Sorry this is late
Hey everyone,
Last week I had a different newsletter planned for today (Barbie), but then we lost our cat Bug, and nothing seemed important anymore, least of all that stupid movie. For a few days, I thought I might be able to write about his death, but every time I tried, I became inconsolable. It’s too fresh. I also forgot how complicated grief is, that it’s not just straightforward sadness or longing in the way I sometimes imagine, but so layered and unpredictable, cycling you in and out of numbness (nice kind, bad kind) and devastation and guilt and confusion and into a tug-of-war with your own punishing thoughts. My eyes sting from crying and not sleeping, from my brain replaying the moment his soft little head finally left its full weight in my palm.
Absence is such a strange thing to contend with. A seat unoccupied, a meow unheard. I got home this morning from a wedding, where I had to shut off my grief like a hose, and when I walked into my apartment it flooded everywhere, out of control, like it would never end. This place feels so empty without him, and too small to hold my sadness. But it also feels wrong to be away. As if he’s home alone and I need to come back to him, and in a way he is, and I do. He’s nowhere to be found here, and everywhere too.
I know Avi and I will be okay. It’s a comfort to us that Bug will never feel pain or discomfort again, and that he lived so much longer than we thought he would. But we’re in the bad part, and there’s no running from it. So for now we just need to stay awhile, and experience, in the most visceral way, whatever his death (and life) has to teach us. I’ll be back very soon to write more lucidly. In the meantime, if you have any comforting thoughts to share about losing a beloved pet, feel free to leave them in the comments.
Haley
So sorry, here’s something Anne Helen Peterson shared that helped me:
The love between a human and their pet is completely uncomplicated.
There are no interpersonal dynamics to worry about. It's one of the few relationships in life that you can express your love freely and without self consciousness. And that's also why it hurts so much when they are gone.
Haley, I'm so so sorry. Thank you for sharing your grief with all of us -- your love for Bug is so palpable and comes through so strongly in your writing that I (and it seems like most of your other readers) loved him too because of it. I hope you take all the time to mourn and process his absence, and don't in any way feel rushed to move on or diminish it just because Bug wasn't a human.
I've lost two family dogs, who we all still miss, and now have my own 6 year old dog whose eventual death causes me so much sadness whenever I think about it. The only thing I've ever come across that comforts me is something I read in a Cup of Jo post by Kelly Conaboy about her dog Peter's eventual death. She wrote "No, I won’t have you forever, even though I desperately want to; even though I would donate years of my own life to make our timelines more even, if I could. But the one silver lining I can see in the discrepancy between human and dog life expectancies is that you will have me forever. And that is more important."
Sometimes, that thought helps me a little bit.