Grieving the Family Cat in a Painfully Violent World

nakedcapitalism.com/2024/06/grieving-the-family-cat-in-a-painfully-violent-world.html

June 22, 2024

Yves here. Richard Eskow has been an occasional correspondent, and I was sorry to read
about the death of his cat. But more important, I suspect many who have lost an animal
friend feel the same sort of ambivalence he describes: that it somehow feels wrong to be so
undone by the death of a (mere) pet when people all over the world are on the receiving of
vicious and unnecessary tragedies, starting with the Israel genocide in Gaza.

By Richard (RJ) Eskow, a journalist who has written for a number of major
publications. His weekly program, The Zero Hour, can be found on cable television,
radio, Spotify, and podcast media. Originally published at Common Dreams

The ancient Sumerians had a proverb: “A loving heart builds houses.” I’ve thought of it many
times since a member of our household, a cat, died last month. People who think cats are
indifferent or self-centered would have been astonished at the depth of this one’s
compassion and love. She built houses.

I’ve been a little reluctant to admit how much I’ve grieved for her. Who am I to mourn so
much for one small creature? Am I weak? Self-indulgent? That led me to some psychology
papers about the experience of losing a pet, or what some therapists call an “animal
companion.” (Other groups use the term “non-human persons.”)

“Psychologists should view pet loss as an important domain,” one paper says. It cites
“human–animal attachment,” “the benefits of pet companionship, and “the profound sense of
grief that can be experienced in response to the death of a pet.” This mourning sometimes
becomes “disenfranchised grief,” either because others don’t recognize the depth of the
resulting sorrow or because the grieving person doesn’t feel they have the right to such
profound emotion.

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Those papers told me what I already knew, but still needed to hear: that it’s only natural to
mourn someone who lived by your side for years. Too often we try to dictate our emotions,
ordering them this way and that like we’re some border guard of the heart. That’s a mistake.
In fact, it’s worse than a mistake. It’s an apartheid of the spirit.

The Sumerian proverb continues: “A hating heart destroys houses.” The wars go on: wars of
attrition, wars of starvation, wars of extermination. I ask myself: Who am I to feel sad when
people around the world are losing everyone they love, from infants to the elderly?

But grief can’t be quantified or compared. It’s like a neutrino. It has no mass, just energy. It’s
the dark-mirror image of “the Guide” in Stephen Mitchell’s translation of the Bhagavad Gita:
“primordial poet, smaller than an atom, inconceivable, brilliant as the sun.”

Our Palestinian friends have been among the most compassionate about our loss, despite
the magnitude of the ongoing horror in Gaza. That makes sense, come to think of it. Grief
should soften our hearts and help us recognize the personhood and pain of others.

A confession: For years, I called myself a “dog person.” But those distinctions feel artificial
now. Consciousness knows no taxonomy. It just is.

Cats are still maligned in Western societies, which is probably a holdover from European
superstitions. But they’ve always had their advocates. The famously dissolute Charles
Baudelaire wrote about them in his then-scandalous Flowers of Evil, using language so
sentimental it could embarrass a schoolchild. Pablo Neruda wrote several poems about
them. One says:

the cat
only wants to be a cat
and any cat is a cat
… from the night to his golden eyes.

It continues:

There is no unity
like him,
he is just one thing
like the sun or the topaz,
and the elastic line of his contours
is firm and subtle like
the line of a ship’s prow.

The image above isn’t a sketch of the cat who just died. It’s her sister, who she cared for like
a mother. That solicitude saved both their lives in the shelter when it was time for them to be
euthanized. The volunteer who brought them to us said she saw it and thought, “I can’t let

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that love die.”

It didn’t, until now.

Sleep, sleep cat of the night,

with episcopal ceremony
Take care of all our dreams …

Here’s the thing about grief, as I’ve been reminded: You can’t think, read, or write your way
out of it. You have to treat it like a new roommate, cohabiting with it until the new
arrangement becomes comfortable for both of you.

The Buddhist teacher and therapist Dharmavidya David Brazier wrote a book on grief called
“Who Loves Dies Well.” That phrase could have been this cat’s epitaph. A loving heart builds
houses. They’re sturdy houses, with room enough for all the people who come looking for
shelter. Once there, they remain your companions forever.

This house seems lonelier, for sure. But it was built to last, and it will always be home.

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