American Broadside

Love, Life, and Death

Two nights ago, I buried my old cat, Morris, in the backyard. Yesterday, I planted flowers over his grave and turned it into part of our flower garden. He loved flowers: to smell, rub his face in, and to eat.

Morris suddenly became ill last Friday, it looked like congestive heart failure. Becky and I thought we would loose him Friday and Saturday but he fought on, clinging to life. He quit eating and eventually stopped drinking water. While his breathing improved, each day he grew more and more quiet, weaker, and withdrawn into himself.

He died at 4:30 in the afternoon, while I was getting ready to go to math class. Becky had just got home from work.

The last week has been very emotional for me. Morris was 14 years old and the last of the Gang of Four, a rowdy bunch of animals that had shared our lives: Ashley, Tippy, Bart, and Morris.

I have been doing a lot of feeling and thinking and have begun to understand some important truths.

When I allow myself to love someone, a person or an animal, I open myself to the eventuality that I will loose them. Loss is integral to caring. Loss does not need to be death, although with animals it usually is.

Friends move away either physically or grow older and grow into other people. I move away too, either physically or emotionally.

Yet, even though these things are integral to life, in no way do I want to protect myself from the inherent pain by insulating myself through not caring. It is the rewards of caring that see me through the pain of loss.

I have realized that the length of time spent caring for someone, being emotionally involved and sharing love, far exceeds the period of grief that naturally follows loss. The good times build a reservoir of love that sees me through the drought of losing.

So, while Morris is gone and I am painfully aware of his absence, I still feel his love and the love I gave him. The time I spent with him made me a better loving person.

posted by Les @ 4:54 AM