Not the post I was hoping to write.
I've been bad about blogging, and part of it is because I have all these things I want to blog about and want to blog well, but I have been absolutely short on time. Even the people I usually email regularly are starting to wonder where I've been. This is because I had two weddings, several writing projects in several different phases, and much to do before I head out on my trip with Marie Sexton next week. I had plans to maybe tonight do a catch-all post before the big pre-trip post i'd planned this weekend.
Instead I get to blog about another sick cat, probably cancer again. (Blair, for those of you who know our cats.)
I'm blogging it because I have the urge to fill twitter and facebook and everyone's emails with emotional, ranty nonsense about it. I want to say all the cliches, that it isn't fair, that I hate this, that cancer sucks. But even in my mouth, it doesn't do any good.
It breaks my heart to look at him. He's so thin, and I think of how much pain he must be in, and how miserable he must feel, and it just makes me hurt the more. The irony is that so many times Blair has caused so much hell we have had to discuss (and always discard) euthinizing him just because he is the fucking bitchiest cat who ever lived. But he's also one of the most loving.
I don't know. I think pet loss is different than people, and I always have. With people loss is about the potential realized and denied, about the gifts that person brought the world. With a pet it seems to be something so different. Some of it is projection of myself, I think. A projection of love, a promise to care for and feed in return for almost nothing. With Blair it's meant putting up with an attitude most people wouldn't as well. But he's still my baby.
Two at once is hard. Two from the same "cat era" is hard: Mia is 16, Blair is 11. Two cats not dead, just dying slowly, is hard. Death will live here every day until I make the call to hand my babies over. In both their cases, it will be me who says, "Today, beloved, you die, because it's not okay for you to go on this way." Maybe that's what upsets me, though in a way it's a relief of control.
The cost of loving is loss. it's a price worth paying, but today it's feeling like a very, very bitter pill.
And it truly sucks to pay $300 to find out your cat is dying, with another $120+ coming to get full confirmation. That's a slap on a cold face in January.
Cancer: fuck you. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.
Instead I get to blog about another sick cat, probably cancer again. (Blair, for those of you who know our cats.)
I'm blogging it because I have the urge to fill twitter and facebook and everyone's emails with emotional, ranty nonsense about it. I want to say all the cliches, that it isn't fair, that I hate this, that cancer sucks. But even in my mouth, it doesn't do any good.
It breaks my heart to look at him. He's so thin, and I think of how much pain he must be in, and how miserable he must feel, and it just makes me hurt the more. The irony is that so many times Blair has caused so much hell we have had to discuss (and always discard) euthinizing him just because he is the fucking bitchiest cat who ever lived. But he's also one of the most loving.
I don't know. I think pet loss is different than people, and I always have. With people loss is about the potential realized and denied, about the gifts that person brought the world. With a pet it seems to be something so different. Some of it is projection of myself, I think. A projection of love, a promise to care for and feed in return for almost nothing. With Blair it's meant putting up with an attitude most people wouldn't as well. But he's still my baby.
Two at once is hard. Two from the same "cat era" is hard: Mia is 16, Blair is 11. Two cats not dead, just dying slowly, is hard. Death will live here every day until I make the call to hand my babies over. In both their cases, it will be me who says, "Today, beloved, you die, because it's not okay for you to go on this way." Maybe that's what upsets me, though in a way it's a relief of control.
The cost of loving is loss. it's a price worth paying, but today it's feeling like a very, very bitter pill.
And it truly sucks to pay $300 to find out your cat is dying, with another $120+ coming to get full confirmation. That's a slap on a cold face in January.
Cancer: fuck you. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.