#3 A Very Hard Day
Dearest Baby Kitten,
Today (Monday, March 14th) was a very hard day.
Some background: The place where I go each day to trade time for cat food has just been sold from one group of rich people to another larger group of rich people. This means the new people wanted to meet me and find out if they still want to give me cat food for my time.
Today was that meeting.
I was not particularly nervous, I know my value as a cat food earner. I can earn cat food in a number of places if they decided they didn't like me, but I was also pretty sure they would like me. As you know, I'm pretty damn good at belly and neck rubs. I think they would be happy with my rubbing them and their clients. We should be clear in this case "rubbing" means making crap work so they can create TV shows. You remember the big box that sometimes showed birds or other moving things that would occasionally fascinate you for about 23 seconds.
What I did not expect was that you, meaning the ashes of your body, arrived today also. We had been away in Arizona for a week. We took a vacation from home and work and from grief, but it was all waiting for us when we got home. Then today they just showed up with a box. Mommy sent me a message to let me know you had been brought home in a small box.
I was not ready for how that would make me feel. The sadness of losing you, of saying goodbye, the finality of it came crashing back to me with a vengeance, like a toy mouse on a bungie cord. The day we helped you go to sleep was nothing in comparison to this. Maybe that's because on that day your suffering and sickness ended. As heartbroken as we were, at least there was that relief that you were, I hate the cliche but, in a better place.
Today, however, was torture. The sorrow tugged at my reddened eyes all day, though I had to stay calm for my meeting with the new owners at the end of the day.
The meeting finally came and I put on a smile and shook hands with those people like I was having a great day. Shaking hands is how humans sniff each other, and depsite the day I was having, I think I managed to smell pretty good to them. When the meeting ended it was time to go home, home to you.
On my way I was beginning to loose control. I could not stop the tears from flowing freely, but I didn't scream I didn't wail on the steering wheel and dashboard with my fist. I drove carefully and sanely. I did consider getting out of my car and screaming at the guy in the Bentley convertible who casually stopped right in the "keep clear" zone in an intersection, but then I saw his vanity plate...
"GAY DAD".
Dammit, hate crime.
I made it home. I managed to get upstairs without any neighbors seeing my red eyes, the tears still falling from them. I had an excuse all prepared just in case though: "allergies you know... I'm allergic to my cat dying." I'd like to think I could have managed to self-edit that last part, but let's just say it was good we didn't have to find out.
I unlocked the door and dropped all my crap at the door. I looked around for you. I didn't know what our "basic urn" was going to look like. I didn't see anything obvious. I was loosing control the emotional tidal wave was cresting.
I went into the bedroom where Mommy was on the bed. She seemed shocked at my condition, but I had other things on my mind. I could barely get the words out.
"Where... Is... She?"
She directed me to the sliding door to the balcony. She said she had put you in the sun where you liked to sleep in the afternoons. I couldn't see it at first. Then Mommy, seeing my brief pause said you were behind the curtain. Of course, in the sun, just where you would have been.
I went to the curtain and pulled it back. There was a white box of craft-made paper with a rough but pleasant texture. In the paper was imbedded small leaves, ferns and deciduous, green and red. Some were close or on the surface of the paper, some deeper so that only their shape was present.
I barely noticed any of this. Before, I had fears that the crematorium had simply shoveled random ashes in the box, that I had no way of knowing for sure this was actually your remains. After all they had taken 3 weeks to get you to us and didn't contact us, even after I sic'd the vet on their asses. They just showed up the next morning. That was all gone. It was you and only you.
The dam broke, the pain of holding it in giving way to the pain of letting it go. I sobbed, wailed, made sounds I don't want to make again if I can help it, and I can't. I think Mommy was crying hard too, but my only thought was of you and that, in some way, you were back home and with us.
Welcome home Delilah!
Love, your big feeder lap, and thrower of treat-treats,
Daddy
Today (Monday, March 14th) was a very hard day.
Some background: The place where I go each day to trade time for cat food has just been sold from one group of rich people to another larger group of rich people. This means the new people wanted to meet me and find out if they still want to give me cat food for my time.
Today was that meeting.
I was not particularly nervous, I know my value as a cat food earner. I can earn cat food in a number of places if they decided they didn't like me, but I was also pretty sure they would like me. As you know, I'm pretty damn good at belly and neck rubs. I think they would be happy with my rubbing them and their clients. We should be clear in this case "rubbing" means making crap work so they can create TV shows. You remember the big box that sometimes showed birds or other moving things that would occasionally fascinate you for about 23 seconds.
What I did not expect was that you, meaning the ashes of your body, arrived today also. We had been away in Arizona for a week. We took a vacation from home and work and from grief, but it was all waiting for us when we got home. Then today they just showed up with a box. Mommy sent me a message to let me know you had been brought home in a small box.
I was not ready for how that would make me feel. The sadness of losing you, of saying goodbye, the finality of it came crashing back to me with a vengeance, like a toy mouse on a bungie cord. The day we helped you go to sleep was nothing in comparison to this. Maybe that's because on that day your suffering and sickness ended. As heartbroken as we were, at least there was that relief that you were, I hate the cliche but, in a better place.
Today, however, was torture. The sorrow tugged at my reddened eyes all day, though I had to stay calm for my meeting with the new owners at the end of the day.
The meeting finally came and I put on a smile and shook hands with those people like I was having a great day. Shaking hands is how humans sniff each other, and depsite the day I was having, I think I managed to smell pretty good to them. When the meeting ended it was time to go home, home to you.
On my way I was beginning to loose control. I could not stop the tears from flowing freely, but I didn't scream I didn't wail on the steering wheel and dashboard with my fist. I drove carefully and sanely. I did consider getting out of my car and screaming at the guy in the Bentley convertible who casually stopped right in the "keep clear" zone in an intersection, but then I saw his vanity plate...
"GAY DAD".
Dammit, hate crime.
I made it home. I managed to get upstairs without any neighbors seeing my red eyes, the tears still falling from them. I had an excuse all prepared just in case though: "allergies you know... I'm allergic to my cat dying." I'd like to think I could have managed to self-edit that last part, but let's just say it was good we didn't have to find out.
I unlocked the door and dropped all my crap at the door. I looked around for you. I didn't know what our "basic urn" was going to look like. I didn't see anything obvious. I was loosing control the emotional tidal wave was cresting.
I went into the bedroom where Mommy was on the bed. She seemed shocked at my condition, but I had other things on my mind. I could barely get the words out.
"Where... Is... She?"
She directed me to the sliding door to the balcony. She said she had put you in the sun where you liked to sleep in the afternoons. I couldn't see it at first. Then Mommy, seeing my brief pause said you were behind the curtain. Of course, in the sun, just where you would have been.
I went to the curtain and pulled it back. There was a white box of craft-made paper with a rough but pleasant texture. In the paper was imbedded small leaves, ferns and deciduous, green and red. Some were close or on the surface of the paper, some deeper so that only their shape was present.
I barely noticed any of this. Before, I had fears that the crematorium had simply shoveled random ashes in the box, that I had no way of knowing for sure this was actually your remains. After all they had taken 3 weeks to get you to us and didn't contact us, even after I sic'd the vet on their asses. They just showed up the next morning. That was all gone. It was you and only you.
The dam broke, the pain of holding it in giving way to the pain of letting it go. I sobbed, wailed, made sounds I don't want to make again if I can help it, and I can't. I think Mommy was crying hard too, but my only thought was of you and that, in some way, you were back home and with us.
Welcome home Delilah!
Love, your big feeder lap, and thrower of treat-treats,
Daddy
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