Attachments: Am I Finally Ready to Let These Things Go?
This is another entry in my series “Attachments” about the things with which we develop attachments because they have some connection, however distant, with an animal companion we’ve lost, often associated with the time of their decline or loss.
When I’ve preserved something somehow connected with a feline I’ve lost, I wait for some sign, some little tingle from somewhere that tells me it’s time to let go of that thing. Giuseppe and I have held on for quite some time on a few larger, more noticeable things that I encounter daily, and that even get in my way. That’s fine with me. I know we all experience this sense of attachment after a loss, and each of us resolves it in our own way. I decided long ago I didn’t care how long it would take, I would leave things as they were until I felt it was time.
I had removed a number of smaller things that were less consequential, but finally, November 11 this year, nearly two years after we lost Giuseppe, I was finally ready for the big things.
“I don’t have to protect your memory this way anymore, Giuseppe.”
We let go of our Giuseppe on December 13, 2023. In his last two weeks I had constructed all sorts of barriers and advantages for him as what turned out to be a likely meningioma slowly deteriorated his vision in his right eye, then seemingly his left eye as well, and left him pacing constantly around the house without seeing well, if at all, and eventually only able to move forward, in circles, and then pressing his head against the wall.
He walked down the basement steps one day, made it to the bottom and used a litter box, then came back up. But the next day he walked three-quarters of the way down then turned left, maybe thinking he was at the bottom, and stepped off the side of the step he was on, stepping/falling/leaping about 18 inches to the concrete basement floor. By his last month his symptoms were escalating that quickly.
Of course he would continue to go down the steps because he’d walked down those steps to use a litter box all his life. He was okay that time but I knew I had to put up a barrier preventing him from walking off the side, or falling if he just got too close to the edge. He’d seen veterinarians three times in the previous month and he had an appointment with a veterinary neurology specialist two weeks later, I had to keep him safe until then.
I found my largest metal mesh baby gate, slid it open fully and tied it to the railing, covering all the vertical space from the edges of the steps to above the handrail, though not quite the entire length of the steps. On those steps I stacked boxes and other small things on the edge of the step to block him from being able to get near the edge.
Another day I’d seen him go down the basement steps and anticipated him coming back up into the kitchen as he still did. When too many minutes went by I looked all around my chaotic basement for him—he had answered me all his life when I called his name, but no more—and found him just behind the washer with a water hose at chest height blocking his passage, thank goodness! But apparently he couldn’t back up. I started keeping him in the bathroom for periods of time when I couldn’t confine him to my office or follow him around. When I let him out to be with his family I constantly watched over him to be sure he was safe, temporarily blocking the steps, deflected him from dangerous areas, and noted the places I needed to keep him out of.
He walked along walls and furniture and in the kitchen walked along the wall to the cat tree, slid between the tree and the wall ending up in the corner behind the tree, unable to turn around. I had plenty of small boxes and pieces of cardboard to tuck into spots or block things off that would keep him out of those sorts of areas and I tried to arrange them so they could instead guide him on his way.
Over the previous weeks I had also switched around fountains because he couldn’t find the actual water source with some of them, borrowed one from a neighbor that was right at his nose level that he could drink from and put that in the bathroom where he spent more and more time. He couldn’t find a bowl of water at all. I ended up giving him fluids now and then because he still wasn’t getting enough to drink.
“Every time I’ve looked at these things I thought of your suffering…”
Mr. Sunshine was with Giuseppe every step of the way, his brother, his caretaker as he was for each of his siblings, including that last morning in the bathroom. After I had Giuseppe put to sleep I left the rugs in the bathroom where he had slept and walked and rubbed his face, because Mr. Sunshine went in there and sniffed and rubbed on those now and then through each day. I wanted them to be there as long as he needed them. I also left the towels in there for me. The scene was very much the same as the day I had had him put to sleep. I just used other towels.
I’m not sure why so long for some things…
Giuseppe had always seemed to feel that he wasn’t getting enough attention, something I sensed from his kittenhood with his siblings and his mom. From the time I moved them to the bathroom when their faces and personalities started to differentiate at 3 weeks he was the one who ran to me first, grabbed my ankle then got on my lap. A few weeks later when they were eating canned food I would come in first thing and dish out canned food but he wanted love right away. He didn’t seem to care if his siblings ate all the food.
Through the years he would insinuate himself between me and another cat, even his mother, but it wasn’t just his actions, it was a feeling I had from him, a look in his eyes now and then, that made me sense he felt emotionally neglected. Possibly each of us felt a tiny bit of difficulty toward each other for the way we felt, me wanting to share my time with all of them and Giuseppe wanting more than that.
I asked the animal communicator about this when we talked about him, if he could tell her if he did feel that way, and if so, why. I didn’t love all four of them the same because they had different personalities but I loved them all equally, and doled out affection constantly, especially Giuseppe because he was so much fun and constantly present. He hopped on my shoulders, on my back when I leaned over, and he talked to me—he was the most vocal of them all and I called him my opera singer because of this adorable habit he had of looking right at me and vocalizing as if I should be able to understand his meows. Which I actually think I did, not in meow language but in human language.
The animal communicator told me that he did know that he felt that way and he didn’t know why, he never understood it himself. But he was glad that I recognized it. And I think that might have been one reason I held on so long to the things of those last weeks, and maybe he did too, just to be sure he got that we resolved it.
“It happened too fast for all of us…”
I can’t be more grateful that he had the experience of going out in our garden and exploring the back yard in his last threemonths along with his brother Mr. Sunshine and his mom Mimi. He loved it, I loved it, the three of them together and each of them individually.
After the happy wanderings in the month of September his behavior began to change in October and symptoms progressed rapidly to where they became debilitating. It happened too fast for all of us, not just for me but for Mr. Sunshine and Mimi and Basil and Hamlet and Bella and even Mariposa and Sienna. I think I’ve held these physical items close for all of us, not just because of my own attachments. But not until there seemed to be a consensus among me and all the cats that yes, we could let this go now, we’ve processed that time. Giuseppe is with us and we will never forget him as he was especially before those last months.
“I’m not sure why today feels like the day,…”
“…but I’m going to start with the baby gate on the steps. Later today when I clean the bathroom, I’ll see if it’s time to move the rug and towels.”
As I took the ties off of the baby gate that held it to the stairway railing I said aloud to myself…
“I don’t have to protect your memory this way anymore, Giuseppe. I will remember you even without this for the rest of my life and probably for the rest of eternity. I picture you here, on the steps in front of me, tilting your head the way you did. I can see every one of your features, your slender, muscular shape and shiny fur, the big paws, long nose, tall ears, and most of all those brilliant green gold huge deep set eyes of yours, so intense.”
Then I walked outside to talk to him as I walked around the garden, crying.
“Every time I’ve looked at these I thought of your suffering, of your last days, of how confused you could be but how you worked with it to continue your daily life. I’m grateful it didn’t last longer. I hated to see you go so fast, but I was so glad I could keep you safe and have all of your feline family here around you, Mr. Sunshine guiding you around, Mariposa blocking the basement stairway, Basil nuzzling up to you, everybody loved you.
“And when I held you that morning just after your last seizure, and looked at that beautiful daybreak, the clear winter sky with red along the horizon to deep cobalt above, and the morning star framed perfectly in the branches of the big maple, I knew you weren’t going to survive and recover the seizure, you told me that as clearly as I’ve ever heard you communicate as I held you facing me, chest to chest, our hearts beating together.
“I think that moment of beauty while I held you gave me the strength to accept it. In that moment I no longer sensed that you felt forgotten or left out, I think that was the moment it began to fade, just an open flow of communication between us. I wanted to carry you around forever. And I will carry you around forever. In my heart, in my thoughts, in that parade of visuals that flows through my mind every day. I’m grateful for all the sketches I did of you in life because they captured you and I feel so connected to you when I look at them, I know you loved the attention. And that wonderful video that I posted on YouTube where you’re talking as you did and answering me, it makes people happy every day. That makes me happy to know that you are remembered, you are known.”
Upstairs in the bathroom I picked up the red towels and the red rug that is usually for December.
“It feels a little strange up here, but I think it’s going to be okay. I’ll stand here and think of you and Mr. Sunshine, your loyal brother, in this room that morning, you listless on my lap, Mr. Sunshine nuzzling you and purring. Taking away the towels and the rug don’t take away the two of you, they don’t erase your memory, I remember you in the same bathroom so many other ways from the time you were a tiny kitten. This was one of your places. So many memories here. I will never forget that morning, that seizure, the morning star, and messaging Dr. Elgersma that we needed her here, for you. We had the deepest connection, the deepest understanding, of our lives, in that moment. I will love you as I always did, silly boy.”
Giuseppe’s answer
Less than a week later two green sparkle balls appeared in my office, one on the new rug in my display and one on the floor behind my chair, Giuseppe letting me know he’s still part of everything that happens here. They were Giuseppe’s favorite toy, and they’ve appeared a few times in other places since we’ve lost him and I know it’s him. Hi, Giuseppe, I see you!
The text in italics is from my conversation with myself as I walked around the garden. I use the Notes app on my phone on voice-to-text to record my thoughts. Usually they are scattered thoughts with maybe a sentence here and there. This time they were fully formed paragraphs and I was so glad I could catch my thoughts in that way. I carried around a small journal from the day I lost Mewsette in June 2023 because there was so much in my head, but I can’t write fast enough to keep up with my thoughts in times like that.
Thank you for following us in my stories about Pet Loss in the First Person. You can read more stories about Giuseppe’s Journey, click the link or the image below.
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We each know when we are ready to let some things go. I’m glad you still feel him with you.
I like the comfort of those attachments, and I’m also glad when I sense I can let them go. That means there’s been some healing. I’m glad I still feel him with me too. Thanks for reading and commenting.