Wednesday, February 16, 2011

The Goose.


24 hours ago I was at the vet with my best friend Goose. We were saying goodbye to each other.
It was tied with the only other hardest thing I have ever done. That was saying goodbye to his brother barely 7 months ago. Goose and Bizmarck were the loves of my life. Both left 3 months shy of their 16th birthdays. We had an extraordinary life together. This I will write about later. I am truly broken hearted. The emptiness and quiet is deep and cavernous and lonely and yet allows for the knowing of something new that is launched by the gifts of the past 16 yrs.
Today I woke up for the first time in 25 yrs to having no kitty energy in my home. I have my coffee and wonder who I am now. Where do I start, how do I feel and what is happening? And this is what showed up.

THE MATTERING OF THINGS

The inevitable.

The finality.

The hollowness.

The quiet.

The space.

The re-ordering of things… priorities.

The finding value in just being me and not someone’s mom, caretaker, aid, friend, companion.

The new identity.

The heart break.

The fear of today.

The being not doing.

The disbelief.

The wonder.

The questioning.

The aloneness.

The understanding.

The shift from despair to sadness to laughter to detachment to practicality to intellectualizing to breaking open in less than a minute….over and over again.

The rain.

The honoring.

The gratitude.

The immense gratitude.

The energy. The shift. The re-alignment. The re-direction.

The puttering.

The creativity.

The noticing.

The compassion.

The nothing.

The something.

The mattering of things.

The love.

The comfort.

The grief.

The examining.

The gratitude.

The love. The immense Love. The intense love.

The surrender.

The weariness.

The exhaustion.

The sitting.

The standing.

The pacing.

The support.

The friendships.

The shock.

The vulnerability.

The solitude.

The gifts.

The distraction.

The letting go.

The holding on.

The humbling.

The anxiety.

The panic.

The calm.

The reviewing.

The praying.

The allowing.

The settling in. The settling down.

The realizing.

The joy.

The laughter.

The memories.

All of it matters.

All of it matters.


3 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing this Joanne. Reading your post brought tears to my eyes, for your courage and pain. I lost a dear cat, Rembrandt, nearly three years ago and not a week goes by that I don't feel the love for him.

    Keep the posts coming- it is healing for all of us.

    Sietze

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  2. Joanne, this is so beautiful and so very touching. I feel your pain and your wondering through it all. I cherish our two boys even more after reading this as it makes me see things more clearly; what is truly important by being graced with them in our lives.

    Tzipora

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  3. It is amazing how much the loss can make us take stock of what rally matters. the constant unwavering companionship of the fur ones is irreplaceable. My heart goes out to you.

    on a good note maybe now you can clean the carpet. ;+>
    love melissa

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