Several Days Somehow Endured Without World’s Best Cat

I assumed that I would wake up consumed with terror in the middle of the night after Thelonious was gone, but it hasn’t happened. The night she was euthanized, I cried until about 2:30 a.m. and then I went to bed, and once or twice it felt like fear was arising, but it passed immediately upon being welcomed, and it hasn’t come up since.

I also thought I would have vivid dreams about Thelonious and wake up sobbing, but I’ve only dreamed about her once, a day or two ago. I dreamed she trundled into the bathroom carrying my Alice in Chains ticket in her mouth, and I didn’t feel upset after I woke up, at least not by the dream.

I knew from my online research that I might have moments where I seemed to see her, and that has happened a million times, out of the corner of my eye.

I have to remind myself over and over that she is dead.

While there are definitely tears on a regular basis and miserable moments of, "My kitty is gone!", I am also reminding myself over and over that I did the right thing and that it was the kindly cat mother act to let her go, and that the reason I am suffering is that she no longer is, and that is the way it should be.

I am also trying to point my brain less at "Why did my cat have to die?" and more at "How wonderful that this lovely creature was here for sixteen and a half years and gave me so much pleasure!"

All the good wishes and kindness around me have helped so much, plus telling myself every now and then, "Take a breath" and then doing it.

I have many beautiful photos of her, plus I unearthed a stack of "baby" pictures, one of which shows an adorably pudgy cat looking sternly at the camerawoman. Her pudgy period was brief and was long ago.

Over this past week, I have slowly let some of her things go, or have put them away. I meant to leave her diarrhea-spotted litter box as a permanent shrine, but abandoned that plan after a couple of days, though the clean litter box is still in my closet. It was sad to wash it for the last time. It gave me joy to care for her, to clean her litter box and launder the pillowcase for her nest, to give her fresh food and water every day.

I left her water and food bowls in place until yesterday, with water and food in them. Her toys are still scattered all over the living room floor. I recycled her “house,” a cardboard carton that once had ten reams of paper in it, as probably the new cat(s) should have one thing that didn’t belong to Thelonious, or maybe he/she will have all new things, as my friend Trudy advised on the phone.

On Saturday, the first Saturday Thelonious was gone, I got up early and rode my bike to Marina Green to volunteer with the Neighborhood Emergency Response Team at Fleet Week. A couple of fire engines came and parked right next to our booth, and a lot of little kids had their pictures taken in the cabs.

When the fire truck rolled up, I waved and the firefighters waved back. I should have done this NERT thing long ago: Now I can walk up to any San Francisco firefighter—you may have noticed they’re always attractive—and say, “I’m a NERT,” and he’ll say, “Hello! I’m so-and-so,” and shake my hand. At least, that’s what happened the first time I tried it.

The night after Thelonious died, my bedside lamp also died. My living room is the same thing as my bedroom, thus a significant portion of my lighting was gone, which made things that much stranger.

As I was going out to throw the lamp away, I ran into Tom, who mentioned that the lamp could be “fixed,” which would never have occurred to me. My mother said the very same thing, so I went and got parts, and I did indeed fix it!

The top is now a bit loose and I see I should have used a washer between the nut and the inside of the lamp, but derned if I’m going to take it all apart again. If I can live with the lamp not having a shade for 15 or 20 years, I can certainly live with the switch being a little floppy. Once I get the shade, I’ll look into tightening up the fixture.

In the evening, Tom and I watched The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, which was excellent.

On Sunday I did my cooking for the week, and in the late afternoon I went to the reunion of an AA meeting I used to go to 24 years ago. They had managed to collect 102 people by word of mouth, including the two I most wanted to see, and it was really a fabulous event.