One year ago, I lost a cat I adored. It was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever been through. But I also learned how to pull myself out of the depths of my grief and welcome joy into my life. Although Autumn’s death was painful, and I didn’t get nearly as much time with her as I would have liked, my experience with her was a blessing and I still believe that taking her home with me is the best decision I have ever made.
(feel free to skip the next four paragraphs if you don’t want to read the whole backstory)
I always suspected that I was a cat person, even though my family never had cats when I was growing up, and we never had good luck with pets in general. Seeing a cat always made me happy. The few times I’d interacted with cats, I’d thought they were sweet and adorable. At the end of 2019, when I was starting a new job and moving into a new apartment, my mom asked me if I was going to get a cat. I realized that there was no point in waiting any longer, and I started seriously looking into getting a cat. I visited animal shelters to learn more about the adoption process and to expose myself to cats for long enough to make sure I wasn’t allergic. I was a bit discouraged by how many steps there were to “applying” to adopt a pet from a shelter or rescue organization, though I still intended to try. But then, after I mentioned to my training group at work that I was looking for a cat, someone told me about a social media post she’d seen from a person trying to adopt out a cat. I contacted her and met the cat a few days later.
I was surprised by how well-behaved and friendly the cat, then called Chanel, was when I first met her. Though determined to get a cat, I was worried about coming home to find that fragile objects had been swept off the desk or the curtains had been torn down while I was out. But I watched this cat jump onto furniture without knocking things over and step daintily around a vase. She also approached me and sat on my lap that same night. This was surprising, because she was found living on the streets, in pretty awful physical condition, before being taken to a shelter and subsequently adopted (nobody knows when or where she was born or what happened during the first few years of her life). I figured I was unlikely to find a better cat, so I came back for her two days later, December 3, 2019. I loved watching Autumn, which I’d decided to call her because of her cinnamon-colored fur, explore her new home. She was very curious and apt to get herself into trouble. She stepped in the toilet her first night. She also jumped up on the kitchen counter next to the stove. That was the one place I’d decided was off limits. I put her down and sternly said “No” twice the first night. I was afraid she’d resent me for that, as well as taking her away from her previous owner. But the next morning I woke up to her sitting on the floor in my bedroom, and, with prompting, she jumped up onto the bed and cuddled with me.
I definitely have fond memories of our early days together. She was smart and endlessly entertaining. She caught on quickly to how to get attention. Just a couple of days after I got her, I looked up from where I was sitting to see her perched on the kitchen counter, staring at me. When I moved to get up, she jumped down right away. When she met my then-boyfriend and my family members, I learned how much she loved humans. She was the type of animal who would climb right on top of you within an hour of meeting you. She loved to drink out of people’s cups of water and to eat people food. Before I started feeding her exclusively at night, she would nudge my face to get me up in the morning. There were a few times when she woke me as early as 4AM, though now I look back on all of those times with amusement. Sometimes she would even take my hand in her front paws and put my hand in her mouth. Since she could be a handful in the mornings, I would look forward to going to work to get a break from her, but find myself missing her a few hours later. I was getting a sense of what it was like to have a kid.
Autumn was a very clingy cat, but that’s one of the reasons why our bond became very strong and I began to love her as much as I loved any human in my life. When I started working remotely, she constantly wanted to hang out with me, either by sitting on the desk or on my lap. Around the same time, she got into a routine of coming to my bedroom whenever I turned out the light, climbing on top of me, and sleeping on me the entire night. I began to like it. I found her weight comforting, and I loved waking up to her face. About the only command she ever answered was “kisses kisses,” where she would respond by turning up her nose to bump mine. I have one memory of her resting her paw on top of my hand, inspiring me to call her my “pawtner.” For a couple of months, she stayed in my family’s house on Long Island, a big house where a little critter like her could easily lose track of people. She was constantly looking for us and meowing until she found somebody. She could be a brat; she loved to jump where she knew she wasn’t allowed and swipe my food right off my plate. And she wasn’t afraid to hiss or scratch if she got mad, though that was only a few times, like when she went to the vet or had her nails trimmed. She had a wild side, but was also so loving and so different from the stereotype of a cat.
Losing Autumn
Her decline happened the way many human deaths do: “slowly, and then all at once.” I still can’t think about it much. Let’s just say, now I know I will never assume that I can fix my pets’ problems myself or that I should just give them time and they will get better. I didn’t really believe she could be terminal until the day she died, March 29, 2021. She always seemed to have so much energy. Even on her last day, she fought me when I forced her into her carrier. I let her be euthanized when I found out that she was on the brink of death anyway, and that even if I gave everything I could t to save her, she might not make it, and if she did, she would probably only survive a few more months. I was present when she died. The closure of seeing that she was “really gone” was probably a good thing, but it was horrible to see her in her last moments. She didn’t even look like the same animal I knew and loved. When the vet asked if I wanted a moment with the body, I said no, “I can’t look at this.” For a while, I had one last picture of her right before she died, but I later deleted it. All pictures of her in the last month of her life are hard to look at – she’s scrawny and her fur looks matted in some places – and I don’t want to remember her that way.
The next few days, I felt worse than I’d ever felt in my life. I thought more seriously about jumping off a bridge than I ever had before. I would randomly start thinking about Autumn’s death and sobbing in the middle of the day. This is kind of embarrassing to admit, but I have a pillow with an image of her face, which some relatives had gotten for me as a gift, and I would hug the pillow and cry. I had a confusing, overwhelming mix of thoughts and feelings, most of which I knew deep down were irrational but couldn’t rid myself of. I should have brought her to the vet and had her euthanized a few days before to end her suffering sooner. I should have known she was dying and killed her myself by strangling her or smothering her with a blanket. I should have brought her home to die naturally in my arms. I should have had her tested months earlier, simply as a matter of course, and maybe I could have bought her more time. I shouldn’t have tried to force her to perk up and be normal during her last three days when she went into her final decline. I felt bad that she hadn’t gotten the chance to meet more people and show them how great cats were. I also just plain missed her. I missed her sleeping on me. I missed finding her curled up on my bed. I missed her soft cinnamon fur. I missed her curiosity and little antics. I wished she would come back and annoy me again. I even found myself wanting a new cat immediately.
I consider myself quite lucky; up to the age of 28, I had suffered very few serious losses. Unlike too many of my contemporaries, I have never lost an immediate family member or a close friend, nor have I ever lost a loved one in a way that was sudden or unexpected. Mourning Autumn was a new experience to me. I realized how physically painful grief could be. The depth of my anguish shocked me at first. I usually have a difficult time expressing myself through crying, and now I couldn’t stop. I tried telling myself to move on. She was just an animal, right? And I’d only had her for about 16 months. But that didn’t work for me, and I now realize there was no point in telling myself to just snap out of it; I really loved her. The truth is, very little I said to myself was helpful during that time. Support from others was what helped. On the day Autumn died, her previous owner also came to say goodbye and was there to comfort me, and later my dad met me for dinner. I’m still quite glad I wasn’t alone that day, and had a distraction from some very dark and unpleasant thoughts. The outpouring of kindness from family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers over the next week or so amazed me. Even the pamphlets on how to handle the loss of a pet, which I received with her ashes and pawprint a week after she died, were helpful. I realized how common my experience was: a lot of people deeply mourn their pets, a lot of people feel foolish for mourning, a lot of people experience guilt and regret, and a lot of people, in the immediate aftermath of the death, find that their memories of the pet’s life are hazy or blur together and they fear not being able to remember their pet (good news, that’s normal and the clear, specific memories do come back). I even got a note from Autumn’s former local vet telling me she was sorry for the loss of my “family member.” I felt like I had permission to grieve.
The best thing was finding out how much of an impact she’d had on others in the short time I’d known her. My uncle called me to tell me that my cat was so cool, she had changed his outlook on cats. My mom said the same thing. She’d grown up being told that cats were evil, but she loved Autumn. Several other family members adored her. Her former owner, who’d only given her up at the insistence of a roommate, ended up getting a kitten, and her mother, who hadn’t liked cats before meeting Autumn, also later adopted a cat. She certainly got me sold on being a cat lady for life. Her brief existence mattered.
Recovering Joy
Over the next three or so months, I continued to miss Autumn. Not having her around was a shadow over every day. I was already in a pretty dark place. I hated the job I had at the time, remote work in general, and the state of the world as a whole wasn’t so great, either. To be honest, I have very few happy memories from late 2020 through early 2021. Losing Autumn made my misery a whole lot worse. I didn’t have her to make working from home (or, as others have rightly put it, “living at work”) less horrible, or to provide a much-needed distraction. I sometimes found myself momentarily forgetting she was dead and expecting her to greet me at the door. I was still haunted by regret; I didn’t even feel sorry for myself because I felt that it was my fault she had died, and therefore my fault that I was sad, to begin with. It took a couple of months before I could even look at pictures of cats without being sad. I would have a stretch of days here and there when I thought I was getting over her, only to have a rush of grief all over again.
I moved to Westchester in mid-May, something I’d been wanting to do for a long time, and though I was glad I’d done it, it didn’t bring as much satisfaction as I’d hoped it would, at least not right away. I still missed Autumn and longed for a cat (and I still wanted a new job, but that’s another story). I missed her even when I felt happy. At one point I found myself thinking, I’m having a great night, I just wish I had a cat to share it with! About three months after she died, I put the word out there that I was looking for another cat. Two people told me about older cats looking for new homes. I had a bad experience with the first one I saw! The poor cat was not in the mood to play, and was not friendly to strangers anyway. She even physically attacked my hand a few times. Though I felt sorry for the family that was trying to give her a good home, I was very concerned about her being a liability, and I didn’t want to take the chance that she would never come around to me. The encounter also made me miss Autumn even more. I had a hard time falling asleep that night, and even started bawling in the middle of the night, thinking about Autumn. I finally admitted to myself that I really felt like I had lost a person I’d cared about. I was afraid to say it because I didn’t want to offend people, but it made some sense to me: I had shared hundreds of days with Autumn. I had spent countless hours with her sitting just a few feet away, and countless nights with her either sleeping next to me or right on top of me. She had been a family member, and she couldn’t be replaced.
I met the second cat not long after, on July 15th, a beautiful midsummer night that I still remember fondly. I’d told my mom I was going to meet the cat. My mom cautioned me not to rush into things, but I knew that I would probably say yes to Cookie if her behavior seemed okay. I needed a new cat. I knew nothing else would enable me to move on from losing Autumn. Her owner had died suddenly in June, and that person’s family members couldn’t take her in due to various circumstances, such as allergies or already having their own pets who were incompatible. Cookie was a bit shy at first. She’d had a sheltered life. But she perked up with some treats, and even rubbed against me to get me to pet her and did her characteristic “flop” on the floor. She was very cute. I decided I would be back for her in two weeks. I left feeling glorious. I had just lined up a new job that I was excited about, I was getting to know my new town and starting to love it, and now I was probably getting another cat! Everything was going to be okay.
The next week was a whirlwind of emotion. I could barely sleep for joy. I would wake up early in the morning and go walking because I had so much energy. I felt more happiness than I’d ever felt in my life, so much I wondered if one could actually die of happiness. Anticipating Cookie’s arrival was a huge part of that. Of course, when I did bring her home, there was a period of adjustment. It took a couple of days for her to come out of my closet and sit next to me on the couch, and several more weeks for her to sit on my lap. I sometimes still missed Autumn, too. At the same time, Cookie was a good girl, and I was glad I’d chosen her.
Then, in late October, I went away for a few days. I boarded Cookie because she is a terrible traveler (whenever she goes into her carrier, she screams the entire time, and she throws up every time she’s in a car). When I came home, I found that I had really missed her. It took going away and coming home again to realize that we’d built a strong bond. We cuddled and did “kisses kisses” all the time, and she slept right next to me. I started to tell people that I was in love, because that’s exactly what it felt like. In complete contrast to the background sadness I’d experienced a few months earlier, I now had background happiness. For over a month, I was happy every single day, without fail. I found joy in so many little things in life; taking a walk, watching a movie, looking at the sky, talking to another person. I could enjoy the present moment without constantly worrying about the next. One overcast night I walked home from the station thinking that I didn’t mind what the weather was like, I could be happy anyway. I don’t think I could have achieved that level of happiness without Cookie. I had a lot of days when I thought, Geez, Kel, aren’t you glad you didn’t give up on everything on March 30, 2021? And I am glad, indeed.
Though I love Cookie, I haven’t tried to use her to forget about Autumn. I honor Autumn by surrounding myself with photos of her, and I often try to invoke memories of her to keep them vivid. There are certainly still times when I miss her. Once, in late December, when there weren’t many people in my workplace, I went into an empty conference room and cried over Autumn. As I approached the anniversary of her death, I still felt a few pangs of regret and wondered what things might have been like if she was still around. But I found I could manage these thoughts and feelings a lot better than I could have a year before. I requested March 29th off months in advance, but when it came I didn’t mope about Autumn all that much. I actually had a good day, including a peaceful nature walk where I got to watch a lot of birds. And today, one year after I’d experienced one of the lowest points in my life, was… fine! I barely thought about Autumn, except when writing this.
Lessons Learned
Looking back, I can definitively say I learned a lot of valuable lessons about grief and loss and how to approach similar scenarios in the future. I’ve also learned firsthand that even when bad things happen, they don’t have to make you unhappy forever. Humans are remarkably resilient. Our joys and our sorrows can coexist.
The biggest lessons I’ll take with me, and the most important pieces of advice I’d give to others who have experienced a loss:
Don’t try to suppress your grief. Acknowledge the loss and don’t try to pretend it didn’t happen, or that it wasn’t so bad. Like how denying your anger can just make it simmer beneath the surface and come bursting out with a vengeance later, minimizing your grief will only prolong it. It is better that you just give yourself permission to be sad.
On a similar note, don’t fall into the trap of thinking your grief is stupid. We’re often inclined to tell ourselves that we’re being silly, ungrateful, or selfish by mourning. This is stupid. I knew the death was coming. This is stupid. That person was really old. This is stupid. It was just an animal. This is stupid. Worse things happen in this world every day. But it’s never stupid to love someone, or something, and be upset about losing them.
Let others support you. Don’t be afraid to express your negative emotions. You might find that what you’re experiencing is very common. It’s comforting to find that you’re not alone in feeling the way you do. And you might be surprised by how many people are willing to listen and be there for you in your time of need. It can also be useful to know when your grief has reached a point that is not normal, so that you can get professional help if it becomes necessary.
Remember the good. Keep pictures around. Talk about the deceased. If you focus on keeping the happy memories vivid, eventually they will crowd out the painful memories of the death, and thinking about your loved one will become easier and easier. You might even be grateful for the memories, despite the sadness you later experienced. I had always scoffed at the quote by Alfred, Lord Tennyson that says: It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. But after knowing, loving, and losing Autumn, I found that it was true. I have no regrets about welcoming her into my life, because I know she’ll have an impact on me for decades to come.
Kelly's Thoughts 