Since I've talked a bit about emotions on the blog lately, I thought that this would be a good time to talk about grief. How I experience it and what can be said about it.
This cat was special. I know that most people probably say this about their pets, but I can honestly say that I’ve had several cats in my past that were not as special as this one, even if I loved them just as much.
Even though Bella was not fond of other cats, she was very social with people. When we had visitors that she hadn’t met before, she liked to jump into their laps. She loved to lay in mine and other people’s laps and even though it could take her some time to find the right position, once she did, she quickly got very relaxed and comfortable, while she enjoyed being petted and scratched.
Bella was also a very trusting cat. She liked to be petted on the belly, which is something that trigger most cats defense instincts. She even liked to be stroked backwards and the few times that she bit me, she always stopped herself before it started hurting.
I could say a lot more about Bella, this wonderful little animal that is no longer with us. But I think that I’ve said enough to give you a picture of what made her special. And there is so much that I want to say that this text by necessity will be very long. Even though I usually dedicate a bit of time and effort to the things that I write, the subject matter this time deserves more than usual.
Throughout my life I’ve had my share of grief. I’m not ready to talk about this publicly in too much detail and neither do I at this point find it appropriate, but people close to me have died. When it’s expected and because of old age it still hurts. But it doesn’t feel sad in the same way as when someone, pet or human, is taken suddenly and/or too early.
This is of course stating the obvious. But when you try to put things in perspective, you need to include the obvious.
Another obvious fact, is that there is a distinct difference between the experience of losing a person and that of losing a pet. I’m not going to get into a lengthy analysis of this. It will suffice if I say that while the initial pain may feel the same, the hurt from losing a pet subsides after a while, while the ripples from losing a human may go on forever, depending on how one nurtures the wound. Losing a person may shape one’s whole life, which is something that I am an example of. But nonetheless, losing a beloved pet hurts like hell.
I don’t know if it’s correct to use the term “too early” in this context, since I know that there is a divine order to things. But if we use the term as “anything other than of old age and diseases related to old age”, the term is accurate. Language is funny that way. It contains a lot of vague terms that are evaluative rather than factual, and that only have meaning in relation to something else. And in a sense, it says more about my inability to accept tragedies as parts of the natural order of things, than it does about the tragedy itself. I know that they are. And yet, I somehow don’t feel that they should befall me or those close to me.
I’ve gone through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I’m still going back and forth between all of them. I’m spending more and more time in the later stages though. But I’m still repeating the scene when she got hit by the car in my head from time to time, somehow trying to make it into something other than what it is. Somehow trying to stop it inside my head. Or I’m thinking that what happened is objectively speaking wrong. Because Bella was not the kind of cat that should die from getting hit by a car. She was too gracious, happy and full of life to end in such a way. There is no logic to such thinking. But it’s still there.
I’m sometimes angry at the driver, because I believe that he was driving too fast, too close to us and that he should have been more observant when driving through a residential area. But no blame is ever going to bring our cat back. And I don’t know exactly how fast he was driving or if he had any reasons beyond his control for being distracted.
At the same time, I think that I have to allow myself to be angry, but without believing that my anger is necessarily justified. I only have access to my perspective and nothing is going to get better from me believing the worst. I could tell myself that he probably hated cats, loved to drive fast through residential areas, cared nothing for anyone but himself and that he probably was drunk and text-messaged on his phone. And it might actually make me feel better in the short run, because anger feels better than grief. But in all likelihood none of it is true, it won’t bring Bella back and if I don’t want to become bitter, I should refrain from believing such thoughts.
In short, I believe that it’s often better to allow ourselves to be angry unconditionally, without trying to justify it. And to try and see thoughts as just thoughts, while not confusing them with reality.
At an early stage, I made the conscious decision of feeling what I was feeling. To not try to push down emotions or run away from them. And acceptance was actually a part of my grieving process from early on. I tried to be as acutely aware of my bodily sensations as possible, since grief, just like any emotion, is felt physically. Accompanying the feelings of grief have also been feelings of anxiety and fear. Some of the fear was naturally triggered by witnessing the event. But I’m not sure that all came from there. I think that some fear was brought to the surface together with unprocessed grief that also was stored in my body from before.
In other words, this also opened up a lot of old wounds inside of me. Here I think that it’s important to recognize that while the emotions are energy that can be released by being accepted and fully felt inside the body, one must not forget that they relate to an actual, tangible, physical tragedy. And as such, it needs to be healed by thinking and talking about it too.
Depression is the stage where I’m currently in most of the time. I haven’t worked out and hardly done any other physical activity since it happened. I don’t really feel like doing anything, except watching movies and TV-series. And I’ve slipped back into old patterns of overeating. It would probably be better if I moved around a bit. If I got my energies going. But I just can’t bring myself to do it. I guess that there is some sort of balancing act between being kind and lenient towards myself during difficult times, and pulling myself up to avoid permanent stagnation. Honestly I don’t know where to draw the line here. As I’m writing this a week has passed, I still don’t feel like doing anything and my vacation is just going to waste because of it.
At least I’m sitting here writing this down. I guess that’s something. But I haven’t done much else. Maybe this will resolve itself, because I do have these moments of acceptance. It’s not just the regular type of acceptance, where what has happened really sinks in, I shrug my shoulders and say “Well, I guess life has to go on”. No, this is an acceptance where I feel very little resistance towards anything. One where I actually feel really alive and in contact with myself. In these moments, I can feel a strange hope that everything is going to turn out fine. That those that I have lost, both recently and long ago, are not really lost. But it doesn’t take long before I’m back in resistance and depression again.
Moving on, I want to talk about the fact that there is something special about sharing grief. I mainly share my grief with my wife and her daughter, even though many others were stricken as well, since more or less everyone loved that cat. When we share grief, we come close to others in special way. Because no matter how close or far away we are from those that we share the grief with, there are few situations where we so intimately can understand each other’s emotions. There are few situations where we can come so close to feeling each other’s emotions. And this means something. This might be a limitation, but it’s easier to care and sympathize when you know what someone else is going through. And I believe that, handled correctly, this can help grow one’s overall capacity for compassion.
This also challenged my trust in God. Since there is some meaning to everything that happens, there is clearly some meaning to this as well. I can see the call to not taking those around me for granted and how this has brought us closer together. But I’m also left wondering why something like this has to happen, for us to learn to be more loving, present and appreciative. Fearful thoughts even enters my head. Since this is not the first tragedy that I’ve faced and since my life has contained many hardships, there are many thoughts such as: What if God doesn’t love me? What if God wants to punish me by dangling a little bit of happiness in front of me, just to take it away again? What if those that I love are taken away from me for no other reason than to cause me pain? What if I deserve the pain?
I don’t truly believe this. But as with so many other dark thoughts, these keep on haunting me. I guess that the big problem is that as soon as we move out of the realm of what can be known with certainty, anything could potentially be true. And when we’re in pain our speculations will naturally be colored by the pain.
Finally I think that in all of the tragedy, we need to always try to make something of it. Besides re-evaluating my relationships, I’ve also thought a bit about what the accident itself means. What happened was that our sweet, wonderful cat was hit by a big monster of a pickup truck. One moment she came up to me, purred, was happy to see me and I was overwhelmed with love for her. A minute later I carried her dead body into our apartment. These things and much much worse happen in our reality and in one sense we need to accept that as much as possible. Because resisting reality only causes us to suffer more.
At the same time, I want to do my best to make reality a little less brutal, painful and grief-stricken. I don’t know exactly what I mean by this. But I haven’t always treated everyone with kindness. I want to do my best to do so, even with people that do not always make it easy for others to be kind to them. I want to pay more attention and never be in that kind of rush, that I risk being the one that hits someone’s cat with my car. But this goes further. I’m often stressed. And even if I’m most of the time not in my car when I’m stressed, I’m still contributing to a world where saving time and getting from one place to another as fast as possible, becomes so important that we no longer see what is going on around us.
I know that life requires more than softness and kindness. We often need to suck it up, handle our emotions like adults and apply discipline and focus to what we are doing. But when I can, I want to do my part in creating a world where that which is small, soft, sweet, innocent and trusting, does not get hurt by that which big, cold, hard, fast, and careless. I want to live in a world where life ultimately triumphs over death. Maybe you think that I draw too much from a dead cat here. But this is what comes out when I try to put what I feel about the even into words.
