Loss

Several weeks ago, my boyfriend and I had to, for lack of a better phrase, put our one of our cats to sleep. Now, I know I could say euthanize, but I just haven't been able to bring myself to say it. It's so cold, so clinical. Not at all the feeling I want to convey about Edna, my furry little buddy.

I was taken aback by the grief that I felt. I knew I would be sad of course. I had taken care of Eddie for nearly five years. Five years of chasing string and her sitting on cardboard boxes that she loved so much, and car rides that she hated so much, vet appointments, sharing my pillow at bedtime. But the pain I felt resounded through my entire body. Rumbling through my bones and there was an emptiness there that I found hard to explain. I had lost a friend and the pain was far more acute than I ever could have imagined.

She was a very vocal cat, as soon as the bottom of the cat food bowl was visible, we'd hear an anxious "Waaaawaoooow?" When we came home from the vet that night and set the empty cat carrier on the carpet, the apartment was silent. No hello was meowed to us, no scrambling of paws on the kitchen floor. I hadn't realized how how quiet our other cat was. That night I thought about death. The finality of it and how I could not offer my self soft condolences about "a better place." I felt ok about that, and I was happy that I felt ok about that. There was a brief moment at the vet's office, watching Eddie on the exam table, breathing heavy, my hand on her side that I felt that it was not my place to say that her life was over. But was that what I felt or did I want to remove myself from the responsibility of making that decision, be able to say that Nature did it! It wasn't me! But that is selfish, and I realized as I watched Eddie move her head about erratically, starting to wail occasionally, that this was my responsibility, it was my responsibility to ensure that she did not suffer unnecessarily. She had suffered from some sort of neurological complication as a result of a tumor on her neck that had presumably turned cancerous and metastasized. She was not going to recover. I was prolonging her pain not because she might recover but because I didn't want to let go. And so, soggy Kleenex in hand, face covered in mascara streaks, I told the vet that I was ready. We said goodbye, a tearful and painful goodbye, one last time, and left. I knew we made the right decision, there was no other decision to make, really.

I cried a lot the next couple days. The apartment was too quiet. She was just...gone. I thought about how I hoped no one would say something about her "going to a better place" or "pet heaven."  I didn't know what I would say. Do people say things like that when someone's pet dies? I bet some people do. I just wasn't in the mood to coddle people and I probably would have made some snarky comment about how that was ridiculous...

I miss Eddie more than words can express, but this experience has reminded me of an important fact. Believing that death is final, that we do not go on to some magical heaven, or spiritual afterlife guided by a holy power, does not mean that we don't honor death and those who have died just as much as those who do  believe in an afterlife. Perhaps death is even more meaningful if this is the only life we have.

Edna: 2004 - 2010.

carpe diem.