4/4/24

And so this week’s moment of happiness despite the news.

I’m afraid this Moment isn’t going to be very happy, and I’m sorry about that. I’ve tried really hard to think of something, and I have, though it’s wrapped in an unhappy event, way too similar to one five weeks ago.

I’ve lost my  Muse. My little gray cat. She died on her 21^st birthday. And she is one of the two cats I’ve had in my adult life that came to me as a kitten. The other cats, and dogs, have been adult rescues.

Einstein was the first. Einie was born in my parents’ culvert, along with three other kittens. There was a huge rainstorm on the night he was born, and one of his siblings washed up down the gulley, drowned. My parents rescued the rest. One kitten found a home with a friend who visited the nursing home where I worked at the time. My parents found someone to take the mama kitty and one baby. Which left the little orange kitten, who was the last to be litter-box trained and the last to…well, just about everything. I brought him home and hopefully named him Einstein. He was with me for 17 years.

Muse came through one of my classes, 21 years ago. I didn’t have the studio yet, but was already teaching what would be called the Wednesday Night Workshop through the Park & Rec department. One night, I complained that my home was mostly testosterone. There was Michael and my two sons. There were the two male cats, Einstein and Cornelius. There was my chihuahua, Cocoa. Estrogen-wise, there was me and my two daughters. There were six of them. Three of us.

The next week, one of my students came in with a friend who was traveling cross country in an RV. During the trip, her cat had kittens. I was given my pick. One was a little gray female who looked up at me with the most solemn eyes. “That’s Muse,” I said. And so she became mine.

I’ve had lots of cats in my life. Spooky, from my childhood. Jake, Einstein, Cornelius, Muse, Edgar Allen Paw. Jake died the day after his 18^th birthday. Einstein lived to be 17. Edgar Allen Paw died just five weeks ago at 14. Corny, a victim of cancer, died at 9. And Muse…Muse died about a half-hour into her 21^st birthday.

She slept with me every night. She had an uncanny ability to know where my fibromyalgia was hurting the most, and she would lay herself there, giving me heat from her body and vibration from her purr. During the day, she was always close by. Most of my clients who Zoom in for our sessions knew her, because she would sit beside the computer and put her face in where it could be seen. She liked to sit sprawled up my chest to my neck while I typed, and she sat in my lap when I was in my recliner. She also sat on the arm of my desk chair and she edited my work, often with a glare that told me I needed to rewrite.

Of all my cats, she was the one most intensely involved with me. I loved all the others, the others loved me…but Muse was my best friend. You could even call her my unofficial support animal, though she was so much more than that.

Since January, first Michael disappeared from our household. Then so did Edgar. I’ve been grieving and grieving hard, and that little cat stayed by me all the time. When I was upstairs, she was upstairs. When I was downstairs, so was she. When I came home from being away, it wasn’t just Ursula, our dog, who greeted me at the door.

When Michael came home, he was here for a week before Muse died. In that time, she sat in his lap more than she did mine. She was making sure he was okay.

She was moving steadily downhill after Edgar disappeared. While she was still by my side, and while she was always a tiny kitty, 7 pounds in her young adult life, 5 pounds as she aged, she became much, much thinner. She would cry by her water dish. And she stuck by my side.

I think, whatever it was that ailed her, she did her best to wait until Michael came home.

On Sunday night, late, just after midnight, so technically it was Monday and Muse’s birthday,  I heard her come through the kitty door which led to the litter box. And then I heard the classic sounds of a cat being sick, though this was deeper and harsher. And then she gave a very painful meow.

By the time I got to her, she was lying on her side. She was so small.

I scooped her up, put her in the kitty kennel, yelled to Michael that I was running to the emergency vet, and took off. On the way, I called my son and asked that he stay with Michael until I got home.

I talked to Muse the whole way. She answered in short, soft mews.

At the vet, with the plethora of possibilities of what could be ailing her, all of them bad, all not to be recovered from, all because of her age, I said I needed to let her go.

I held her in my arms as she was released.

And I don’t think I’ve stopped crying since.

I mean, in all honesty, and in the face of so many people telling me how well I’m dealing with all this, how strong I am, how I can do this, well, just how much is one person expected to take? Michael, struck and run over by a car. Edgar Allen Paw, losing the use of his legs, and now gone.

And my Muse.

I am hurting, and I am hurting big time.

The Moment? It was a hard one to come up with. It was a hard one to feel. But I am so happy, relieved, grateful, that I was able to take her away from the pain, whatever it was, just as she was able to help me over the years. Fibro pain. Emotional pain from depression. Grief from miscarrying a baby. Pain and fear from having breast cancer. Through all of this, for 21 years, I had a little gray cat to hold. And with five-pound ferocity, she made sure I was okay.

I’m not so sure I’m okay right now. But I am trying. And I am doing my best.

I am grateful that Michael is home and in one piece, though several pieces are healing. I am grateful for my big orange bowling ball cat.

And I am grateful that a little gray kitten happened to be brought into my classroom, at a time when I said I needed more estrogen in my life.

It wasn’t estrogen I needed. It was Muse.

And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.