Six years ago today, my best friend was so sick that he gave me a look, a very human look, that said, “I’ve had enough of this.” And because I loved my friend very much, I brought him to the veterinarian who ended his pain, not quickly enough.
Domino lived with me for seventeen and a half years, and I always believed that he had saved my life. The day I brought him home, I was on a day pass from the hospital, where I’d spent a few weeks after a second botched suicide attempt. I had no idea how to move forward, no idea how to start my life over again.
But if I could learn how to take care of a cat, maybe I could learn how to take care of myself. Could I learn how to take care of a cat?
A few months after I left the hospital, Domino and I struck out on our own, and found an apartment to live in. A few months after that I found a job, and realized just how lonely Domino was during those long hours while I was at work. Enter his half-Siamese companion, Jazz. The three of us got along. We took care of each other. My mental health improved, more or less.
Now Jazz is nearly twenty-two years old, and her hips are sore, and her kidneys and thyroid aren’t working as they should, and at least twice a day I stop, hold very still, and watch her tiny body to see if she’s still breathing. I am grateful for every single day that she wakes up and greets me; and I am worried every single day that I will see the look in her eye that says, “I’ve had enough of this.”
I know that grief is coming, and I know I shouldn’t think about that. But something is worrying me even more than that grief:
Without a cat to care for, will I still know how to care for myself?
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