A Storm of Leaving...the Aftermath

Cleaning up after an animal has passed who’s been in physical decline or ill is a sacred process, and I wait until both of us are ready. Frequently there’s a lot of residue that the body has released spread across the environment. The saliva, vomit, residue of urine or feces  contains the cellular release of what they chose not to take with them, in a sense. While in the body, any of us can release so much more than when we’re not. What an opportunity.

Frequently in sessions I do with animals who know they are preparing to transition out of the body, there’s this: “Give it to me. Let me take it, I can do this for you, Beloved Human.” So our old stuff is there too - as microcellular remnants. It helps to be synced into these understandings as one cleans.

Today I begin in earnest wiping down the apartment, vacuuming up the fur, washing the nose smudges off the windows. Juliette, my bright guiding light of worthiness and joy, passed away a couple of months ago. It was a marked departure; we’d been staying in the city through the extreme cold here in the northeast during January and February. These are months we’d normally head down to the land of her birth that she was so imprinted with: The south Jersey shore. I knew she’d been wanting to go; I was both waiting for her to show some signs of strength and for the cold to subside - heating with wood in 20 F weather was time consuming and hard work. She loved the fire and would always go sit in front of the cold dark stove when we first arrived, turning to look at me almost impatiently. 

A Nor’easter ripped up the Atlantic seaboard in late February. I felt an urge to get down to the house and see what state it was in - pictures that neighbors sent showed many large limbs down. So off we went on the very last day in February, arriving around 3 in the afternoon to a chaotic scene of lines down in the driveway, so many trees broken in the area…a leak under the house and the fridge was dead. I was on the phone to the electric company, and I could see out of the corner of my eye, Juliette touring the damage, slowly, staying close. The house was very cold, but I had her heated bed out on the couch. As I was multi-tasking, I saw her, having climbed on the couch, slump backwards against my backpack: She’d had a heart attack 30 mins after we arrived, after having connected to the Earth where she was most aligned…she was gone.  I felt the lights had gone out on a deeper level. You all know this feeling too well. 

I struggled through the next couple of months preparing the house for immediate renters, driving back and forth, trying to give my other kitty Stella what I thought she needed. It took a while managing my various roles and practices to smooth out the rhythm of the house guests renting and my own life post-Juliette.  Naturally I got jammed up in the grieving process, trying to handle too much at once. I know many of you experience this as well.

Being stuck in a grief process usually spreads to other areas of life, and in a very stuck place yesterday, I realized I needed to just stop, and be with loss of the physical. She’s right here, her presence over my left shoulder, showing me a crown on her head. I cried many tears but also began to feel more connected to everything. 

So today I began to clean, to rearrange the furniture to suit Stella’s needs a bit more. I remembered doing this 9 years ago after my last feline queen transitioned - Frenchie, the most confident cat I have ever met. She was struggling with her health a year before she passed, and one day I really saw it, yet turned to her and blurted out from a place of raw fear, “Frenchie, don’t leave me now! I need you.” My mother had just passed 5 months after my marriage had broken up. I did need her. She had a kumquat-sized tumor hanging off her chin, and besides marring her exquisite beauty, it was a messy pain for her. At the next vet visit, the vet felt into Frenchie’s chin and suddenly said, ‘You know, I can take this off.” She’d thought there was not enough room between the tumor and Frenchie’s chin to do that previously. I looked at Frenchie, and she looked at me, and I knew she’d agreed to stick around for a while. The surgery was successful and Frenchie relaxed into her role of Grand Dame. She’d instructed me to tell the other cats, young Juliette and Stella, that SHE was my priority, and they would get their turn.  

And Frenchie was correct; Juliette became my priority...and now Stella. Many loving humans want me to tell their animals it’s ok if they need to go, don’t stay for me. I’m telling you, it’s ok to ask them to stay if you need them; they’ll know if they need to go. You can trust an animal’s judgment when they are this close to the door - they are more in alignment with the greater being of who they are that is not in the body. If possible, they will stay for a bit longer. I’ve witnessed this many times, and that period of time in this type of agreement is exalted in the hearts of both parties. I can’t really describe in words what happens when two who love each other so, decide to do their best to bridge the gap of health, adjusting routines, cooperating in intimate sensing of what is ok, what works, what doesn't. We find ourselves willing to change and shift beliefs, attitudes and even feelings on a level most of us are less willing to do in any other situation. It’s living in created time - a new space that was unplanned and is truly rich with creative material - you can do anything you want within this new agreement. 

Juliette had always preferred the shore. I’d needed to rent the house. We worked together to ameliorate the distance between these two preferences, as well as the actual distance between our two homes. I bought a big stroller, took her and Stella around Central Park often in the summer before the heat of the day. This winter while I waited for the cold to break, I outfitted Juliette’s carrier with a battery operated heating pad, wrapped the carrier in a down blanket and plastic as insulation, taped a clear vinyl windflap over the front of the carrier. It was toasty warm in there, even when it was below freezing outside. She lived for the sun, and we’d go out as soon as the path was clear of snow in the park. She sat with her nose to the windflap, always wanting me to leave it a bit open so she could smell the deliciousness of nature. She literally smiled through her eyes at the humans who were genuinely surprised to see her out. She was on the job, her light shining through. These jaunts were the high point of my days - and hers. 

I can’t go walking in the park yet. Stella prefers summertime sitting in one location there anyway. I got back on my bike - I’d given that up for a few years caring for Juliette and other projects. Yes I talk to Juliette. But the conversation between hand on fur, eye to eye in the sunlight, paws gently kneading bread…is one that remains in my heart. I miss her so.

As I was cleaning this morning, I shoved the vacuum under the bed and it hit something - there! My new glasses that had disappeared after that last trip south with Juliette. I’d been looking for them everywhere because those are the ones I can actually see out of. They were right under the spot on the bed where Juliette spent 90% of her time. I’d known they weren’t ‘lost’ and had asked for them back - usually when I lose something it’s just in another dimension, and when I align, it appears. Juliette had handed me back my clarity. It’s important to stop chasing and let what is yours come to you, I heard in a flow from her to me as I pulled them out and smiled. 

Ok, girl. I’ve been thinking about kittens. Stella will not tolerate any animal any larger than she is. She’d prefer a snake or a bunny, but when I showed her videos of kittens a couple of nights ago, she played madly the next morning; I haven’t seen her like that in a long time. I don’t feel like I can handle anything more right now but I’ve learned that usually animals know better than I do about this.  I’ll let them come to me, if that’s what’s in line for us. It’s spring; a lot of the time I still feel like everywhere is empty and I cry a lot, but Stella has started bringing young snakes into the house for me to catch and put outside, and in those baby snake eyes with the darting tongues, I see the future. It’s life, regardless of who’s in attendance here on Earth and who’s not at any given moment.