I have been putting off writing this post because what can you say about a week when you find your cat dead in the street? Nothing good. But it's been almost 4 weeks since Gansey got hit so it's time.
I made a strawberry/rhubarb pie at lunch on Monday to take to knitting at Andrea's suggestion because someone new had tried to come to knitting the previous week and we'd cancelled but hadn't told the library. Oops! So with pie in hand, I went to knitting and the new person did come. I spent 2 hours trying to teach her to do a simple knit stitch with zero success. I was super frustrated and then to top it off, no one wanted pie so I didn't bother to cut it just for myself. I was halfway home when I doubled back to see if Ed was at the Vets' Club because he loves pie. He wasn't.
I went home and let the cats out for one last roam before bedtime but when I called Gansey, who always comes in to sleep, she didn't come. Sometimes she wouldn't when I went to bed but would meow at my window to come in a midnight. When she didn't, I called every few hours all night and hoped she was stuck in Cara's garage, which has happened before. I took benadryl at midnight but still didn't sleep much worried about Gansey.
Cara leaves for work before 5:30 so when I heard her leave the next morning, I went to the slider, fully expecting to see Gansey waiting to come in. When she wasn't there, I started looking for her and found her dead in the street. She'd been hit but not run over but was stiff as a board so had clearly been hit the previous night. I held it together long enough to bury her by the garage but when I went inside, the sobbing began. And it didn't stop.
I had called Cindy first thing and she assured me it was OK to call in (it's not like I could work) so I did at 8:00. I went outside as soon as I called in and started tearing apart my half-rotted potting bench in an attempt to hold off grief with manual labor. I had just finished and was back inside sobbing in my chair when I looked up to see Cindy at my door. She'd driven into Lincoln to get my favorite pastry and then come to Wahoo. What a good friend. She listened to me sob and when she left I called people and cried with them. I was experiencing more grief than I'd ever felt in my life and Gansey was missing everywhere - my chair, my bed, meowing for water when I went to the bathroom.... everywhere! Only then did I realize how much she followed me around and was always nearby. I was devastated. I couldn't fall asleep that night because Gansey wasn't sleeping on the other side of the bed. I got up and took more benadryl but still only slept in fits and starts, reading whenever I woke up. I read a lot.
I had already arranged to work from home on Wednesday because there was no way I could face people. I managed to get some work done that morning but took the afternoon off and went outside to putter in the yard. I broke up sticks behind my garage, fixed some hoses and then ran some errands. One stop was Saunders County Lost Pets (our local pound) to check out a litter of orange kittens they had, which were freaked out and wild. When I got home, I called Becky, who had bottle fed Gansey as a tiny kitten, and arranged to foster a litter of kittens. I had told her I was considering it before Gansey died but now I NEEDED kittens. It was another night of barely sleeping and I was going to campus on Thursday.
The only reason I was going to campus was because the office would be deserted. I still wasn't ready for people but the few who were there were nice to me so made me cry, of course. I was also in a dark place, looking for someone to blame for Gansey's death. It wasn't pretty but my friend Layton was wonderful, helping me focus on the joy Gansey had brought me in the 7 years I'd had her. I called EAP and made a zoom appointment to see a counselor the next day, which was a first for me. Before swimming, I went to Becky's to meet the kittens and we made arrangements for her to deliver them on Saturday. At swimming I vented to Anne and Mark but by the time I was driving home, I was able to understand that my blaming was ridiculous and thankfully my dark mood started to dissipate.
I was back working from home on Friday and was beginning to heal and had slept some better. Lacey sent me flowers, which were delivered at lunch time. I work with the best people. It was city wide garage sales so I put the blue chairs that used to be in my front room but had been languishing in my garage since I got my Ikea wall unit out at the curb and posted them on a couple of Facebook groups. They were gone by the time I was done with my EAP zoom session, which I can't say was super helpful, but at least the chairs were gone. I had a glass of wine at 5:00 and was totally buzzed. I was ready for the weekend.
I got up Saturday and made a big to do list. I'd accomplished nothing all week (not even knitting!) and had chores to do before the kitten delivering that afternoon. I was a machine! I got all my weekend chores and all the kitten prep done before noon. Becky didn't arrive until 3:40 (I'd expected her earlier in the afternoon) and we got the kittens all set up in their playpen in my back room and offloaded all their supplies. they were pretty freaked out and not ready to be touched by me so I made tuna casserole for supper and streamed all night, finally able to knit a bit on a new project of socks for Becky. I had high hopes that the kittens would distract me from my grief, which wasn't at sobbing all the time level but I was still tearing up or crying a lot.
Well, I woke up Sunday feeling profoundly sad. Like from the minute I opened my eyes. I talked to my sister and cried a bunch and with all my chores done, spent the rest of the day just feeling crushed.
It had been a long, horrible week. I was still going out to look at Gansey's grave several times a day and frequently gasped when I realized she was gone again after managing to put it out of my mind for a bit. Like I said, I've never experienced this level of grief in my life, which I guess makes me lucky. As I type this almost 4 weeks later, I'm still tearing up but that hasn't happened recently so it is getting easier. The kittens have helped a lot but more on that later. Thanks for listening (reading).
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