Our Flynn Blixen, 7.15.2011-4.12.2013
Because the Universe doesn't mind piling it on, last night we lost our Flynn, suddenly and unexpectedly. We arrived home and gave him treats in our usual "mutually delighted to see you" ritual. I was changing my shoes, he jumped up on the counter, froze, fell off, and meowed once, loud and confused. I rushed to and held him - we thought he may have broken his neck. Jorden called 24-hr. emergency vets as I stroked his fur, telling him we loved him and that everything was going to be all right. He did what dying things do, arching and struggling. I gave him CPR. Jorden gave him CPR. But he was dead. The vet said it was an embolism, and being on my 3rd maine coon cat, I'm familiar with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The first symptom is often sudden death, at about a year and a half old.
I wish I was not familiar with death, and did not know what to do, and felt more panicked. I wish it was new, calling crematories and being put off by urns that look like cocktail shakers. I wish I wasn't inured to tragedy.
In The Poisonwood Bible, the child narrator is struck by the short, brutal lives of her african playmates. "They don't wear out the knees of their playclothes," she observes. "They wear out their knees."
I know my burden pales in comparison to most - that we had the privilege of being with our surrogate child as he passed, that we can do absurd things like afford a private cremation.
We only had a little over a year with him, and there was never a day when he was home alone, un-played with, or slept anywhere but next to my head on his back, my hand on his belly all through the night as we sang-purred together, breathing in trust and communion.
Our tiny, fearless, ever-adaptable adventurer, who we'd hoped to take with us around the world, we three, intrepid, always playful, always curious.
He'd peek around the doorway so I'd see him and we'd play chase, or fetch, or attack-the-thing-on-a-string, and I trusted him and he trusted me and I miss his tiny footsteps.
I'm sitting with his body in the front room today, as he probably pounces around in kitty valhalla, and his cold, stiff fur is alien as all dead things seem.
He'll go to the memorial center place with us this evening, and we'll keep his ashes with us in our home. I would have preferred more life with him. But - c-beams. I'm grateful for the miracle of existence.
I wish I was not familiar with death, and did not know what to do, and felt more panicked. I wish it was new, calling crematories and being put off by urns that look like cocktail shakers. I wish I wasn't inured to tragedy.
In The Poisonwood Bible, the child narrator is struck by the short, brutal lives of her african playmates. "They don't wear out the knees of their playclothes," she observes. "They wear out their knees."
I know my burden pales in comparison to most - that we had the privilege of being with our surrogate child as he passed, that we can do absurd things like afford a private cremation.
We only had a little over a year with him, and there was never a day when he was home alone, un-played with, or slept anywhere but next to my head on his back, my hand on his belly all through the night as we sang-purred together, breathing in trust and communion.
Our tiny, fearless, ever-adaptable adventurer, who we'd hoped to take with us around the world, we three, intrepid, always playful, always curious.
He'd peek around the doorway so I'd see him and we'd play chase, or fetch, or attack-the-thing-on-a-string, and I trusted him and he trusted me and I miss his tiny footsteps.
I'm sitting with his body in the front room today, as he probably pounces around in kitty valhalla, and his cold, stiff fur is alien as all dead things seem.
He'll go to the memorial center place with us this evening, and we'll keep his ashes with us in our home. I would have preferred more life with him. But - c-beams. I'm grateful for the miracle of existence.