August 2007

I gather and wash bok choy, arrugula (grown from seed this year), tender red and green chard leaves, baby Russian kale, Italian parsley, cilantro, purple basil, oregano, dill and cherry tomatoes from my container garden this morning. Adding organic local avocado and red onion, organic raw pepitas, pine nuts and dried cranberries and some non-organic sweet and spicy roasted pecans I build a luscious salad big enough for both my breakfast and later in the day, my lunch. Sitting in the midst of all the growing green and flowering beings, I savor this feast and absorb my morning dose of sunshine before the heat of the day sets in.

It's been a sad and grief-filled month. After her brief few days of being a little more her usual self and eating a tiny bit, Ms. Pretty's physical condition began to crash even more seriously than it had the week before (as I'd described in the July Bulletin Board). She stopped eating again, this time in earnest. She continued drinking lots of water and, weak as she was, she kept making her wobbly way to the bushes or to her box to urinate. Despite these trips, she continued leaking urine on her usually immaculate belly that she no longer had the energy to keep clean.

I spent the weekend and then all the hours between and around my work with clients on Monday and Tuesday lying next her in her various favorite spots around the house and garden doing gentle Reiki and simply stroking her as she softly purred. Remembering how my other two older cats had hidden away in closets as they were getting ready to die, I prepared a nest for Ms. Pretty in my walk-in closet. We took a short trip to the vet during one of my breaks on Tuesday to get his read on her condition. She wasn't yet in pain, but he was sure that her swollen bladder and engorged kidneys were likely to be causing her considerable discomfort that would surely and soon worsen. Sobbing and bereft, I arranged an appointment for the vet to come to our house the next evening to help her leave her body before she'd have to deal with such serious pain. Though it was devastating, I felt relieved both that she was so clearly letting me know it was her time to go and that I would be able to be here with her as she left.

Tuesday late evening, she found the nest in my closet. From that I understood that she'd begun to be in pain. (Cats apparently hide when they're hurting.) I stretched out in the closet with her for several hours that night crying and stroking her, telling her how much I loved her, how grateful I was for all we'd shared over the years and how okay it was with me for her to leave. I so hoped that she would pass before the Wednesday night appointment. I slept in the house waking often to check in on her. It was a long, sorrow-filled night. I sat or lay with her indoors and outside from 6:00 the next morning until the vet and his assistant arrived around 5:30 that evening. We'd had a peaceful, gentle, love-filled day sometimes doing Reiki, sometimes both dozing together, most of it out in the garden.

When they came we were inside cuddled on my foam slant board, her favorite indoor roost, one that let her have a view of the birds and the garden. While the vet and his assistant were gentle and loving, moving one of her legs to expose an injection site obviously caused her an intense flash of pain. Though practically moribund, she hissed, lashed out and growled ferociously. I was so upset that we'd hurt her and disrupted her peace but then she calmed right down and let them shave her now exposed leg. While she lay wrapped in my arms the shot went in and her precious spirit left her sweet little body. It was so simple and so incredibly sad. They both hugged me as they left and I sobbed and sobbed and rocked her frail little shell.

After a while I washed her belly with lavender water, towel fluffed and then brushed her soft coat so that she'd be as silky and clean as she'd always been before she'd gotten so sick and weak. I curled her into one of her favorite sleeping positions with her back paws up near her chin and her front paws enfolding them. I closed her eyes and then wrapped her papoose-style in my oldest, most favorite and threadbare mauve sweatshirt. (We'd done lots of roughhouse play-wrestling over the years with the cuffs of that sweatshirt pulled over my fingers, my fingers like an elephant trunk nipping at her till she'd snort and launch herself onto my arm, kicking and play-biting as I'd spin her around on the floor.) Packaged in the shirt, she'd have my spirit arms embracing her forever.

I'd already dug a grave for her the week before in a lovely corner of the meadow under an ancient pepper tree. I'd lined it with a bed of sphagnum moss, adding dried rose petals, then rosemary and sage all from my garden. Now, I scattered her favorite toys and some of her special treats in amongst the petals and moss before I brought her body over to the grave. I sat down at its edge with her in my arms and promptly came completely undone. The reality of never again being able to cuddle and snuggle and stroke her furry presence was more than I could bear. I couldn't let her body go, couldn't put her in the ground. So I didn't.

I brought my still warm and soft little package back to the cottage with me. I opened the papoose so that I could see and stroke her head and shoulders. I lay on the couch or on my nap bed for hours with her on my chest, cuddling and stroking her body and crying my heart out. I knew I had to leave for New York and the celebrations of my dad's 91st birthday early the next afternoon but I couldn't imagine being in the house without her till then. I talked and cried with my sister by phone as I held my precious old friend in my arms. My sister's kitty companion of 18 years had died six years ago and she remembered how hard it was to give up a furry friend's body.

I still had several things to do before leaving for my trip, things I couldn't to do while holding Ms. Pretty. So, I kept putting her little sweatshirt-wrapped head-and-shoulders-still visible-self in all her favorite spots as I wandered from place to place in the cottage completing my chores. It was a comfort to keep glancing over to see her in one of her usual hangouts looking like she was simply napping there.

I kept checking in with myself to see if I was ready to put her body in the ground. It felt like I might well keep her with me till I left for the airport; that I'd have to take her with me into the tent when I finally went to sleep. I couldn't fathom how anyone ever gives up the body of a partner or child that they've lived with and shared touch with every day. I was grateful that her body was still warm and not yet rigid even at midnight.

Gradually, I came to realize that it wasn't such a good idea to bury her just before I had to leave the property. With no sense of how undone I might feel afterward, it seemed gentler not to do it on the very day I'd be leaving. Back and forth I wavered until the moment came when suddenly I knew it was time. A bit after 1:00 A.M., I went back to the pepper tree with her and two flashlights. With one light on the ground and the other in my teeth, I rewrapped her head in the sweatshirt and tenderly placed her on the soft bed of moss. I covered her with more moss and rose petals and sage and rosemary. I burned some sage and sweet grass and through tears and sobbing read again my two favorite poems about death (one from Kahlil Gibran and one Native American). Carefully and slowly, mostly by hand, I pushed the soft earth back into the grave covering her and saying a last goodbye to my precious companion of so many years. Then I arranged the rocks I'd brought from our last house over the earth and framed the grave with eucalyptus logs when I discovered I hadn't brought enough rocks to safely protect the grave.

It was hard but it was okay. I'd given myself permission to do it only if and when it felt right, trusting that if I waited and gave myself all the space I needed, a right time would eventually arrive. And, it did.

Exhausted and emotionally wrung out, I collapsed in the tent and said goodnight to my old friend before I fell deeply asleep. As I gathered escape velocity the next day, I kept talking to Ms. Pretty, kept feeling her spirit very much here and often thought I'd caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye. Some moments I'd feel chest-crushing anguish, other moments I'd feel empty and numb, a little disoriented. I'd keep wandering over to her grave, sitting there talking to her and sobbing. Then I'd come back to the cottage to finish getting ready.

Leaving was not as hard as it might have been. Whenever I leave for a trip, I usually let go of the whole of my regular life. I slip into a kind of limbo, a liminal state that I float in until, when I reach my destination, I plug into the world/people that I'm visiting. For the intense, extended family-filled two days of celebrating my dad's 91st birthday and the quieter day of cruising around Manhattan with my oldest, dearest friend, my grief was in a surreal kind of suspension. The couple of times that I actually shared the story with my friends and my parents, it was intense and immediate again, but only in those moments.

When I came home from my trip late that Monday night (the long additional journey to my godson's family in Boston having serendipitously been cancelled), Ms. Pretty's physical absence was crushing. I felt unmoored, alone, missing her terribly. I sobbed and talked to her as I wandered around unpacking, sorting mail, doing the rituals of returning to my now excruciatingly empty house. Even while I felt her spirit presence, not having her furry physical being to hold was unbearable. I sat for a while by her grave. Imagining her curled into herself, slumbering under the soft earth brought an odd sort of comfort and I could finally go to sleep.

There was no question when I woke on Tuesday: The only way I could bear the grief was by finding a new fur person to hold and love as I mourned Ms. Pretty's death. I hugged and petted all the big and little kitties at the Ojai Humane Society for a couple of hours that afternoon but no one captured my heart. On Wednesday I drove up to Santa Barbara to pet kitties both at the Shelter and at the Humane Society there. I'd hoped for a young adult cat, one that might not have an easy time of being adopted. (I didn't think I was prepared for raising a baby kitten again.) After a few hours of going back and forth between the two places trying hard to find some fur person with whom I felt a heart connection, I gave up.

I felt distraught, confused by and upset with Spirit for seeming to suggest that it wasn't yet time for me to have a new feline companion in my life. I sobbed my way along the beach for hours. It was hard to go home to my now empty house without a new kitty. Once it got dark, I finally and despondently headed back to Ojai. I came into town a bit after nine hoping that I might find an ad in the next day's Ojai paper and filled with an intense craving for, of all things, a chocolate covered Entenmann's doughnut. At that hour only the Von's supermarket (to which I almost never go) is open, so that's where I headed. Sulking my way to the entrance I passed their community bulletin. There on the topmost layer was a stack of flyers announcing in three-inch high bold block letters: “KITTENS!” It went on to say there were three 8-week old tortie [tortoise shell] females ready for good homes and gave a local phone number. I laughed out loud, and thanked Spirit for taking such good care of me after all, especially since I'd been hoping for a tortie again. (My other two long-term kitties were tortoise shells and they're always very smart and always female.)

Although I wanted to go see them right then, it seemed a bit late to call a stranger. I barely slept. I checked in with Ms. Pretty and felt her permission and blessings. When I called the next morning, I was their first caller. The flyers had been put up less than an hour before I'd seen them the night before. Off I went to play with baby kittens. I figured out that one was not really a tortoise shell and definitely not a female. I hung out with the three kittens and the human mother and daughter with whom they lived for over two hours as I waited to see if I would bond with one of them. I was also trying to sort out whether I was ready to cope with a kitten.

The little male cat was the most intrepid and by far the most hilarious of the three. Still, I knew I wanted a female and a tortie. After a while, the one they called “the shy one” found her way into my heart. She was such a love she won me over to daunting prospect of raising a baby again. I committed to taking her but left her there while I went to town to get the things I'd need to have in place for bringing home a kitten.

Barely a block and a half away, a little voice whispered in my ear, “You need to take the boy, too.” Without a moment's hesitation-it felt so absolutely right-I called the woman and told her I'd be taking both the boy and the shy one. It would have been so hard to take the little female away from her family. And, if I'd done that, it would have been impossible for me to ever leave my house, leaving her poor little now-isolated self alone. I was a bit stunned that it felt right to have two kittens at once; that I wasn't concerned over whether I'd have enough love and energy to share with two little beings.

So, on my third day home without Ms. Pretty and after a pet-store spending spree (kitty condo, a wire crate for ventures into the outdoors during their first six months, scratching post, toys, waffle golf balls, bowls, trays, beds, kitten food, etc.) I became the human mamma for two adorable tiny fur balls. From the first she's been called Sugar, a cuddler with an unbelievably loud purr. He started out a bit more cautiously and quietly as Little Bear but he's gradually been growing into a lover with a loud purr of his own and he's now definitely Handsome Boy.

They've been with me a month today. Their uproariously funny antics have kept me laughing in the middle of my grieving. With them taking up so much room in my life and my heart, I've been able to bear the pain and grief over Ms. Pretty's dying. Little perpetual motion machines, they race around chasing and wrestling with each other and with their toys, nosing into everything until they suddenly go splat, collapsing for long stretches curled up around each other in the sweetest positions.

Since they have each other, I can leave the house for walks and errands without feeling worried that I'm abandoning them. It's being surprisingly easy for me to love, enjoy and share affection with both little ones at the same time. Although they're lots of work, the joy and hilarity they bring has soothed my aching heart. There were some bumps: He had an intestinal parasite that involved 10 days of diarrhea and meds for both of them; we had a few incidents around the litter box until we found a litter that worked both for them and for me and until I learned the rule for litter boxes in a multiple cat house-one box for each cat and then an extra one.
After four weeks of feeling our way around each other, we've settled into life together. Slowly, bit-by-bit I've expanded their territory and this week they've finally been allowed to extend their racetrack to include every last nook and cranny of the cottage. It's a hoot watching them as they explore, find more favorite spots and new ways to get into trouble. I've gotten used to the kitty-toy-chaos in my once very tidy study; the trade-off is more than worth it. I love that they've grown partial to curling up together at my elbow purring madly and occasionally nudging for petting whenever I'm at my desk using the computer or doing paperwork.

Two of Ms. Pretty's most engaging portraits watch over us all from just above my computer. Her spirit is still quite present and I've a little 49-day altar for her at my other elbow. Sometimes I almost feel a bit of her living on in little Sugar. Over the weeks since I've come back home from my east coast trip, I've continued creating a meditation space around where she's buried. I gathered more rocks from the grove where we used to live, enough to make a heart-shaped cairn over her grave. I fixed and then added some beautiful curved-top woven willow panels to the fence behind it, planted jasmine, dusty miller and more lavender, added a heart shaped lava rock that had been used in sweat lodge ceremonies by the family from whom the kittens came. I have a comfortable outdoor lounge chair and table there so I can hang out in the shade of the pepper tree and be near where she sleeps. Laminated copies of the photos of her that live over my desk are on the fence there, too.

It's all so odd. I've never before felt the need to keep or bury the body of any of my earlier short or long term kitty companions, never felt any connection with or impulse to visit the graves of friends and family members who've died. In fact, I've never before had any understanding of what it is that people get from visiting cemeteries and tending graves. Yet, here I am feeling such comfort from having Ms. Pretty's body returning to the earth right here where I can come and hangout and talk with her. I'm settling into life without her physical presence: crying less, feeling the raw edges of my grief softening and feeling more at peace with what's so.

It's taken a while to get to the space of writing this final chapter in her life with me. It's come in fits and starts over a couple of weeks even once I started writing this piece. Telling the tale here feels like a big step away from what used to be, another sad piece of laying Ms. Pretty to rest. Each time I've shared the story with friends or clients the pain has been sharp and fresh, as if it's all just happening again. As I come to the writing of it, it seems to move a little further away, to soften some. I had to be ready for that.

A postscript about the latest with the book: There'd been no word from the editor who'd requested the manuscript expecting to have time to read it the third week of July. I checked in this week just to make sure it had actually reached her desk. It had and she's not yet had time to review it. So please keep a good thought for the project . Thanks!

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