Decide for yourself. I’m only stating facts.
I lost my beloved cat in 2019, and recovery is slow in coming. He was my child, not just a cat. He was my world. This year has been difficult because I’ve been facing this situation clean and sober for the first time since his death. Drugs and alcohol only delay grief, they don’t deflect it. When I got clean in February of last year, the pain was sitting there, patiently waiting for me, it’s job to make me wish, beg and pray for death daily this past year. I’ve been seeing a therapist to help process the grief. Our sessions have been brutal some days, calm and peaceful others. I’ve wept like an inconsolable child at times, and relayed stories of his beautiful life others. In our last session, one week ago today, I mentioned that I go to a park most days before going to work and I speak to my boy. I just talk to him. I mentioned that I ask him for some kind of sign that he’s “somewhere” and is aware of me. I’ve been doing this for about 7 months now, and have seen nothing that I would interpret as a “sign.” My therapist suggested asking for something specific.
I have my doubts about all of this. After lives, souls, deities, signs…I have my doubts. Its just how I’m wired. As I age, I become more agnostic…there’s a “something”…its just impossible to define.
In my desperation to know that my son is “somewhere”, aware of me, I asked him to guide a stray cat to my apartment complex. I’ve lived here ten years, and have seen two in the complex. It was the only practical sign I could think of to ask for. I began asking about four days ago, and have been keeping a sharp eye out each time I venture outdoors. I know what you’re thinking, you know where this story is going, and yes, it could all just be random coincidence…
This evening, not two hours ago, I took out the trash. Scanning the parking lot, I saw…nothing. As I lifted the lid on the dumpster and tossed in my garbage, I conceded defeat to myself, sarcastically murmuring something along the lines of “thanks for nothing, little buddy…” under my breath as I turned to walk back upstairs. Awash in disappointment, I accepted that most likely, my boy is simply just…gone.
Behind me is where it seemed to originate. Distant, soft, but undeniably feline…myow,myow,myow. Not meow, more “mYow.” Very quick, and very frantic. Turning and cocking my head towards the sound, it continued, and I slowly walked west towards the edge of the parking lot. On the other side of a short fence is a business, and next to the business is a large storage shed. Here it is…coming from this shed.
Relentless, the cat continued to scream. I grabbed a flashlight and walked onto the property, scanning the base of the shed for access points, finding only one very narrow opening through which a cat could fit. I knelt down, shone the light into the opening, and there it is, a gray bundle of fur, under the shed, three feet from the edge of my parking lot.
It’s probably still under there. I’m back inside now, I brought a lot of wet food and placed it inside the access opening, and checked a few minutes later to find it all eaten. I found a second narrower opening on the other side of the shed, and found two fuzzy feline feet next to it. Kitty is moving around, and is eating. I don’t know it’s story…whether it will come out, whether I can help it or not, how this will all turn out. I will continue to check on it and do what I can to help it.
My point is this.
Whether or not there is anything supernatural occurring here, I need this. Oh I’m nuts, yes, that’s a given…You decide whether I’m receiving a sign. You decide what this is. I pray for death daily, knowing the odds are not good. Still…I pray to be with my boy, in an as yet unknown form, or simply in the silence of death. If he’s not there, waiting for me after my final breath, so be it. Nothing I can do about it. Tonight, after I asked him to guide a stray cat to me, a stray cat has arrived, under a shed, loudly proclaiming “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here”.
Again, I don’t know how this will turn out…but I asked for something specific, I’m desperate for an answer, and now…this.
Souls of dead cats reaching out to their depressed, tired, frustrated people from across time and space in an attempt to reassure and console them…or just random coincidence, a cat under a shed. What’s it matter? I asked for a sign…a specific sign…and got this.
Tonight has been a good night.
I love you, Taco. I’ll always love you.
7 comments
Good post, regardless. That’s the humanist bent; it doesn’t matter if it is real, only whether it helps. Kurt Vonnegut explores it in Cat’s Cradle, which has a central premise of an intentionally false religion, but a comforting one.
I was going to write a post about my current issues vis a vi belief/religion/faith, but then read yours and decided to talk about them here. I keep hearing things, and seeing things, and I want them to be more than they are. I think that certainty that something is can be a prison. For years I believed there was some purpose for me to serve. That time has ended, whatever purpose there was, I served as much of it as I had a stomach for.
I long for something greater than myself, something more lasting, but that doesn’t make it so. Truth be told, I think that faith is little more than the computational equivalent; “Memory checksum error.” As it is part of our own thought, which we apply undue value to, some people have become emotionally attached to not knowing.
Which is my take on humanity. I think we are much less important than we can even understand. Even I, dead as I am inside, lacking desire, somehow I suppose that were there a God, such a being would have meaningful use in me. What arrogance, what stupidity. Small comfort, in admitting these frailties I find myself human, which is something at least, something knowable.
On the pet front; I lost the only cat I really loved a few years ago. He was elderly, and I wasn’t able to care for him as I should have. That guilt still lives with me. Meanwhile I have a dog that is considered truly ancient for her size and breed. She seems to have stopped aging at age six. Yet I have an existential terror regarding her passing away.
Less a child, more a horcrux, like staring at an arm that will be amputated, wondering; how will I stay alive without it? Sometimes I think about getting into keeping reptiles or birds, they often outlive humans. Not a practical idea, given my limited resources and the even more limited reward.
“Which is my take on humanity. I think we are much less important than we can even understand.”
Right? It’s a big universe…our planet a grain of sand in a desert of impossible proportions. But our ego…
I’ve been mostly lurking here for years, seen a lot of great posts that inspire me. This one wins the gold. Thank you so much.
Nothing I can add, except if you’ve seen casablanca..
“Welcome back to the fight. This time I know our side will win.”
Thanks, nobody else. You’re too kind. I haven’t seen Casa Blanca…really should.
I’m glad this beautiful thing happened to you. You deserve it.
I’m also glad. I really needed it, random or not. Thanks!
On the whole god thing, I’m a Deist. I believe a god made us because the universe can’t come from nothing but he doesn’t give a shit about us and left long ago. Also a bit of food for thought, intelligence can’t be divided or reduced to numbers, this is the Logos.