The Only Things That Matter In The End

This is not the piece I had planned to write today.

Sunday began weirdly - an omen of what was to come.

After a funky day on Saturday where I’d had a headache, felt weird and slept all afternoon, I had awoken the next morning feeling much the same. Mars and Aries both in Chiron, playing havoc with my energy.

I had the house to myself so sat down to watch Come See Me in The Good Light, the documentary about the Poet Laureate, Andrea Gibson.

Me curled up under the beige fluffy blanket, the dog curled up in his bed.

I knew after three minutes that this film was the perfect match for my mood. Heart aching poetry and a love story that took my breath and held it.

24 minutes and 24 seconds in, the phone call came from my neighbour.

“Your cat is in our driveway and she’s not moving.”

My beloved Beau, lying on her side in their flower bed. Her eyes were open; she has always had the power to shoot daggers of love into our hearts with her slow green eye blink and she did this now. No injuries I could see, but as I sculped her up, I knew she wasn’t OK.

My husband and I drove her to the emergency vet because I didn’t know if I would be able to speak, drive or make important decisions and at times like these he is the strong one. Within minutes we were summoned into the room. Damage to her spine in her tail, both hips dislocated and bleeding from her bladder. A number of surgeries would be required. Did we want to put her through that?

“No,” I said. I knew right away. Looked to my husband, he nodded.

The vet brought her to us to say goodbye. She lay on her towel, looking perfect with her silky black fur and bright green eyes fixed on mine, high on pain meds but still able to operate the love daggers as I stroked her head and told her it was all going to be OK.

This moment was not just about me and Beau. This was me and my dad, stroking his hair less than four months ago, saying the same. This was me and my mum, stroking her arm less than three years ago, saying the same. A shaking, grateful heart that although it had come close, this had never been me and one of my children. “When I go,” I said to my husband, “This is what I want you to do for me.”

The intermingling of go now, go quickly, I can’t bear it any longer, and stay, wake up, be back to normal, please. The selfish lightheartedness of the lifting of one of the many responsibilities from my shoulders before she’d even gone coupled with the shame of feeling this even for a second.

Me, being cuddled by Beau, 4 days ago.

We brought her home with us, wrapped in a towel, and I readied myself to break the news to my daughter when she came home that evening. Holding my game face on the drive home; and then telling my other children afterwards. Another repeat of the day my dad died. This heartbreak sparking every other heartbreak back and back and back through time.

We showed Beau’s forever-sleeping-curl to her brother, Bob, so he could understand that they will never play-fight in the hallway and curtains again. He’s sitting at the window, as I write, looking down the garden for her.

I found myself in practical mode while we waited all afternoon for the telling, this seems to be my grief pattern. Walked the dog in the woods, hands in the soil, potting on zinnias and marigolds. Beau would always find me in the she-shed, curling round my ankles, flipping onto her back for a tummy rub, instead she was curled up in a towel in her carrier in the shed, while my husband went to dig a deep hole in the garden in our own little pet cemetery.

I unpaused the movie. 24 minutes and 24 seconds in, and watched the rest of it that afternoon.

Me curled up under the beige fluffy blanket, the dog curled up in his bed.

I would make Come See Me In the Good Light required viewing of every single human. To see how the closeness of death brings life into a crystal clear sharpness.

To see how silly our fears of sharing our vulnerability are; the film calls us to empty ourselves out so there is nothing left by the end.

To see what true love and true grit looks like. I saw it in my daughter as she sat on her haunches on the stones for twenty minutes, whispering the last shares of her heart with Beau.

To appreciate how precious it is to spend the last moments of life with ones that we are loved by. To see how much beauty there is in the world.

Nothing else matters in the end.

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Bea and Beau, last Tuesday.