I had a cat named Spock for over 15 years, now I just have memories of the years we shared and the empty spaces where he isn't.

Spock passed away today. My da and I buried him in the back yard right next to Audrey Pupburn, his canine sibling. He will sleep by his sister, under the apple tree and the ferns. The apple tree that I spent much of my childhood in its branches that reached up to my bedroom window and which nearly died when I moved away started living downtown for college. I'm glad my da was here to help me bury him, I definitely thought it might be just me trying to do it on Saturday (they leave for Montana tomorrow night right after work) and I am not very effective at digging. Comically ineffective at it -- like Bugs Bunny jumping up and down on the shovel but it won't move at all comically ineffective. it's the one part of gardening I always need assistance with -- digging holes. It's like the Earth knows I don't ever desire to do her injury and so my effort leaves no marks on her even though I am trying to return to her what is hers to nurture and to take back into her ever fruitful womb of the cycles of life and death. It always adds a bit of comic relief to burials to watch me try my damnedest and get nowhere before handing the shovel back to those more effective at digging than me... Even with the ground warmed and two days of rain before this, it would have taken me many hours what my da dug in under 15mins.... I also didn't know if I'd be able to move the large alder stump onto his grave afterward without my da's help because it's heavy, but if it and to be done on Sat without assistance (because it couldn't have waited over a week for them to get back after all) I would have found a way to do it so nothing could dig up my boy from his final rest.

From yesterday:

From today:

 

 

 

And he's no longer suffering. This last week was hard on him, he was such skin and bones having such great difficulty breathing these last couple days but whenever I asked him about if he wanted help to go early he would hide -- and it's the only time he hid from me until this morning which is how I knew it would be today. He was hiding under the Spare Oom bed this morning and then he was on the mattress of the futon (which smells of renal failure now and so I will curb it and get a new queen size futon mattress at some point (I've had this one since college)) but then right at the end despite his weakness and difficulty breathing dragged himself to the doorway to die across a threshold and was kitten crying for me so I put Waffles in her kennel (her choice) and I was laying on the floor with him in his last few hours and his last breaths even though like all cats he had hidden himself while he was suffering earlier in the morning. It was after 3:30 I texted my mom and after 4 by the time I was in an emotional state to wrap him in his blanket shroud with my shorn braid and his tinsel toy to go drop off the dog at work and see if my da could join me at their house right away to bury Spock or if I should try to start without him until he could come help me.

He didn't have as much buried with him as Audrey did -- it's not like I could bury my reading chair or the piano with him and certainly not any of his favorite foods as that would attract critters to dig him up. In the end, I buried him wrapped up in the red chenille blanket I've had since college and that he loved to snuggle with in the reading chair (with and without me) and over the years it had many pulls in it from his claws while he would knead me and with my chopped off braid in his arms and one of his tinsel toys beneath his chin.  And he is right next to Audrey, they are once more together as they were for 13 years of their lives that overlapped as my fur baby familiars. 

We had robins hanging out checking in while burying and turning over the soil and then a mourning dove came and sat with me while I was colelctiving flowers from the yard and sitting with the gravesites. And then I had both one of my crows and a hawk friend check in on me and I talked to them both about being kind to his soul and fiercely protecting the burial site to be sure nobody else came to dig him up and to let their fellow crows/hawks know that he is mine and the Morrigan's and they're not to eat his body or let any other scavengers try to fig him up to eat of him but to let Mother Gaia reclaim him. And then I had a hawk fly over me my whole drive back and one of my crow family descended of Jon Snow waiting for me at work and keeping protective watch over me until the sun went down and he had to return to his nest.

I'll wash my hair tomorrow morning see what a hack job I did on it and when I see how much it curls up to hide it I'll do what I can to make the layers/curls passable for an at home hack job. It will have to grow out a few weeks, maybe a month, before I get it properly fixed and cut at a salon. Whenever I cut my hair to bury with a loved one, I braid it at the base of the neck cut straight across with a pair of sharp cloth cutting shears and get a pretty clean inverted bob (longer in front angled up to shorter in back) when I do it.  I intentionally don't wash my hair and do a low braid (not a French braid) when I can tell the last days are approaching to make it an easier/better cut. Fresh washed, the curls looked about between collarbone and nipple length (depending on how tight the curls with the humidity) but when brushed out the curls pulled out to their full length were longer than my bra strap, nearly to the narrowest part of  my waist/belly button, before I hacked it off at the base of my neck today. So Spock got a long braid of my hair for his last sleep just as Audrey did 2 years and 4 months ago.  It probably would make more sense to cut off the hair that contains the time of grieving (both pre and post death) but it's to show that a part of who you have been and who your energy/power has been is no longer a part of you is buried alongside the one you dearly loved and is a holdover for me from past lives where you show your grief by cutting off your hair to bury with the loved one -- be glad I don't go to the extent of scarring my cheeks with a knife to leave me tears that will never disappear extent like past lives on both sides of the Atlantic have done.

I've been at work since the neighbors came home were in their backyard interrupted my time with the grave talking to Spock after picking some lilacs and lily of the valley for the stump marking his grave (and I also put some lily of the valley on Audrey's grave.) I told my mum I didn't want to hang out until after I was done burying him but that I'd be back afterwards. I got back about 5:15ish. We made some jalapeno limeade and frozen strawberry spicy margaritas and a snack of pretzel bites with beer cheese (I hadn't eaten anything all day because I knew it was my last hours with Spock still this side of the veil, if I'm fully transparently honest) and then my mum and I had two half bottle of rosé while working until my da was ready to head out. I'll make some tomato soup and toast some bread for later dinner after I go check on Henry spend some time with him while Crissy is out of town. 

I'm grateful that it was before my parents leave for Montana tomorrow night. I'd have found a way to do it myself if I had to, when you have no other choice you always find a way and strength you didn't know you had, but it's better that my da was there to help me move the stump and to dig the hole -- because what took him quarter of an hour would have taken me most of a day and I would have been very sore for me struggling to move the heavy stump off the spot for Spock next to Audrey then back after digging a hole by myself for my less than 8lbs at the end beastie boy feline familiar. I miss him but also I miss him as he was before, not the way these recent days and weeks and months had reduced him. My parents and coworkers (including Sarah who is like family and who understood what I wasn't saying when I told her last Friday that he's having a hard time breathing and he smells now of his renal failure) and I texted Mikaela directly because he's her bonus cat most of her life since she was 5 but I haven't told anyone else and haven't yet posted on facebook. I will. I just haven't yet. I'm sure I'll post om facebook by midnight and some time tomorrow I'll email Erin to let her know, but maybe not until after I get the car stuff taken care of (which I had planned to do today until Spock was hiding form me this morning and I realized today was his last day and I wasn't going to abandon him and leave during his last hours of drawing breath on this side of the veil) which I would like to have done before my parents leave for Montana... because otherwise I'm kicking it down until June...

I'll be holding onto those I love with a stoic open hand ready to let go rather than hang on and wearing a lot of black and quite a bit emo for a while until I'm out of the hollows where nothing hurts but also nothing feels like anything, and that's just part of how I process my grief similar to me chopping off my hair and not wanting sympathy/empathy until after the burial last good deed to offer the lvoed one is done.... But also, I will no longer be dreading coming home to a (quite literal) Schrodinger's Cat situation and then watching him suffer trying to draw each breath but simply glad to be in the place he loved with his person with him and his spirit team surrounding him (including his canine sister) and his beloved George Winston playing as it has for the last 2.5-3 weeks. My poor boy, this has been a hard week or three and I knew it was coming before we got here -- but also it means knowing there's only emptiness waiting at home and  no purring living guardian of the home and hearth waiting for me and the dog to come home. (of course I will get another cat, or another will find and pick me, just not quite yet and it will be so empty and silent until the time is right and the animal is right to find me....)

Even knowing doesn't help the hurting -- precogs are shit at stopping the hurting, you just deal with it out of sync with other people. I've been dealing with the hurting all month (and for several months now) but last night was the "I will never say again to Waffles, "You ready to go home see Spocky?"" realization of "coming soon" is "now" and arrived here not just foreseen on the horizon inevitable coming down on you like a tsunami as inexorable as time itself these events you have foreseen will happen to you.