I'm writing to say how sorry I am for your loss of Gypsy, your beautiful cat. To lose such a friend, a constant companion, is a heartbreaking experience. I'm writing, too, because I know that sometimes those who don't have live-in pets can't grasp the empty spaces they leave behind when they are gone.
Around certain colleagues, acquaintances, and even some friends, you might feel embarrassed as well as bereft. You feel like hiding your grief because somebody might dismiss it or even laugh at it. "All this for a cat?" an oaf might say. "C'mon, you can always get another one."
Shrug them off. They don't get it and they never will. At some other time you might have the energy to explain your emotions to them, but now is not the time.
But there are also many of us know what a tough moment this is.
Part of this experience is particularly hard because Gypsy's warranty wasn't exactly up. She was fairly young --unlike my old Min, who died at nineteen, which, after all, was a remarkable age for a cat who spent her first year living in an alley on the lower-east side of Manhattan. Min was ready to go. She died when Michael and I were in Australia. Of course this was genuinely awful for the kind young women who were looking after our place while we were away and who worried that there might have been something else they could have done--but, in retrospect, Min's final act makes sense. She returned to her old half-feral ways even though she'd be an indoor cat since I adopted her. Because she could not go off somewhere on her own to die, she waited until we were gone.
But Gypsy had bad luck; her illness was as unpreventable as it was irrevocable. There should be comfort, however small, knowing you did everything you could have done.
When you feel implicated or in any way responsible, it is far worse--even if you did not do anything wrong. When I was about eleven, I found a wonderful stray cat and named him Dmitri. Our old cat was furious at the new interloper, naturally, but after a while they made competitive--but genuine--peace. Dmitri became a full-fledged member of our household. One terrible day he got caught in the engine of the car my mother was trying to start to take me to school; it was a cold day, and Dmitri had been an outdoor cat for long enough to know that car engines were warm. What he didn't remember that morning was that he was supposed to get out as soon as the car started.
My brother, who worked at a veterinarian's part-time, was the only one who knew what to do. My mother and I could only panic and cry. My brother wrapped the small creature in a blanket and took him to the vet, whose advice was to put the Dmitri to sleep right away. We took that advice even though it was impossibly hard.
It was nobody's fault. Yet even though it happened forty years ago, my heart still freezes when I remember. Worse things than that cat's death have happened to me but there are times when it almost seems as if that is not true. I once read a poem about how, when a cat dies, it leaves a catlessness behind it. We are aware of what we miss.
We, quite simply, love who and what we love; we need never apologize for this.
We shiver with heartache and also because we know, even if we don't admit it out loud, that this will not be the last bereavement in our lives.
Gypsy went out knowing you loved her. She enjoyed her special chair, followed you from room to room, and curled under the covers of your bed in the winter. She had a good life. You will miss her, yes, but you will also always remember her. That is a wonderful thing for a cat.
Please know that your sadness is not taken lightly. We are, all of us, fragile and in need of safeguarding even if we are as tough as any stray. We crave light and warmth and the absence of danger; we depend on those we love for comfort. Please let these words offer what they can.
