Random Things in My Bathrobe Pocket

Poem: Random Things in My Bathrobe Pocket

Random things in my bathrobe pocket
a partially-used packet of fortiflora carefully folded over
three favorite treats
two plastic caps from infusion needles for sub-q fluids
I remember how you looked at me
when you didn’t want the treats you’d always take
even if nothing else
when the fortiflora no longer made your food more enticing
when the fluids didn’t perk you up as they usually did
giving us one more day to be together
sorrow
sadness
in your eyes
the apology no words were needed
for me to understand
the morning nothing worked for you
you knew what this meant
and so did I.

I dropped these things into the pocket of my bathrobe
over time
my fingers gently tracing them every so often
without taking them out of my pocket
counting the treats, one, two, three
folding and unfolding the flap on the foil envelope
putting the caps one into the other, then switching them
the moments come back to me
I see your eyes
I remember how hard we worked
how hard you fought
how, in those moments, we both knew, and agreed
and how much I love you.

~~~

This poem came to me a few mornings ago as I was preparing their breakfast, just out of nowhere, the first five or six lines just wrote themselves in my mind and I whispered them out loud to try to remember them. But I knew I couldn’t, not until I could finish getting their breakfast together and then get paper and a pen or go to my computer. To Bella and Hamlet’s consternation I put everything down I was holding and went over to my computer to type this in rather than use a piece of paper because I was thinking way faster than I could write. I drafted most of the entire first stanza as if I’d memorized it from somewhere else.

The surprise of this was not just that I’ve been fingering these things in my bathrobe pocket for some time now and no such thing has come to mind, but I’ve been waiting for the creative lights to turn back on, really limping along with smaller things that in themselves have been challenging to produce. I always say the lights go out for me when I’m grieving but after all the losses and no returning to my usual creative self I was wondering if it would ever come back at all.

And suddenly it’s returned on several fronts, I’ve been working on a few smaller paintings I’d started years ago and went to a painting class this afternoon with fellow artists, I’m writing all the time, and singing my heart out around the house and in the garden. Now this spontaneous poem. You just never know with grief.

I could be speaking to any one of the seven felines who went to their next life in the past three years, Mewsette, Jelly Bean, Giuseppe, Mr. Sunshine, Mimi, Basil, Mr. Max. I see each one of them when I touch these things in my bathrobe pocket, I remember different mornings, different seasons, different rooms, and I’m not sure when they ended up there. They are kind of a universal memory of each of them, and of that time in our lives.

 

Little visits

You never know where the messages will come from or how the visitor will appear to you. But they will. They love and care about you as they did in life and still want to be near you.

Thank you for following our grief journey after losing seven members of our feline family.

I hope sharing our experiences have helped you in some way, as sharing my experiences with you helps me.

Read more articles about Attachments related to the loss of a beloved animal companion.

Also read articles about Pet Loss and Pet Loss in the First Person, where I share my own experiences.

You can read all the articles related to their loss by tapping the images in the side bar and in articles.

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