There is a part of me that wants to float again, to push past the deep sorrow that has made its way into my heart, but the sorrow is seeping into my body, into my bones. As it must. Anyone worth loving is worth mourning. And my body is offering itself over to the grief process. I feel heavy and tired, I find myself staring off into space, feeling tingly and strange. I feel fear and panic, as I previously wrote, and somewhere deeper than that is a deep desire to go on living strong and bright. The strong part of me wants to coax me out of mourning, and says, "you should get a little kitten!" But there is another part of me that wants to just sink into this sadness, not push it aside. Also, not dramatize it, or feed it, but to just honor it when it appears.
I have somehow avoided going into the depth of writing about Familiar kitty's death and ceremony. Part of me wants to let it go. But another part of me just can't, and wants to honor his little life with a heartfelt telling of his death. I am going to try.
When I wrote last Wednesday, I wrote only a couple hours before he passed. It was Wednesday morning that it happened, a little after 11am.
I felt that his end was coming near. I was actually stunned that he had not passed in the night. I had trained my ears to listen for his cries, his whines...and throughout the previous night I had gone to him whenever he cried. He had settled in the green bathroom, behind the toilet for the most part, on Tuesday evening. After getting himself there, he had little strength to move again.
I had asked Alan to stay over on Tuesday night, both to care for Friday and to be there in case Familiar had passed during the night. I was afraid of what I would do if I found him dead in the night, and I knew that having support was better. I gave Alan my bed, and I took a mattress on the floor of the meditation room. And all through the night, he cried out, and I went to him. Around sunrise, I started giving him Rescue Remedy, which allowed him to be calmer, and sometimes more than an hour would pass without him crying out. When Alan got up to leave, I got up too, and was so surprised to see his bony body still pulsing with breath.
I knew that all there was left for me to do was be with him. His cries were weaker than ever. His breathing was shallow and soft. His eyes looked dazed and non-responsive. I kept bursting into tears every few minutes, stunned that he was leaving me. I called Lynn, and asked if she could come over...she was on her way to class, and said she would come by later in the morning. I called Ros, and she was able to come over and sit with me for a few minutes. She was the last person other than me to touch his sweet little head, or kiss his soft fur.
I lay on my side, between the toilet and the bathtub, reaching my hand to his little cold paw. I rubbed it and squeezed it constantly. I talked to him softly, telling him how much I loved him, telling him how sorry I was that he was suffering, and that I couldn't believe that this time had come. Now and then, he would cry out with more power, and would try to sit himself up or even stand, but his strength was failing. He would stretch out his legs, reaching and pushing with all the strength he could manage as he cried out. I hope that he wasn't feeling agonizing pain...I felt so helpless, having no idea how to help him. He pushed himself side to side behind the toilet, front legs pushing against the sink, then hind legs pushing against the bathtub. It was heartbreaking to watch.
When his position was more centered around the sink, I moved my body to that side. I lay belly-down on the urine stained bath towels, and took his sweet little head in my hands. When Ros arrived, this is how she found us. She was there to comfort me, and was so kind to both me and my little kitty. She stayed a short time, and then left us together with her prayers and love.
After she left, I talked to my little love. I told him with more authority than I could have consciously managed, "I am ready to let you go." I talked to him about how my emotional reaction must be hard for him, too, because it must seem that I want him to stay. Indeed, I wanted him to stay!! Forever and ever, for the rest of my life, I wanted him to stay! But that was clearly not what was happening, and I wanted to reassure him that when his time came, I didn't want him to hold on to this life and this suffering for me. I sobbed my heart out, and eventually stood to get some water.
Throughout the morning I had only moved away from him a couple times. Each time, his cries would pull me back as quick as I could get there, and this last one was no different. I came right back to him...it almost seemed that whenever I wasn't touching him, he would cry out. His eyes were so wide, as if they were trying to take in the light, even though the room was brightly lit with morning light and the lights on too. I wondered if he had lost his sight, and if touch was the only way he was able to know I was still there. I stayed there, and held him - his paw, his face. I talked to him, I sang to him medicine songs that came to my mind. And I told him that God is so good. I told him that when his guardians, angels, and guides come to take him that he needed to go with him, to let go of this body and this life. Now, looking back on this, I can hardly believe that I was able to be so present and so strong with him - my heart was destroyed, I was beside myself with sorrow, and yet I knew that the only thing for me to do in those moments was to sit that slightly aside to be there for him.
His cries became weaker. He had pushed himself much more toward the sink. I reached over to him, and slid his tiny frame from behind the toilet, and closer to me. I thought that by having my body closer to his, I could offer him more comfort. And what a sweet thing, to feel his body so close to mine at that moment. I continued to hold his head in my hand, and his paw in my other hand. As he cried out again, one of his paws reached out and grazed my face, and then my arm...he had been pushing with his legs as the agony would come, and now he had nothing to push into but me. He eventually began to grip at the towel, too, and I reassured him that I was there, and that it was all going to be okay. I noticed that he had begun to poop, and I reached over and grabbed some tissue to clean that up. He cried out again, and I brought my face close to him, crying harder than ever. Then, his pushing, stretching, reaching paws relaxed.
Something moved through my body, and I pushed myself up onto my forearms, and I looked at his little belly. It was not moving. So many things went through my mind, but I pushed them aside...I knew that the moment had come. A powerful gasp came from him, his little toothy mouth open, tongue reaching out, eyes open wide. His side was still not moving, though I could see his heartbeat just beneath the surface of his skin. One paw reached out in a clawing, clenching motion. I took it in my hand, and I told him that it was okay, to let go...the other paw reached out in a similar way, and I squeezed it too. One more powerful gasp came. I continued to hold on to him, and tell him how much I loved him, and to encourage him to let go, to go with the spirits/guides/angels who had come to help him pass. I could hardly breathe myself...waiting, hoping that maybe this was just a time of shock, that his belly would start to rise and fall again...but it did not. I tried to sing to him, to hold space for his spirit to pass out of the body, but through the song came a river of tears.
I wept more uncontrollably than I have ever wept before. I cried out from the bottom of my heart, the bottom of my soul, I just couldn't believe that he was gone. I stayed with him, too, still holding him, waiting for his heart to slow and stop beating altogether. I heard the front door open, and a "hello sweetie" call out. Lynn had arrived.
She couldn't have had more perfect timing. I cried and cried and cried, and she held my hands and pulled me close. She held space for me to be in that intense grief, and I was so grateful not to be there alone in that moment. She stayed with me for about an hour.
I tried to close his little eyes and mouth, but couldn't really. I kept wanting to go back to his little body, a shell of the kitty that I had loved for thirteen years. I buried my face in the fur of his neck, as I had so many times before, and it still smelled like him. He was still warm, and I cried into his neck until the fur was wet. After some time, Lynn helped me to clear out the bathroom so that I could wrap him up. I decided to wrap his body in a bright orange wrap that I had bought from Amma's shop when I saw her for the first time several years ago. It had little Indian symbols on it, and some Sanskrit blessings too, and I had taken it to Peru to use as an altar cloth before - it felt special and sacred to me, and would be perfect to bury my little kitty love in.
I thought I would be freaked out by moving the body of my little one, cold and stiff, no longer warm and alive. Lynn offered to do it for me, but I knew that I needed to do it myself. We cleared the extra towels, keeping one, and folded the wrap in half on top of it. I reached down and picked up my little kitty, and the river of tears began again. Oh, how badly I had wanted to hold on to my little kitty love as he was dying, and how it seemed to cause him suffering whenever I would pick him up out of necessity. But in that moment, he was no longer suffering. His body was so small, and not so fragile anymore. I held him and squeezed him, and I was so surprised that his fur felt so soft, still. I touched his face, running my fingers over his soft cheekbones, his soft nose, his soft forehead, and his little ears and neck. It was the saddest thing I have ever experienced, this little body that was once so alive. But it was also so healing to hold him, one last time. I held him for a long time. But eventually the time came for me to put him down and wrap him up. I closed the bathroom door after that, and left a bowl of sage burning within.
I need to stop here. I want to share about the beautiful ceremony, too, but that will have to wait. My heart aches anew just writing about this, and I simply can't go into it any further right now.
It will take a long time for me to fully let go of this sweet being that blessed my life for so many years. The sorrow is so deep, but it is flowing, too.
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