A lot of people have asked me why I never got a pet when I moved into my house alone. Yesterday explains why: I don’t deal very well at all with death. A pet is great as long as you have it, but eventually you know you’re going to have to say goodbye. I’ve said goodbye to enough humans in my life so far, and am terrified of saying goodbye to more. I don’t need to add another living being to the mix whom I’m going to have to mourn someday. Some would say that’s not a good way to live your life, because you never experience the happy parts of having that companion. They’re probably right, but I just can’t bring myself to do it knowing it will end badly, someday.
She was a cat who made a lot of messes, but not all of them were her fault. She loved lying in dirty laundry. She loved my new sneakers. She loved being scratched under the chin. She was a very quiet cat who didn’t meow loudly and annoyingly like some. She moved slowly. She was cuddly and soft. She grew to accept me even though I disrupted her comfortable living situation. She even licked my hand. She appreciated that when I came to visit, I was awake at 4am and could scratch her. She loved her pink brush. She loved eating ribbon, even though she wasn’t supposed to. She never tried to escape to the outside world, she was content to just sit and look out the screen door.
I can’t ever see her again.
She wasn’t even my cat.
But here I sit, at my desk, bawling my eyes out over a pet that wasn’t mine. If I can’t handle this, how could I handle the death of pet that did live with me for 10 years?
Someday John might talk me into getting a pet. I will go through the ups & downs, and eventually I will have to say goodbye to it, and it will hurt even more than this does. It just doesn’t seem worth it, but not having had experience with the joys of pets, I guess I can’t relate.
I don’t want to keep saying goodbye to people/living things.
So I’m doing the crying for both of us. I seem to be good at that, so I guess that will be my role.
I miss you, Caly.
