NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP
Today we lost a gentle soul. Coco may have seemed like just a cat to many, but he was a gentle someone and he was someone important in my life. A gentleone to the core. For 19.5 years he was my everyday.
The closer loss is to everyday, the harder it hits
And every piece of grief brings back all the others. Farewelling Coco is yet another wound to add to the heavy load of scars that always cover my heart. If my life were a book with an unknown number of chapters, today, yet another one closed.
Coco was my 40th birthday present. Born in February 2006, I first held him when he was just five weeks old. His little paws wrapped tightly around my hand. His little claws softly curled into my fingers. He spent the next two decades silently adoring all of us.
My little gentleone lived all his days in a peaceful, loving cocoon. He loved a good deep brush or a gentle tickle under the ears. He spent most of his days curled up in the sun or quietly snoring on someone’s lap. Coco was the only someone in my life who was allowed to sit adoringly and watch me in the shower, while patiently waiting to step in and drink the still-warm water.
He used up a portion of his nine lives over the years
There was the time he disappeared for three days and was found shaggy and dusty and ever so dehydrated, trapped underneath our neighbour’s house. And then of course, the time he lay his dark brown body down for a nap in the shadows of the carport and his little head was run over because he couldn’t be seen. But he miraculously survived, and once his wired-shut jaw was healed, he went on to enjoy another four beautiful years.
He was the one constant in my life when I became so very unwell for five long years. His beautiful, gentle soul would sit quietly on my lap with his little purring motor, trying to soothe a bottomless pit of despair. He was my safe, silent space. When everyone else inevitably succumbed to compassion fatigue, he still showered me with patience and love.
But age comes to all of us blessed enough to live a long life. And death will quietly visit every single one of us eventually.
Today he spent his last hour curled up in my lap on a fluffy blanket in the tan leather armchair. The sun streaming through the bay window as he breathed his last breaths, blissfully unaware of what was about to come.
There’s a pendulum clock that hangs on my living room wall
Tick tock, tick, tock. Today my heart pounded with each tick and each tock as 9:30 drew ever closer to the moment the vet would knock on our front door. Today that clock counted down to death.
Cats are unerringly intuitive. Did he understand that when this stranger pierced his skin with a needle that it was the last time he’d feel the soft caresses from Mick and I? Did he know it was the last time he’d feel the warmth of the sun through his unkempt fur or listen to the sound of our familiar voices?
It took a while for him to drift off to sleep with the sedative. Like me, sleep did not come naturally to him. But when the lethal dose was eventually injected into the cannula he was gone within seconds. His tired old body was ready for the next mysterious journey and he went quickly to the place of endless brushes and eternal shower drinks.
The little newcomer who spoiled his serenity just on a year ago with her naughty but nice feistiness, knew the moment his heart stopped. She came straight over and cried. Sniffing at his still body on my lap.
Today is the 13th anniversary of my sister’s death
And it is my grandson’s birthday. It turns out that the 4th of July is a momentous day in my family. My sister was a great lover of furry companions. Perhaps she has called him home.
A good innings is very little consolation when a beloved someone leaves our lives. There is no joy to be found when love leaves us. But there is comfort in knowing that suffering has ended. Death looks so very peaceful. I have seen enough of it now. Brows unfurrow. Bodies soften and relax. While your heart shatters yet again into a million pieces that need to be glued back together.
Today we laid a gentleone to rest. Grieving is something I’ve learned to do alone. There is just no easy way to ever say goodbye. But love always sits in our hearts, and even when the physical comes to an end, the spirit remains within us.
Farewell Coco
Now we lay you down to sleep.
