Reece & Paul in pieces

This has been an emotional weekend for my husband.

His cat, Reece, died. The 17 year old cat had not been doing well the past two years, but this past week, he'd been crying out more than usual in pain. The vet thought it was a kidney thing. Thousands of dollars have been spent on Reece by his current owners. Paul hasn't had the cat in ten years.

After he died, they took some of his fur and did some test to confirm that it was lymphoma. Little dude never had a chance.

Paul is devastated. I haven't seen him this crushed...God... ever.  I mean his father died in December and his mother died seven years ago, but I've never seen him this heart-broken.

If this is the kind of grief he displays to a cat he saw once or twice a year, what is going to happen when Max goes? I say Max b/c as a dog, we maybe have a good five to six years left with him.

There's a part of me that is relieved that he is showing this outward display of emotion. When his parents passed, he didn't go through the expected textbook phases of grief and I puzzled over it.  I knew they had a complicated relationship, but still, they were his parents. Back then, he wore an air of bitter regret perfumed with notes of sadness.

He was not like what he is now.

He has broken down and sobbed incoherently in my arms. I don't know if some emotional dam has broken, but the man has cried to the point of exhaustion. It's all very classic textbook. He has even written two eulogies for his feline friend.

I've been there to help...and yes, this sounds callous, but to observe him and tuck away the bits of details about someone grieving. See, I've been taught about grief and it's phases, but I've never had a live example to see it on. I've never had anyone close to me die. Sure, there was that one uncle who I had never seen, a friend's husband, a classmate I shared homeroom with, a couple of unlucky beta fishes from Walmart...but yeah, no one has died on me yet.

I've seen people pass away, but those were patients. Most of the time, by the time EMS brought them in to the ER, they were already circling the drain, with or without the rain dance of ACLS on them.

But I'm closer to 35 than I am to 25. I'm coming upon that time of one's life where people are going to start dropping like flies. Hell...I might be one of them. (Who knows how long this spine is going to hold up before I collapse into a wheelchair with everything below my hips paralyzed from all the nerve damage? Then I'd probably end up with autonomic dysreflexia and die because I couldn't take a shit.)

Okay, way to morbid, let's go back to point. Right. No one has died on me. But they will. I don't know when and who, but they will. I dread it and in my head, I prepare myself for all the scenarios because I'm an idiot and I think if I get ahead of the grief it won't hurt as much.

I've been told that I dwell on death a lot. More than other people should. My mother tells me it's unhealthy. I don't understand why it freaks her out. Especially, since she, herself, sees so much of it working in the operating room.

I use death as motivation to live. There's a direct relationship to how you lived your life and if people notice that you're dead. Did your life matter to someone? Don't you want to make sure it does?

We are all going to die. That's a given. We don't know when, but it's gonna happen. I want to make sure, in the case that I don't live a full life, that I die knowing I gave love, apologized for any hurt I may have caused, and forgave those who hurt me. (I do hope it's not some violent stupid way like being crashed into by a drunk driver or robbed at gunpoint for the twenty bucks in my wallet. I'm going to haunt the fuck out of the asshole who does that to me. I'd curse their progeny and make sure their entire family line dies out for payback. Hmm...still gotta work on that rage issue I have. Told the counselor I was doing better, but it spurts now and again.)

I guess what I'm going to end this post with is that love, though lovely and makes life meaningful...well, don't forget the fine print. There is suffering involved in love. To love and open up your heart to all it can offer means you are just as exposed to all the suffering it will inevitably cause.

That's not to say you shouldn't love. Love. Love hard. Even knowing this, you have to love. I don't think there's a point to life otherwise.

Seneca said (before Nero told him to go kill himself) "What need is there to weep over parts of life when the whole of it calls for tears."

There is going to be pain. It's going to be delivered on your door one day. Love while you can now.