Our two sister cats Weijia and Yamiche, whom we usually called Lil Girl and Big Girl, passed away three weeks ago. They were slowly becoming ill and then it went fast. Lil Girl tucked herself into a nook she’d never napped in before, stopped eating and drinking, just slept. Big Girl was still eating but not much. She’d always been the one that when we went into the kitchen, she’d wander in to see if she could wrangle a bit of wet food from us. In general, she could. When we first adopted her the vet said she could stand losing a pound or two. Hah, so could Len and I. They were already old; we didn’t put anyone on a diet. There was more going on, but to preserve their dignity and ours, they had simply become very ill. They were 18. We didn’t ask the vet to diagnose or cure them. For both it was just falling asleep with us petting them.
It took several years for my instincts to catch up to reality after my mother passed away.
I had three kids, the youngest was a baby. Mom lived five hours away so driving to visit was rare. Mostly we’d talk on the phone every week or so. I loved those calls. Often the kids were around and would ‘talk to Grandma’ which is a joy only for an adult who adores the incomprehensible child. No one on earth wanted to hear about my kids more than my mom. She would often say Len and I were good parents; remember how good it felt when someone would say that?
She passed away after several months of an illness from which we thought she would recover. It happened fast. One week we were visiting her in Ludington. She was talking with us, reading picture books to the kids, offering them cookies. The next week she was gone.
Over the following year I’d often reach for the phone to call and then remember she wasn’t there. I was glad she was no longer uncomfortable and anxious. I was glad to not feel guilty about not being a better daughter. But oh, it ached.
I began to understand that the moments when I missed her most were still a kind of love and communication. If I baked something better than average, I wanted to tell her about it. I wanted to tell her the goofy or endearing or obnoxious things the kids did. I wanted to tell her how much they loved some present she’d given them. She knew some of our friends, I wanted to tell her how they were doing.
The ache kept reminding me of the perfectly imperfect relationship I was lucky enough to have had in my life. Not everyone gets a steady, kind, and loving mother. I didn’t always miss her but I deeply missed that parts of my life that she and I had shared.
..
I start down our stairs on the lookout for cats who might trip me. I walk into the kitchen to emptiness at the corner with no kibble on the floor. We eat breakfast and then get on with our day, no one has to battle poop in and out of the basement litter boxes. I take a nap, start to arrange pillows in a specific way so Big Girl doesn’t sit on my phone which turns off the podcast, then remember it doesn’t matter anymore. At night no one jumps on me or gets their fur stuck to my lips. We went out of town and didn’t have to organize a D-Day invasion to take care of them. It’s so much easier now.
I know by how many times in a day I’m arranging myself around the space where they used to be, how much I loved them.
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