Come what may.
It's easy to say when things are easy. It's difficult to live out when every day is a struggle for composure, for normalcy in light of sudden tragedies.
In recent weeks, my husband has declared that it hurts tremendously to shed the skin of who you once were. Shedding this skin not only includes making peace with your childhood self or college self or even the self who occupied the entirety of last year; it also includes internalizing and moving past the deaths of loved ones.
Within the last year I have learned an excruciating amount about myself through such experiences.
As many of you know, I grew up with dogs - never cats. My dad was not terribly fond of them, so we stuck to canines. When I got married, however, I knowingly married a cat person, and without much effort he convinced me I’d enjoy the company of cats if we got them as kittens. So we did. A month after we married, we decided to enlarge our family with two furbabies, Sophie and Emmerich, both barely 8 weeks old as rescues.
They stole my heart from the very first moment these skittish balls of love came to rest on me of their own volition. I had no idea I had such a capacity to love cats so much, and I’m so happy Sophie and Emmerich were the ones who showed me. They made me a catmom for the first time in my life.
Then, a year later, we had to say goodbye to Sophie because her kidneys were failing. It turns out lily poisoning is fatal if not caught early enough. On August 28, 2018 I was reminded for the first time in ten years how much it hurts to lose someone you love.
About a year later, I was due for a painful reminder again.
Friday morning July 19, 2019 I cuddled with Emmerich on the couch while I drank my coffee, a ritual we’d established over recent months. I noticed he was breathing heavily but otherwise totally lovey and normal. Later that morning, Joseph took him in to get checked out. We thought it might be asthma or something similarly minor. Five hours later, we were taking him home in a box, taped closed.
Feline leukemia is a tricky little virus that manifests without much warning and with a smorgasbord of potential symptoms. Emmerich had been carrying the virus in his bone marrow and it chose to present itself and start shutting his body down. There was nothing we could have done and nothing we could do except hold him and tell him how much we loved being part of his life while the vet put him to sleep.
The suddenness and utter surprise of his death are what gutted me the worst; I realized with painful clarity over the following week that looking into the face of an old, well-lived pet is very, very different from having to unexpectedly put down an otherwise healthy two-year-old catbaby. You look at the latter and wistfully imagine a long life with them; you look at the former and experience a twinge of reality that says the possibility of them dying of old age increases each day. How could I look at Emmerich like that? His death due to any reason seemed so far off as to be intangible. I can and have looked at my 12-year-old dog, Maxx, like that though, ever since I moved out.
I try to visit my parents where Maxx lives once a month or so. I live two hours and twenty minutes away now - that’s not close but it’s also not far. But in the last year, the fruits of my maturity have come to light in how I’ve regarded Maxx every time I show up and he’s still there, howling his greeting and bounding up to give me kisses: I look at him very deliberately and think “this could be the last time I see him.” It is a bit painful and uncomfortable, staring the inevitability of death right in the eyes, but it provides a sturdy jumping off point for our subsequent interactions. They feel so much more meaningful to me and I practice a present mindfulness, appreciating the silkiness of his coat as I pet him, the sound of his baying as he launches out the front door after a crow. This could be the last time, I think, smiling a bit sadly while Maxx prances around the yard, sniffing for deer poop. So let me be here with him while I can.
The second chapter of my grief opened with the death of young Emmerich and continued in the last couple of weeks as a lesson on the many shapes and sizes grief comes in. It can come on suddenly and without fanfare much like a tsunami, and it can also arrive somewhat slow and steadily, but still end in a jolt.
Death, even when totally expected, still manages to strike deep and quick into the humanity of those left behind.
Chapter three of my grief opened suddenly barely two weeks after Emmerich’s death. My dog Maxx died on Sunday, August 4th of 2019.
Loss, of this rapid-fire nature, certainly makes it hard to breathe.
I remember taking Maxx out for an evening potty break when he was about a year old. My family were in the final stages of readying to uproot our lives and move to Peru, but we were uncertain whether Maxx could accompany us. On that walk, I kneeled in the leaves next to him and took him into my arms, crying into his silky coat. I wanted so badly for him to come with us; imagining this next chapter without him felt hollow and dull, so much so that the image alone brought me to tears next to this clueless, happily wagging animal in the trees behind our house in Virginia.
Thankfully his goofy butt was able to fly over with us and my life during that period of isolation and soul searching was the slightest bit sweeter because of his presence.
It’s amazing how meaningful these animals are, even though they can’t talk to you and don’t see the world like you do and can’t even begin to comprehend their own mortality. Maxx was alive for exactly half my lifetime. That’s plenty long enough to leave a lasting, profound, stinky paw print on my heart. He was my buddy, great for cuddling and singing but not so great for fetching. I will miss him dearly, but I rest in knowing he lived a full, well-traveled life with a loving family, and now he’s enjoying a vast field full of crows to chase, popcorn to munch on, and all the butter wrappers to lick clean whenever he wants. No pain. No tears. No strangers. Just love.
It’s easy to feel sad for myself in the wake of these deaths. One terribly young, the other approaching old; one like a child, the other more of a little brother; both unexpected in their own ways but woven of different hurts. And I have every right to fall to pieces at seeing a photo or talking about them while the wounds are still freshly glistening. But you know what is also true at the exact same time? I can, and should, keep moving forward. If I’m truly living out the Come What May permanently inked on my body for all to see, I can certainly dig deep into this grief - but that doesn’t excuse me from my habits and goals. I still need to take care of and stay true to myself and my family. Both grief and unrelated meaningful pursuits can happen simultaneously. And they will.
Some days it hurts to keep going, but each day I’m able to manage the weight a little better. For the first week after Emmerich’s death, coming home from work sent me into hysterics because of how he used to greet me after a long day. Now I can pat the arm of the couch where he would perch and await scratches and smile fondly at the memory, thankful I even have the capacity to remember such things. And it will be the same with Maxx. If I don’t keep moving forward, the grief will turn into quicksand and consume me. I have to keep getting up at 6. I can cry while I drink my coffee because the weight of how much I miss them hits me - that’s acceptable. But when I dry my eyes, it’s time to hit the gym and throw around some weight. Then I hoist up that backpack of grief and go to work. So far I haven’t missed a single day. Gotta keep moving. Then I come home and work on my book or clean the house or make dinner. Do my nighttime routine, go to bed, and do it all again tomorrow. The backpack won’t be quite as heavy then.
Death sucks. Grief hurts. Understanding our own mortality and the mortality of others sets us apart from other creatures. It is a heavy burden to bear, and it will happen to all of us. Come What May, you gotta keep moving. It’s the only way to stay alive.
That doesn’t mean I won’t miss these precious babies of mine like hell.
In memory of:
Sophie (1yo) ~ August 28, 2018
Emmerich (2yo) ~ July 19, 2019
Maxx (12yo) ~ August 4, 2019
