Weighed Down By Grief

Predictably, as we grow older, we are more likely to walk hand-in-hand with grief. These past few weeks, I have connected with three friends and some family members, worried about parents, spouses, or children. Some are coping with their own health issues. And far too frequently, I get a message from someone who has had to say goodbye to an aging pet.

Some of you will know that our 18-year-old cat, Boogs, is approaching his last days. He has had several health concerns this past year, and now, he is barely eating. Our vet had told us to watch out for vomiting or starvation. Last weekend, my husband and I decided the time had come to let him go. Our girls both came over to spend some time with him. On Thursday, our new island vet said she was willing to euthanize him but suggested we try one more thing, a mix of medicines to make him more comfortable and an appetite stimulant. A last-ditch effort; if this doesn’t work, we will know we have done everything we could.

And that is what I needed. I needed acknowledgement that I had explored every possibility. 

Boogs has had a wonderful life. He was a rescue cat found in a half-submerged container in a ditch. He was about 8 months old when we adopted him, older than most of the cuddly kittens in the room. He showed a certain aloofness that drew us towards him. It was like he was saying, I know you’re not going to choose me. He was not feral, but he was definitely an outdoor cat. It was next to impossible to keep him in the house. He would roam all day and then return home to snuggle in with us for the night. A few times, he disappeared for 8 - 10 days. We invented stories of how he had smuggled away on one of the fishing boats at the nearby docks. One time, I found him living at a neighbour’s house. They had thought he was a stray and shared that he had been coming into their house for over a year. He was fierce, standing up to local raccoons. He was also tolerant, barely fussing when we brought Milo, a feisty kitten, home a few years later. 

My granddaughter giving Boogs some love.

Everyone in our neighbourhood knew him. One neighbour called regularly complaining that he had sprayed her front mat. He was a frequent visitor to our next-door neighbours, the first place I would check when he went missing. He was the first cat many local children held awkwardly in their arms. And my granddaughter adores him. Before she could talk, she would try to imitate the clicking noise I made with my tongue when I called him. Now she calls him - kitty, kitty - and heads over to give him smothering hugs. He has never run away from her.

I began writing this post with the intention to write about grief, thinking my cat was peripheral to the story, yet the two stories have become intertwined. I am sad to say goodbye to Boogs, but I know he has had a great life. Then yesterday, I found myself overwhelmed with grief. I realized that this was another intertwining, my grief for my cat mixed with the grief I am feeling for friends and family, and more recently, ecological grief, brought on by the fires in Maui.

Three years ago, during the pandemic, I blogged about navigating ambiguous loss. Ambiguous loss describes a loss that is not clean-cut, as when someone is physically present but psychologically absent. Or when a loved one suddenly goes missing with no opportunity to say goodbye or understand what happened to them. It’s when something is both here and gone, losses minus facts. The pandemic had many of us feeling ambiguous loss. 

Pauline Boss, the educator and researcher I wrote about in that post, offered some practices to help us navigate ambiguous loss. One of her suggestions was to find meaning in a meaningless world, to know what you have control over.

But these days, I am feeling little control. Daily, I am inundated with stories of hatred, dishonesty and selfishness - to a staggering degree. And every day, there are stories of a world under siege from fires, floods, hurricanes, heat, and other natural disasters. 

Ecological grief is now a recognized term. Ecological grief refers to the sense of loss that arises from experiencing or learning about environmental destruction or climate change. Ecological grief has elements of what grief theorists call anticipatory or transitional grief. This type of grief is challenging because we don’t know what we stand to lose. There is nothing concrete about this type of grief.

There are stages of grief, and yesterday was a stark reminder for me that there are also layers of grief. The grief I feel about Boogs, the people I am holding in my heart as they grieve, and a deep grief for this world my granddaughter will grow up in. Maybe that’s why my heart hurts so much at the thought of no longer having Boogs in my life, I am weighed down by so much grief.