Taking Back Death

A few days ago, I had to say goodbye to my little cat. She had been with me for 171/2years and her life spanned all the meaningful events of my recent life. She came up from Hawaii with us when we moved to Colorado. She was there when my grandson was born and there when I lost my husband of 37 years. She moved into a new house with me and was the one constant as I tried to rebuild my life.

I knew it was time to let her go when she started having seizures and I realized they could only continue and get worse. Despite knowing this, though, I grieved her loss intensely and found myself wondering what it was so hard for me to let her slip away.

After much reflection, I realize it wasn’t really to do with her. She’d had a wonderful, long life, much loved and cared for, and I knew that keeping her alive would have been merely selfish. My grieving was a tsunami of emotion, built in volume by every other loss in my life. Her death made me remember every one that had preceded it, some of which I understand now that I have never discussed, let alone dealt with.

For example, I found myself dealing not only with actual death but also figurative regret. With little Squeak, I mourned again the loss of my mother, husband, three dogs, and four cats but also more intangible things such as the father I never knew (killed in WWII), the mentally ill grandmother who was unreachable during my childhood, the brother who died the year before I was born, the end of my professional career, the onset of new physical challenges, and the realization that I can no longer promise myself that I still have time to achieve the things I wanted to as a young woman.

You might say that a lot of issues were triggered by the loss a little black-and-white girl of barely ten pounds. These were things I had congratulated myself as having laid to rest or else never had dealt with.

The opportunity to reflect and grow is probably the gift that death gives us It’s a time when those remaining alive can touch the membrane between life and death and perhaps see just a little further. It’s also a time, I believe, to look at one’s own beliefs about death itself.

I’ve never found much comfort in religious leaders who preach about resurrection and expect me to be joyful. In my experience, there is no substitute for dealing with grief. If it’s not now, then it will be later. I also don’t accept the idea that our animals are kept out of whatever heaven is being promised. Life is life. If I want to believe in the Rainbow Bridge where the animals wait for us, and if I agree with the Indian belief that it is the animals who will decide who crosses, then I will do so. I don’t know when it was that we handed death over to religion: it’s the only power they really have over us. They threaten and promise but in the end, everyone dies alone. I think it’s time to make death personal again and take it back from the constraints of religious dogma.

Meanwhile, I am going to believe that I heard my blue heeler, Kepa, settle for the last time in my office after we had to put her down. I heard the familiar chink of her tags on the wood floor and I smiled—she was home. I’m going to believe that my late husband was on the other side to greet our pets. I’m going to believe that I will see my husband and mother waiting for me as well, along with all the other animals I have loved and that my little Squeak will be sunning herself as she waits for me.

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