friend who helped me get lost in yet another Korean drama (for the uninitiated, I am obsessed and, with few exceptions, only watch them if I watch tv at all) and deconstruct the merits of the different men of the love triangle in Start Up and swoon all over again when Song Joong-ki came on my screen as Vincenzo (though my all time favorites of his are The Arthdal Chronicles and Descendants of the Sun). My neighbor who lovingly brought me flowers and checked in on me every day. My friend who has lost too many people in his life and yet kept reminding me it was, in fact, okay and necessary to feel all this over my pet. And so many more who helped me move through each day’s grief.
Third, find inspiration. I’ve re-read the essay that I’ve borrowed from here. I’ve talked with friends about how they’ve processed loss and grief. I’ve listened to hours of music. I’ve taken extra good care of the cats in my orbit that still need my care, including shooing off a very scary hawk who was eyeing the kitten as dinner. I’ve borrowed the experience of others and trusted that holding this grief will get easier and that my feeling and metabolizing it is important.
Fourth, take action from this place of grounded grief. I’m still working through what this might mean for me at this moment. For now, I’ve settled on sharing my journey thus far here with you, being the best companion I can be to the animals in and around my house, and learning from Gabby’s capacity for quick forgiveness to challenge me in doing more of it myself (a tall order).
Two weeks ago, I lost Gabby. While I am becoming skilled in alchemizing grief for the first time in my life, I know that more grief is both inevitable because it is a natural fact of life and also because of the very unnatural suffering we cause to each other, other beings, and the earth herself. I am so thankful for those around me who’ve helped me up until now and for those that will continue in the future.
I’ll leave you with the incredible words of Khalil Gibran from The Prophet, which also features in Devich-Cyril’s essay:
“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper the sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”