In July 2011 I stood in a field in Dublin, listening to Coldplay, watching fireworks and thought to myself ‘my life is actually perfect. It’s finally wonderful.’ When I returned home two days later, I found out my friend Dan had been in a motorbike collision and killed while I had been having the time of my life in that field.
In January 2021, almost 10 years later, I thought to myself ‘wow, I’ve actually got my life together. It’s not perfect, it’s far from it, but I have amazing friends, exciting things in the pipeline, a wonderful routine and I actually feel content? I feel like, I can keep going?’. Then my beloved cat collapsed and 3 hours later was dead.
Do I think I am somehow cursed and whenever I realise I am happy, something terrible will happen? Perhaps. But that isn’t the point of this story. Dotty’s arrival in my life was a result of grieving Dan and from the moment we met, she was helping me heal. In the 10 years we had together, sometimes I think maybe I went through more than most should in their 20s. But even when every single part of me hurt, when my head and my heart ached or on those really dark days when I really questioned if I could keep breathing another day, Dotty was there.
There have been other hands to hold, people to talk to. Friends and loves who have since left, moved away or fallen in love with someone else. But at the end of every day, at 3am when the world is dark and quiet and cold. Dotty was always there. Crawling in to our window seat, watching the quiet skies and gently resting my head on to hers, it was a unique treasure, a moment of tenderness for her and a moment of honesty for me. There are few things I felt I capable of in those moments, but loving her was always my best talent.
Now I can’t say she wouldn’t have galavanted off to sunnier climbs or fallen in love with another human had she have had the options available to most humans. But she never did. When I called, she came. When scared, she let me know. I’m dreading the day my window cleaners come, as I never saw her more timid and afraid and even though I’m glad she’ll be safe from the evil window monster, I’ll miss comforting her so much.
She was, in many ways, myself in cat form. A fussy eater, a self harmer (when anxious she would groom down to the skin to the point of bleeding), someone desperate for love and affection but equally afraid to receive it. Never a cuddle in public, she would still follow me from room to room, always next to me, just an arms reach away. When I wasn’t looking, paws would often be outstretched to me, making sure I was always in her eye-line.
The comfort of a pet is such a difficult thing to describe. More so when you find that one special friend, a soulmate without words. There is so much about the last 10 years I wish I could change. So many moments, choices, horrible scarring memories. But if you told me I could erase every single one of them, wake up tomorrow at 20 years old and have the knowledge, confidence, sort of ok mental health I have now? But I would never meet that scrawny thing who crawled up my shoulder and chewed my hair, who lay on the hallway floor with me every day for months while I sobbed, who greeted me with such joy and excitement whenever I opened the front door? I don’t think I could do it. At 31 years, I had her for just under a third of my lifetime. Her unconditional love, her gentle ‘enough’ with her paw and tail if I got over affectionate, her pitiful midnight cries when she’d realised I’d gone to bed without her. They’re the most loved I’ve ever felt. There were times, just like I feel now, that I thought I could never love again after so much loss. That it is just too hard to lose people. I feel that so much right now. I feel her absence every time I finish a task and realise, what does is matter? But she showed me love. She helped me learn stillness. She helped me to feel content.
I have a notebook that says ‘I’d rather be home with my cat’. And for the last year, I was. And for that year, I learnt how to be.
I’d love to hope there is some grand scheme of things, that she was with me until I was ok. That her leaving me now means I can keep going.
I instead take comfort from a concept I learnt when my dad was dying. That everyone gets a certain amount of happy tokens. And we spend them throughout our life. So we lose good people, good creatures too soon, because they used up all their big happiness coins. They got one big but short happy life. So it’s so sad that they’re gone, because how much they enjoyed living, but they went out big. I’d love to hope that these last 10 months with Dotty, that we fit in a lifetime of silliness and companionship. That she got her lifetimes worth of love, and all filled up, she was ready to say goodbye. God I hope that is the case.
“How lucky I am to have known someone and something that saying goodbye is so damned awful.”
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