Healing Our Animals

     Marley's dying began on the first day of summer--Summer Solstice. She died one week later.

     When I got to the Emergency Veterinarian's hospital, they would only let me see her at my adamant request, then gave me only one minute with a cat bloated and incoherent from the tubes and iv's. They took her away while I pleaded that they let her stay, and placed bill papers where her body had been.

     Against their advice, I took her home from the hospital so she could die with me.

     My friend Rachel lent me her car for the day, so we had a car to take her home in. 

David said "Just take her out of the crate" so I sat in the back seat, and we put her in my arms. She was lucid again, gazing up into my eyes.

     For a week David helped with the difficult most physical elements of nursing one you love into death. Marley was with me through all the years of my twenties--knew me during my solitary life and my married life. She knew all my places.

     I called every animal acupuncturist in New York City, trying to find someone who would do a house visit. I wanted her suffering to be softened, her pain to be lessened. But I could get none of them to come under such circumstances. I had two legal options, to put her to sleep, or to opt for the incredibly invasive and expensive procedures recommended by Western Medicine; none of which could fix what was ultimately happening. Her kidneys were failing, and there was no turning back.

     On the sixth night I thought she would die. We took her up to the roof, underneath the stars, and she just layed there. Then I laid her on a pillow and kept the death watch on her all night. Her breathing was so slow, quiet, but ever steady.

     The veterinarian had counciled that I could not deal with her dying, but what I could not deal with was having her die in that way (suddenly, without me beside her). We both needed the process of her leaving this physical realm so that her spirit could go on peacefully.

     The spirit seemingly evaporates into the matter of our hearts, the Redwood, the wheat field, the ones that love us.

     

I never meant to hurt her.

     So I knew on the seventh morning, when she threw up for the first time, and there was nothing behind her eyes, I knew that it was time.

     We bundled her in African fabrique, blue orange blue. I carried her like a saint in my arms. She died on a true New York summer day, hot street, heat visibly rising.

     We passed three witch women--old crones. They gave their reverential cooes. They knew.
"Isn't she beautiful" I said while crying. 

  Almost like a proud mother, newborn baby in her arms. Death, the counterpart, the boomerang, the circles' end.

     This vet knew. This vet was sensible and good. The nurse would give her some pain reliever so she wouldn't feel it. I guess you feel it when they kill you, which made sense.

     Three of us had our hands holding her--like a blessing, or a Christianing. 

"It's o.k. Marley, you can go now" we called.
The doctor entered the room so carefully. He put his hand to her to do what he must do, then after a moment said,
"She's already dead."
A sigh went up out of the room. 
"But I can still feel her." I said.
She had flown into my body through the stomach. I could still feel her.
She did look grey. Her body was dead.

For a long time it hurt more than I could deal with. It just had to be.

I was looking out of my eyes but not seeing anything. 

The grief only changes with time, but it does change. 

* * *

Tony is a New York shop cat that I've known for three years. Everyone is always dreaming of having him for their own, but he's a real shop cat.  At the end of this year that brought me through the process of my cat's death, I was blessed with having Tony at my house for Christmas. He suddenly needed surgery, and I got to bring him home for healing up. 

He's doing great and has brought me a lot of joy and love. He'll head back to the store at the first of the year.