Our Dear Sophie – Part 3 of 4

I feel like I heard the pitter patter of Sophie’s feet there, for a second? But my door is closed. I wonder if she tried to get in, maybe?

I feel like she’s stronger in the morning.

Yesterday, in the afternoon, she was so weak, that for the first time ever, she did not respond to my petting her. This is a really bad sign.

So much so that I wondered if she was telling me in her own way that it was time to go.

Tomorrow she’s getting some ultrasounds to paint a clearer picture of what is going on. This is really bad, too, because we know what the results will be.

Part of me thinks our vet doctor is just closing the deal. She knows how bad it is. She knows we should euthanize right now. But because I, the cat owner, am not sold on it yet, she wants to build a case to prove it to me.

Let’s get rid of all this talk about a kidney transplant and start accepting it and living in reality, I bet part of her is saying.

Days to weeks, she said.

It’s been days now.

What will it be like to not have Sophie?

Well, there will be a huge freaking hole. It’s like there is a slot carved out in the space-time continuum just for her. She was meant to be here.

And she represents the first 10 years of Marie and I’s lives together, because she was always in the background. In every photo we took, if you zoomed in on the background, you can see her in the reflection of the glass or mirror. Or even in the whites or pupils of our eyes.

Notice my handiwork there on patching up the window. Sophie helped me. I appeared to have other things on my mind.

But she was here with us. Going on this remarkable journey. Always under my feet or hanging on a shoulder.

It must have been fun for her to watch me enter the picture 10 years ago. Who is this new guy who keeps coming over? I like him.

And she watched me and Marie falling in love. It must have been funny to see us goofing around.

And let me say, Marie wasn’t the best cat mom in the world. She was really focused on school. And so when I came over – I bet Sophie got really excited. She would always come and sit right on my lap.

Which was a big deal because apparently she didn’t like men. But she made an exception for me.

And so now, years later, here we are, having gone down this long road.

And she is in the other room, sitting on my chair, unable to move.

I need to be in there with her when she needs me, petting her. She’s not on any medication. Humans are given morphine, as we know.

I remember when my mom got hit with the first bout of cancer pain. “I had no idea that it was even possible to feel that amount of pain,” she said.

It was so bad that she decided right then and there she was going to end the suffering. And to do so by taking her life.

I get it. My grandpa went out the same way. They say that the kids of parents who have killed themselves are much more likely to go the same way when the time comes.

And my mom warned me. Perhaps more than she should. I would be sitting there, trying to watch my show. And she would “try to slip it in” “really quick” like a suicide telegram. “Oh hey I’m going to end it with pills. But don’t you worry. That’s a long ways away. Keep watching your show.”

Both of her attempts failed.

“Mom if you’re going to do it, you really gotta commit,” I wanted to say, all angry-like. Ambien? Really?

I get it, though. The idea of going to sleep, just going to sleep, just closing your eyes sounds so peaceful, doesn’t it? It’s how we all want to go.

Exactly like going to sleep. Who doesn’t like to go to sleep?

I have two friends who both died and came back.

Both of them told me “there’s nothing there. I saw nothing. And believe me they had to use the paddles to bring me back. I was gone for minutes.”

But here’s a conjecture: what if they’re right, there is nothing, at first?

Because according to the first law of thermodynamics, as we all know, energy cannot be created or destroyed.

And yet we all “came” out of an event called the big bang. But doesn’t this run contrary to the first law that “energy cannot be created”?

Fine, though, part of me says. We have been here forever and we will be here forever in different patterns.

But I want my Sophie pattern.

The one where we’re all here at the house. This one, with Marie and the kids. These were the best days of my life. And I never want it to end.

And Sophie, you were a part of it. I don’t want you to leave. I want you to stay. You are a part of our family. We are your family. Forever.

Which means, across the great stretches of time and space, in so long as my particles can particle, I will, if given the chance, find you, and glom onto you, and pull you in, and merge you to my family of particles.

Maybe we won’t know or remember who we were in our past lives together. But then we will be. Together on some new planet called earth.

In some tiny home.

And we won’t know we have been here before.

Millions. Billions. Trillions of times.

Here we are in this episode.

Saying goodbye, once more.

Before dipping our feet into the river of forgetting.

Only to get caught up in it all over again.

I’m going through this with Sophie right now, on some level. Because I am her Dad.

I am the closest one to her. The closest being. And our particles are entangled, I want to say.

And I want to say, because I am a deeply feeling person, that I am getting tiny glimpses of the other side because part of me is dying with her. Part of me is going through the process of dying with her.

Just like I did with my mom.

When my mom died, I felt like I could see through the Matrix, as well, just a little bit, temporarily. That’s how it felt.

When my friend, John – when his dad died, John said to me, “Oh I see signs. There are just too many coincidences. He’s showing himself to me in that shooting star. It’s like right after and right around their passing, everything sort of becomes alive.”

That’s how it was with my mom. It was like the trees became alive. Everything was talking to me. Another word for this is psychotic episode.

But maybe not.

Maybe it’s a spiritual awakening.

Spiritual awakening

This is when an event occurs that can be like the death of a loved one or a cat that triggers a higher consciousness. It is said that this is when we “wake up” to life. Suddenly the trees are not the trees anymore. That shooting star is not just a shooting star. That sun is not just the sun, it’s brighter than it’s ever been. And look at those clouds. 

I don’t know.

I don’t judge it. I don’t make any conclusions, either way.

I just watch it.

And allow myself to go a little crazy because let’s face it, that’s what this might be as well. My mind can’t handle it and so I’m creating all these stories.

Because I’m a thinking person, I have to allow both tracks to co-exist.

But, let’s say it is insanity. Even if it is, it’s not every day I go insane. Or a little insane.

Which begs the question: Is extreme loss a psychedelic experience?

Or what if, it’s that which runs contrary to my scientific, rational mind: Is extreme loss a spiritual experience?

And I want to say the latter. And I’m just jumping onboard because that’s what’s working.

It’s what’s working.

And sometimes you just gotta go with it.

And so when Sophie leaves I know what I’m going to do.

Get another cat.

I’ll give it some time. We’re going to heal.

But look at how this animal has prompted me to think. We’re so scared to talk about death in this society.

When I talk to my wife, she says, “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s too painful.”

When I talk to my best friend, he says, “I don’t think about it. I’m like one of those dogs who doesn’t know he’s going to die. And so I’ll be living my life and just going along and then one day that will be it and it will all be over.”

I can feel your eyes looking at me saying, “That’s so sad. Why does he do that?”

I don’t know. But …

Ever since I was 6-years-old I would sit in my bathtub and stare at the bubbles and think about death.

And it’s true, I get “not” talking about it because who wants this? We want to escape it.

And so the other night, while watching some silly show on Netflix with my wife, I stopped the show.

And I said, “So where do you want to put our ashes?”

My wife looked at me like I was insane. Or crazy. And she didn’t want to go there. As usual.

“No seriously,” I said.

“I don’t know,” she said.

Her eyes were watering.

“How about up on the M?” I asked her.

“I think I would rather be buried. The idea of being burned alive doesn’t sound too fun.”

I laughed. “You wouldn’t be alive when that happened. But being buried doesn’t sound fun either. Way under the ground like that.”

“I know,” she said.

We both just sat there on the couch as the kids ran around and played.

And then it hit me.

“Oh wait! We are going to be cryogenically frozen! Remember?”

“Oh yeah!” she said.

And we both laughed and laughed.

“Our heads are going to be chopped off and frozen!” I said.

“Oh thank god!”

“Whoo that was a close one, right?” I said.

“Way too close.”

“I was scared there for a second.”

And we laughed and ate popcorn.

And I remembered again, how I never want this to end.