This post has been revisited many times before it is finally done. For many times, the emotional tsunami was too great for me to continue. I fear the mourning is a downward spiral, what if I can never lift my spirit enough to ever feel normal again?
On 15 Sep 2018, Grace a.k.a. Greyz died. I have had a few encounters with the passing of someone close, but this time, I feel that Grace’s passing cut closer to my heart. Grace was the first cat that I took care for with my own hands. When Moo was away to USA for a month, unlike a stray cat which is capable of taking care for itself, I was all that she had to depend on for food and company. Friends who tried to offer consolation to the deeply grieving me told me that she is crossing the “rainbow bridge”. It was my first-time learning about the term. It is a comforting thought that we will have our reunion one day.
Looking back, I asked myself if I knew Grace was nearing the end. Deep inside my heart, I knew.
I was the one who noticed a big lump under Grace’s neck, at the lymph node. From 1 lump, it spread and became 4 and then 8. We hoped that it was just infection like tonsillitis and she could fight it off. When the swollen lymph nodes kept increasing but she wasn’t having fever, I think I started to go into denial that the inevitable is about to come. “Maybe there will be miracle!” My wishful thinking.
I also wondered if it was a mere coincidence that when I contracted dengue and stayed at home with her for 2 weeks, it was also the last 2 weeks of her time with us, and of her journey on Earth?
The memory about Grace starts to fade, bit by bit. The touch of her fur, her meowing, how she walked, her features up-close, the smell of her. I really blame myself for this. It is like my brain is moving on, but my heart and soul are still grieving and holding on hard to the dear memory.
I was angry and bitter at first: God want my cat to die, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do to change that. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Moo said: it was god who lead us to her! She was with us for a good 7-month. It is still very hard for me to appreciate the perspective that it is a blessing already for her to be with us than not to have her in our lives at all.
Hiro Arikawa wrote this in the “Traveling Cat Chronicles”: If you don’t mourn a dead cat properly, you’ll never get over it. I hope this small step of allowing myself to feel emotionally vulnerable and complete this post, is a big leap to my grieving process.
Grace, we hope you had a good time on Earth and had enjoyed our company just as how we had enjoyed yours. Thanks for the opportunity to let me learn to love more and care more.
the hedonistic felis~domestica... 