She is feisty. We find out the second day we adopted her and her brother; our kittens. Ant takes them to get their second dose of vaccinations. She doesn’t like the car ride, she complains throughout the ride, and the carrier is a mess by the time they come home, because, well, they pooped. And so as we try to wash the kittens and while the black one just endures it, this one scratches Ant very hard on a few places and is impossible to hold. I’m so turned off by this. I’m convinced Ant, with the deep scratch inflicted by this tiny kitten, contacted a mortal disease, and these creatures will be the end of life as we know it. Ant consoles me. He loves cats, dogs and is ecstatic we finally get to have pets around.
But pets smell. And one has to clean up after them. As they are getting used to living with us they pee at random places, leaving their scent? I don’t like this at all. I don’t like the smell. I don’t like being responsible for these two annoying creatures, out of control and I don’t know how to communicate with. I don’t like all the cleaning up, and it is almost impossible to get rid of the smell.
My future glooms before me. These two I will have to endure for years. There is catastrophe and dramatization in my head, and it all seems very unfair to me. My son notices this the second day, after the washing drama. He takes me out to lunch as it is Mother’s Day. He tells me, give them some time, give yourself some time to adjust. He says, he’s been in these types of situations, my 17 year old, and he always adopted given time. I love that he’s giving me advice with that soft tone of his. I don’t think this is going to be okay but still, I am now more hopeful.
Our friends, who own cats, come visit, and I get it gets better, and I also get this is how cats are. That also helps.
A few days after that I’m in love. I know the moment my heart bursts. I am in my room, doing simple yoga exercise (savasana pose really, on the carpet, and with open eyes apparently) early in the morning, with the door closed. First I see shadows under the door, then I hear meows, I open the door surprised since they never dared to come upstairs, and she looks straight at me and meows. She is so expressive. She says come play. I don’t think they care to play with a human, but they want attention. My heart melts. After that moment I don’t smell the offensive animal scent anymore, it is forever gone.
But she doesn’t stay. She gets sick. And by the time the diagnosis (FIB) is made it is too late for a remedy. We try, we find the medicine (with 80% success rate) inject the medicine day after day and we are hopeful until her last breath. After a final visit to the vet things take a bad turn, she can’t even move. She still purrs in those last minutes, as if to console us. Ant never leaves her side as I keep pacing, come pat her, stay a while then back to pacing, meanwhile our son comes and goes a few times. The boy, Kara Bela we name him (a Turkish name, meaning dark menace), kind of understands it, and he quietly goes on. We weep. We weep in the car as we take her body to the vet. We weep at the vet in the crowded lobby. How in the span of 6 weeks she conquered our hearts and we deeply felt connected to her I’ll never know. But we mourn the loss of that connection, of her.
We now have her paw print. And her memories. The memories are colored with feelings; how good it felt as she sat on my lap at first, and then I was annoyed, when I couldn’t move so as not to disturb her while still super sweet I found this. How I felt like her tormentor in the car as I drove her to the vet but the savior as she feistily pushed the vet and the technicians away, and took solace in my presence with her every time.
This earth with its creatures is so magical. It is filled with possibilities of deep, oxytocin filled, connections. It takes one meow to open your heart. And the ache one feels after loss is another connection to our collective mortal existence.
This book is amazing with expressive and colorful illustrations of cats and quotes that accompany them.
