fissures

There are times when the steady routine of life takes a dip, spins out on the icy road of reality, and you’re forced to pause, look around, peer over the edge of the abyss.

Like you said, everything was so normal… and then suddenly a fissure opened up.

And in these times the veneer of routine and day-to-day comfort zones strips away, and revealed underneath is the raw. Uncalloused, unprotected, feelings I can’t even access anymore when I try…

And I said to you, I’m glad I have you. You keep me from bottoming out. You contain me. 

Between tears and numbness, this is what I could find to say.

I know I’ve lost my language for expressing my feelings. We don’t seem to have a ready vocabulary for that. But things don’t go unnoticed. Simple things – a turned down bed, a cup of tea…

…and things that hang suspended when fissures form at our feet…

That you hung a halo of firefly lights in the bamboo over Tiny T’s little resting spot. So that I could look outside and see her halo glowing in the night.

That you said, goodnight my queen, we’ll see you in our dreams, before tucking her into the earth. So that it’s your last words – not my weeping – that can replay in my head to console my sadness.

That you wept over her little body too, lifting some of the burden of grief from me.

That you left her vigil music softly playing against the sad silence of the house.

That you toasted to all the love one small life can hold. All the love.

You swaddle my grief in gentleness. You punctuate my sadness with poetry. 

All the love a life can hold. We give and we take and that’s all there is.

sweet tosca

My little black shadow, my Kiwi cat. You crossed the ocean with me. You were with me through three break-ups, five moves, the death of four grandparents, marriage, the adoption of two more cats and a dog. You grew up with me, comforted me, watched me mature from a confused twenty-four-year-old to an adult; you grew old at my side.

There were times of deep loneliness and despair that I looked into your wide, guileless eyes and thought – Tosca, my little black cat, you are the one constant in my broken world. My love. You spent a decade in my care. You strolled on hillsides in New Zealand, chased chess pieces, corks and pens, walked across my keyboard typing nonsense – my literary cat – you dozed on my lap when I studied, sunned yourself on my Somerville deck. Of all the lives to live, none could be so sweet as the life of Heather’s beloved cat. You slept last night in my arms, head nuzzled against my chest, purring us both to sleep.

Tosca, my dear one, my little furry, black familiar, I knew you had to leave me sometime, you were not immortal as I so wished. I watched you grow from a bouncy, chirpy young cat into a quiet old lady, your black fur turning to red these last couple years. Tosca, my soul, as I watched you age I had just one wish for you – that when it was time to go, you would do so quietly, gently, on your own terms. You would find your own way out of this world, but that I would be there to comfort you on that journey.

You were happy this morning, woke up and bounded down the stairs for breakfast. And you enjoyed a nice breakfast before it happened. Was it your heart? Your big full, loving heart? Whatever it was, it happened suddenly – you suffered no sickness, any pain was short-lived. We were there at your side, Den and I, to comfort and stroke you on your last earthly journey. I ran downstairs when Den called me, and cradled your head in my hand – you nuzzled me with your face – and I stroked your sweet little head. For ten minutes, maybe twenty – did you see the light? You panted a little, gasped a bit for breath, but we stroked you and whispered to you, it’s okay, sweet kitten, you can go gently into that good night.