A Personal Exploration of a Particular Grief

This is an exploration of the grief brought on by the death of my beloved cat, Mooki, aka Mookie and several nicknames, such as Love Beast, Mr. Underfoot, Little Buddy, and the Mookinator. He was a very loving friend.

It has been almost a month and I have been very aware of my grief process from the beginning. I have paid special attention to it because my best (human) friend is dying and that “future grief” is very real. Also, Mooks is the first being with who I have had such intimate contact and daily love that has died. And I feel responsible for him—he died under my care.And now, so you can get ready to open yourself, a signpost: Difficult Feelings Ahead.

What happened, my feelings then, (non-linear thoughts), [my feelings as I write]

My neighbor called and said they had seen a cat in the road that might be him. (They loved him too.) He wasn’t home, so I walked up to the intersection, worried that it was him. It was a fast trip, so I didn’t have much time to worry, thankfully. I hoped it wasn’t him, but I knew it could be.

There was a lot of blood in the street and it was him, [crying now] and he was definitely dead (but maybe not? Did he just breathe?). After I calmly checked to make sure he wasn’t still alive, [Poor boy; I loved him; so did my husband, Steve; -crying again now] I immediately picked him up and started wailing (neighbors will have to deal)—his name, and lots of sobbing. [Poor boy. I don’t care if his blood gets on me.]

What is this emotion? Sadness does not do it justice. Anguish says it a little better. If this is a stage of grief, what is it? Shock to me implies silent numbness. But maybe this is what they mean by shock–it is sudden and hits hard. Maybe it is just called pain, pure and simple. I feel it again right now, almost a month later, [writing through my tears]. Not to the same degree, but the same feeling. I give thanks his death was quick, though based on marks in the blood on the street, probably not instant. I feel so bad for him, really hoping he didn’t suffer much.

I carry him (wailing as I walk down the street with his body) to our front porch. I don’t want to bring him in since his head is so bloody. He is a bit stiff, but not totally. I called my husband, Steve, who was out of town and told him (sobbing)“Mooki is dead. He was hit by a car.” [Crying again now]. Steve finally understands what I am saying. We decide I will take Mooker down to the basement where it is cool. First I get a towel to wrap him in and bring him in the house for a moment so his sister Violet can know what happened. She sniffs him once and takes off into another room. I carry him down to the basement and lay him on the dryer. His blood soaks through the towel. He’s a big cat and the towel barely wraps around him. I am surprised that blood is still seeping out of him and really am hoping that he isn’t still alive. Occasionally during this time period, I can swear it looks like his chest moves like he is breathing. Is this denial?

I felt so many emotions over the next few days. I felt anger at whoever hit him. And sometimes I was mad at him for getting hit, too. People drive too fast and distracted in their death machines. I am still a little angry occasionally, but mostly I wonder things like: were they texting? Drunk? Driving really fast? Did they even know they killed him? Plus when I am angry at Mooki for getting hit, I think “Why didn’t you look? Be more careful?” Which leads me to guilt. Wondering if (thinking probably yes) he was heeding my call to come home when he got hit. I had called him a bunch and he didn’t come. Sometimes I feet guilty I had let him out. (But really I am glad he had as free a life as he did). The thought that he was coming home (because I called him) when he got hit really triggers my sad guilt feeling. There was nothing unusual about it—an every night occurrence. It happened on a Friday, and Steve wasn’t due home til Sunday, mid-day.

Over the next three days, Mookie’s death, and the fact that his body was in our basement hit me over and over again—it was my major topic of thought and feeling. I bought flowers and put a couple of them in the road in the blood spot, the rest in a vase on our table. I looked through all our pictures and printed out a bunch of him and his sister too. I put one in a frame below the flowers and lit candles for him. It rained and washed all the blood away, and I felt thankful and sad, and I thought “now parts of him are traveling far and wide.”

I wrote an ode to Mooki and posted it with a few photos on Facebook. I made a memorial sign with his photo on the front and a shortened version of the ode on the back that asked people to look out for all living beings as they drive. I stuck it in the ground near the corner where he died. During this time it felt good to be doing something. I cycled through the sadness, pain, and anger. A few days after I put the sign up, an unknown someone put a beautiful glass flower next to it. Just today I thought—maybe that flower is a gift for his grave. But when I went up there, it was gone.

I could say things like “I can’t believe he is dead.” But it really wasn’t disbelief. I knew he was dead. It just seemed… not unreal, exactly, but hard to understand and hard to get used to. Hard to accept in a certain way. I wasn’t in denial that he was dead. I didn’t think it was untrue, and though I wished that it wasn’t true I knew there was no way to change it. I would just shake my head in confusion. Still do sometimes. How could he be gone?

The first few days there were noises in the house that really sounded like him. Thumps like him jumping down from the couch, for instance. I would think “That was Mooki,” then realize it couldn’t be. Unless it was his ghost. I certainly have had some (real? imaginary?) experiences with him (his spirit?) cuddling up to me like when he was alive.

I feel really grateful that there was a reason not to bury him right away (Steve was out of town). Waiting to bury him, with his body in the basement, was a good thing for me. Seeing his body there, even just knowing he was down there, helped me feel and process the grief. A couple of times I went and looked at him—it was like I was just getting the reality into my head. I contemplated washing the blood off of his head and fur and talked with a few people about it. I was going to do it—get the blood off–but it just seemed too hard and that it would really mess up his fur and be really hard to get it nice again. I don’t even blow-dry my own hair. Plus nobody was there to help. Only one side of him was bloody. Eventually I decided not to wash him.

Steve got home on Sunday morning. He went into the basement to see Mooki without me. I heard him crying down there and I felt relieved that he was grieving. It would be so easy to attempt to suppress it, to be “strong.” Together we decided pretty quickly where to bury him, and Steve dug the hole. A very nice hole, I must say.

A friend had offered to build a box to bury him in, but we opted to wrap him up in strips of an old but nice sheet. It was perfect for us and him. Steve and I wrapped him up together, and lit some candles around him. We cried some more, and we took some pictures.

I had invited a few close neighbors over for a little funeral. Eventually everyone arrived, and Steve went to the basement and carried Mooki’s body out to the yard. I played a bagpipe version of Amazing Grace on my phone and whoever wanted to said a few nice things. Then Steve laid him in the hole and we covered him with the soil. I didn’t cry, which seemed strange. We spotted Violet (his sister) watching us from afar.

I felt surprisingly glad that my friends and neighbors came say goodbye to this cat who had been such a good friend. I think it would have felt lonely to do it with just Steve. Them being there said to me that they loved Mooki, and they loved us and supported us.

What Grief Wants

From my experience,  Grief (the entity) does not like privacy—it likes to have a community to receive it. Even if the griever wants to hide, the Grief itself seems to ease when it is expressed and welcomed by the witnesses (who might be fellow grievers). We all have grief in common, even if we don’t know it yet. We need to share it, and let it flow instead of damming it up inside. A full-to-bursting reservoir is way more scary to me than a storm-swollen river rushing down to the welcoming ocean.

I understand grief a little bit more now—from inside of it. And I will be getting to know it more and more intimately. I am still learning. Living and feeling and reaching out to others.

I acknowledge this experience with Mooki as preparation for the bodily death of my best friend, who has stage 4 cancer. Of course, it is different—as every grief must be. Similar, but different.

 

It has been 5 weeks now and Steve and I both still have bouts of grief, though less intensely and less often. There is a feeling of a big absence. I am glad we have each other to grieve with. Nobody has really asked us about it recently. That is okay—I am sure it is way more in our hearts than anyone else’s.

A few days after the glass flower disappeared, someone put some beautiful white magnolia and rose flowers in its place.