While on vacation, enjoying my honeymoon on an eleven night cruise something happened. My beloved cat Rozzie died. My mom was at my house caring for my ten year old, my three cats and my plants. It was very sudden and she didn’t see it coming. We suspect organ failure from an undiagnosed condition. My husband thinks she had a broken heart from us being away for so long. Whatever the cause, she died while we weren’t there. And I’m having trouble processing this.
I was two days shy of my ninth birthday when my mom and grandmother told me my father had died. He died during open heart surgery to try and fix a mitral valve failure. I hadn’t seen him for a week before his surgery. I never got to really say goodbye.
I had a cousin who was three or four years younger than me die after getting hit by a car when I was an early teen. I’d spent plenty of summers with him and his older sister (a year younger than me), my closest cousins, but I hadn’t seen them in a few weeks. My maternal grandmother died of cancer in my mid teens. I hadn’t seen her in several days before she died. My paternal grandfather died while traveling home from his winter hideout in Florida. I’d seen him the week prior when he took me to Disney World, just the two of us. In all of these cases, I don’t recall crying the way a normal person cries after losing a loved one.
Out of all the death I’ve experienced in my life, only one happened without a gap- my paternal grandmother died just an hour after visiting her in the hospital. And her death was the one most expected. Yet, I didn’t shed much if any tears. I think by then, just a month after graduating high school I’d become used to people leaving my life. I was almost relieved, for her and for my mom who spent her spare time caring for her as she worked in the hospital my grandmother was spending her final days in. I knbew then it was a burden on her and I didn’t want to see her so trodden down anymore.
Losing my cat has brought on few tears. And I feel horrible for it. I should be crying my eyes out, losing my buddy. I can see my husband is trying his hardest not to cry himself. She was his XBox buddy- always sitting on his lap as he played. She was at times a great cat, very loving, always wanting to sit in your lap, craving attention. Her meow was the sweetest sound. And at other times, like when she managed to get outside, she’d turn into a demon who was angry with everyone and everything. But, she was still a sweet cat. And she was only five years old.
I’ve had pets die, plenty in fact. But this was the first cat I’ve lost, and one that was mine. And yet I can’t seem to grieve for her. In fact, I feel like I’m incapable of grief for more than a fleeting moment. I don’t have loving fond memories of the past. Maybe it’s because my memory is so bad I don’t have much in the way of memories to have. (Thanks ADHD). Maybe I’ve had that grief part of my brain fried to a crisp and am just incapable of it. I don’t know that I move on, just move past. And I don’t know if this is good or not. Sure, I don’t WANT to cry, but why can’t I be sad over this death? Why is it I looked at a picture of her and felt detached. It was as if I was looking at someone else’s cat who died.
And the sad part- my daughter seems to be the same as me. I was told she cried when my mom and a friend took her to the ER Vet (it was too late by then but they didn’t know what else to do), but she’s refused to talk about it since. I don’t know if she will talk with her therapist about it. I don’t know that I want to talk to mine. Maybe it’s because I just don’t want the tears of feeling like a heartless jerk for not grieving to come out. Or maybe it’s because my mind is trying to protect me from being hurt. Again.
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