Chloe

Sun 3.15.20

      My cat is dying.  She was poisoned this summer by a bad woman.  No man would ever do such a thing; he would just kill it, or torture it to death, and that’s boys mostly.  Only a woman.  We pride ourselves on being the compassionate gender, but really?  We outstrip the men in viciousness and wickedness. 

      There are good days where I think we’re gonna beat this thing.  This week was especially good, she ate and kept it down, made her watery messes in the litter box, not on the carpet.  And then yesterday, I gave her breakfast, a little bit, every hour on the hour, but on this day she threw it up, and still hungry again another throw-up.  For the rest of the day she didn’t eat anymore but she kept throwing up all day and through the middle of the night. 

She’s starving and ravenously hungry, but she either throws it up or it comes out as diarrhea.  It’s a horrible way to die.  She has had diarrhea every day since the poisoning.  So you know, she is just skin and bones, she has bald spots on her front and back paws and her fur has no undercoating.

Why am I telling you this?  Cause it’s painful and my heart is breaking, and there’s nothing I can do.  My poor cat, such a sweet, innocent creature, her open heart to the world so badly violated.  She has been cowering in a corner under the bed all day, hasn’t eaten, thrown up or messed.  She hardly sees or knows me.  Her energy is completely focused on her suffering.

At first I was so angry at the person who did this and I waited and waited for the rage to dissipate, and it does to a certain extent, because it doesn’t solve anything and I’m walking around with a broken heart. The game of turning it to anger doesn’t alleviate anything.  I am reminded of a neighbor years ago whose dog was killed by a car on the road facing my livingroom window.  I saw it all happen.  The man whose dog was killed was contacted.  He lived just up the hill and came down in his pickup truck, never said a word to the culprits, just picked up the dog and flung it in the back of his truck.  Losing someone you love is surely the hardest blow that life delivers.

She came out from under the bed in the afternoon for a 20 minutes.  She likes to sit on my lap when I meditate and so I got on the easy chair and we meditated, but it was back to the corner under the bed right afterward.  I’ve noticed during her illness that if I’m tense or upset it affects her well-being.  She is a child, as we are all children who live in a predatory world and have to deal with it as best we can.  I am a strong woman, but it doesn’t spare me.

The favorite essay this month has again been, Dandy