I can't stop sobbing over this cat. In the past 24 hours, I have literally sobbed a river of tears for Francine, our beloved family pet who went to kitty heaven yesterday (pictured here wearing a degrading sombrero, which she patiently donned for 5 minutes before hissing in an offended fashion). My eyelids have swollen to the size of marshmallows from the crying.
I have always had a tendency towards animal death drama, as my mother can attest. I missed countless days of elementary school to grieve for lost gerbils. There was Luigi the gerbil, who I found lurching around his cage one morning with complete unilateral paralysis. Apparently gerbils have strokes too. [side note to speech pathology nerds: Do they also get aphasia? Impaired squeak-production and squeak-recognition?]. On that dreadful gerbil stroke day, my patient mother drove her sobbing daughter (me) and the ailing gerbil (Luigi) to the vet 3 times, and the patient vet gave us a number of optimistic but destined-to-fail treatment options (including Karo syrup) which I spent the day administering to the hopelessly impaired rodent. The poor fuzzball was probably thinking "dear God kid, just let me die a normal rodent death! Where are the snakes when you need them???". Needless to say the Karo syrup did not cure Luigi, and there was much plaintive sobbing as we lowered the checkbook box that was Luigi's coffin into the ground next to the swing set and the shed that also functioned as an "animal clubhouse" (note: the animal club was a bit like the Babysitter's Club, but instead of a cool clique of pre-teens, it was a group of socially awkward chubby 5th grade girls who didn't know how to interact with other humans and thus obsessed over rodents...now that I think about it, I may have been the only member).
But despite my history of hyper-dramatic pet-grieving processes, I have still felt blind sighted by the wall of grief that hit me when we euthanized Francine yesterday. Amidst bouts of sobbing, I have identified a few factors (other than hormones) that made this grief particularly salient.
First, I think that for some of us, it is just easier to grieve for animals. Their lives are shorter, and some might say simpler. When they die, you don't have to consider whether they regretted any of their life choices. Nor do you typically have to worry about how their death will affect your loved ones, as you do when you lose a grandparent and watch your parents grieve that deep and unfathomable loss. In short, it's easier to just get to the heart of the sadness and process it, without having to peel through all the other emotional layers. As I stroked Francine's cold little paw this morning before we lowered her into the ground amidst a circle of ferns, I did not have to worry about staying strong and moving forward with my life, because I knew the grief would pass. So I dove into it and let the tears flow (while Elliot built train tracks in the house with his father). I shamelessly pondered how it was possible that she was "dead", and tried to comprehend the fact that she really truly was not going to wake up and start purring or "clucking" with her disproportionately small voice. At the end of the tears and the questioning, I came away with a firm belief in animal heaven. But that's another blog post entirely.
Also, by virtue of their short lives, pets often function as emblems of whatever era of your life they had the pleasure of partaking in. We rescued Francine from the pound when I was unknowingly 1 week pregnant. Francine laid beside me and purred when I miscarried 9 weeks later, and licked the tears off of my face with her sandpaper tongue. A year after that, she happily laid atop my round Elliot bump as I sprawled out on the couch watching trashy TV each night, and her rotund orange form was the first thing we saw when we walked through the door with our new baby boy. Francine was not a fan of sibling life. Her loud, mournful high-frequency cries resounded through the night in the first few weeks after Elliot's birth, waking us from coveted opportunities to sleep between breast-feeding marathons. She scratched newborn Elliot a few times. I can't say I blamed her, as I often wanted to scratch someone during that post-partum period of raging hormones and flowing tears. Thankfully we had the gift that other new parents in this situation (and there are sadly so many) would die for: an angel known as Lisa (Rob's mother). Lisa took Francine in and gave her a home full of cat friends, and cared for her in a way that bumbling, sleep-deprived new parents cannot. Francine's lonely midnight cries ceased, and I am not ashamed to admit that she was far happier in her new home.
Despite Francine's change in location, she was still part of our family, and her time with us was one full of life-altering events; pregnancy, loss, 2nd chances, and our transition to parenthood. She blessed us during that time with her silly and unique behaviors; her staccato cluck-like "meh?", her big-boned waddle, the Queen Latifah voice that Rob used when speaking on her behalf, her tendency to close her eyes effort-fully when she "smiled", and a plethora of other amusing antics. Though mourning her life was a "simple" process relative to mourning grandparents and other relatives, there was nothing simple about the rich and wonderful blessing she was to all of our lives. We will miss you sweet, goofy Francine.
