So, I’m up in Ohio this week to hang out with my mom and try to be helpful for some of the remaining financial and legal tasks from dealing with my dad’s passing. It’s really weird to be in the house and not have my dad here or at least not needing to get going up to the hospital. I don’t even know how my mom deals with him not being here. My parents have lived here for almost 35 years. The ghost of my dad is everywhere I look: on “his spot” on the couch; in his chair at the kitchen table; the front porch chair… and seeing those spots empty knocks the breath out of me every time when I remember that he’s never going to be in those spots again.
I honestly wonder how my mom walks in the door every day knowing he’s not here. But you know, this is also home for her – a long-term refuge where she feels safe and comfortable. I started wondering how I would feel walking in the door of my own home and not having the reassuring constant presence of someone who has always been there. And then today, I got news that I might be experiencing that sometime soon. You see, the vet called with the results of my kitty’s recent biopsy. And she has a form of cancer…
Damn it, that was not the news I wanted and obviously not the news I needed in during this horrible summer of loss for me. I’m super attached to my cat. She’s my little shadow. When I’m having a bad day (or lately, bad weeks), her little meowing face makes me smile. I have routines every morning with her and we cuddle every night while I read before going to sleep. I can’t even imagine how sucky it’s going to be to open the front door and not see her running towards me to say hi.
When I lost my previous cat – a cat I had grown up with during all the shitty years of middle and high school, I swore that I would never have another pet because the pain of losing him was horrendous. I had never experienced a deep loss like that before and never wanted to go through it again. (Ironically, I somehow believed that I would go before my parents. I never really even imagined I would lose either of them, even as I moved into middle age. Grandparents, yeah, that was expected and while utterly sad when it happened, it wasn’t a complete gut-punch. But my parents? Never…It’s absolutely amazing how strong denial can be.) After losing my first cat, I had refused to even look at kittens because I didn’t want to have another pet. And then…then this little fuzzball ran up to us in the front yard one day and that was that. She became a part of our lives so quickly, it felt like she had always been there. She moved to another state with us; kept our family together even as it was fracturing and while it slowly mended; gave me immense comfort during my melanoma scare; and has given me bright spots of joy during an incredibly dark time this summer. There’s a joke in my house that the cat wishes comes first, that we just are there to make money so she can live the life of a spoiled, pampered, and adored cat.
While the vet thinks we can probably give her maybe another quality year of life, she’s not sure how my kitty will react to the medication. And now I have to gird myself for yet another loss, knowing that it’s coming and coming far sooner than I’m prepared to deal with it.
Damn, this year has not been kind to me…