Oh my poor kitty. Or rather my best friend’s poor kitty.
Thistle was originally a gift to me from a rather darling but rather eccentric friend of mine many years ago. I loved him from the moment I first saw his tiny kitten paws and that love was a pale glimmer, but a glimmer nonetheless of what motherhood felt like – to love something tiny who loves you unconditionally in return.
When I got Thistle, he came with a brother, named Moonface. Moonface was supposed to go to someone else, but once the best friend(then boyfriend) saw him, he couldn’t resist that white kitten who grew into a great monster of a cable-eating cat.
Sometime later, the boyfriend later best friend and I broke up. This was a hard thing for me to do, to leave the boyfriend who I had been convinced was the person I wanted to share my life with, our home, and the cats I loved. The situation was somehow intolerable for me, but I knew that I’d be better off and certainly the best friend would be much better off with the end of this relationship.
However, we had these two cats. I was enamored still with Thistle, as the best friend was with Moonface. The cats were littermates and inseparable playmates and cuddle buddies. I couldn’t take just one, but would have to take both. If I took both, I don’t think I could have stood the pain on the best friend’s face to say goodbye to Moonface. So I left all three, thinking they were better off without me, and that I would love again.
I don’t think I realize what I did to myself by doing that. Sure, I needed to leave fucked up family situation and there was no real love lost there.* But in leaving the best friend and my kitties, I think I convinced myself that leaving and loving was the nobler option**
In recent moments of despair/stress/lack of sleep/weariness, I have threatened to leave J and Mia. Because I go very crazy and think that to love means to leave someone so that they can have a better life without me. J has insisted how crazy that is over and over again. But I always think that they would be better off – and realize this must have started when I left that kitty.
Now, my fierce and fat clever baby cat is most likely on death’s door. He has severe gum disease that has somehow led to liver and renal failure. He is at the vet for overnight examinations and observation, but unless it’s one treatable issue, there’s not much hope for an easy and full recovery, if any recovery at all. I find myself emotionally numb at the news, as it is in faraway Austin, and I am here, with Mia and J, and the two kitties who have pissed me off severely the last week (leading me to nickname them the Great Clothes Pisser and the Eater of Plants). Am I numb simply due to the distance of time that separates me from the love and care of Thistle’s kittenhood? Or is it because I am just not there? I don’t know. In either case, I am finding myself at a loss for an appropriate feeling – I waver between near-sorrow and numb. Maybe later I will feel something else.
miamegamoo 