On Loss

Next week will be one year since I first met and adopted my two beautiful cats, Priscilla and Aquila.  A year ago they were so tiny and delicate, dependent and adorable.  They have grown and changed so much this year and so has life around the house with them around.  Most of the time these days they are not interested in being held or snuggled; they love to chase each other across the house, leaping and climbing and dodging, their steps thundering loudly.  Sometimes they behave like wild crazy psychos, and sometimes they calmly watch me with half-closed eyes filled with loving, calmness, knowing.  They truly are precious gifts from God.

We had a lot of cats growing up.  Several lived to be in their mid-teens.  My Gizmo cat was with me from the third grade until my mid-twenties.  She was the perfect cat and the stereotypical pet best-friend.  We also had quite a few animals, particularly cats, who wandered out to the road and were killed by cars.  We had a few night-time emergency vet visits, taking our babies, thru tears, to be put down from injuries after being hit by cars.

Sometimes, often, I feel bad because I rarely let Aquila and Priscilla outside.  They are most definitely the most spoiled cats we have ever had.  They are the first to get a litter box in the house!  They are the first to sleep in the house overnight!  It is not because they do not want outside, it is because I fear letting them outside because I cannot bear the thought of losing them.

They often perch at a window, watching the birds or just staring into the outside.  They love it out there and are quite good hunters and tree climbers.  I'm sure it will be a lot harder to keep them inside when summer sets in.  But, for now, I keep them contained, I guard them, I helicopter parent them.

I know this to be unfair to them but I cannot help it.  Recently as I backed my car out of the driveway, knowing Prisc was outside, I cringed, dreading, wondering if I would notice if she was under, wondering if she would know to get out of the way.

Last week while at work on the school bus, my driver witnessed a cat get run over by a truck.  She cried out, understandably upset at what she had seen, and so I naturally jumped up to see what had happened.  My heart sank as I saw the poor thing flopping off the side of the road, thrashing, and laying at the curb.  I wanted to jump off the bus and hold it, to comfort and get it help.  But we had kids and a route to finish.  I went back after and found the poor girl dead and still laying beside the road.  I tried to find her owners and ended up taking her to the vet where they would hold her for a couple days and dispose of her if no one claimed her.  My driver posted on a local community FaceBook page...and the owners were found!

While it was very unsettling to see someone's beautiful pet die in such a way firsthand, especially when she reminded me so much of my Priscilla, it was reassuring to know that the family could have some closure.  However, the whole situation has not helped in the least bit poor Priscilla and Aquila in attaining play time in the great outdoors.  I have had to bury my fair share of pets who met untimely endings.  These two came to me at a time when my heart, my soul, very much needed their companionship, when my health and professional life were under assault, when life was at a very low low.  These two cats have helped me find my way out from the destruction; the thought of losing them is unimaginable.

I am reminded, yes, again, of "Star Wars".  In this latest trilogy we have seen very little of the great Jedi Luke Skywalker so far.  We know next to nothing about what has happened with him the past thirty years.  We know that he tried to rebuild the Jedi Order and that he was betrayed by his nephew, Kylo Ren, the son of Han Solo and Princess Leia.  We know that Kylo Ren undermined and sabotaged Luke's new Jedi Order, that Luke's new students were killed or recruited to the Dark Side.  We see images in flashbacks that appear to be Luke and R2-D2 at the site of possibly his Jedi Academy, apparently in the burning aftermath of its destruction.  We find Luke now apparently alone, dejected and reclusive, broken and hiding on the remote oceanic world of Ahch-To.

At first it is really easy to be frustrated with Luke for running away, for abandoning the rest of the galaxy.  Instead of being the Jedi warrior swooping in to save the day he seems to have just run off to pout and feel sorry for himself while living like a hermit.  It is very sad imagery of Luke so far.

I suspect in the coming films we will learn to have much empathy for him as we discover the great hurt he has gone thru.  He has endured great loss with the betrayal of his nephew and the destruction of everything he had invested himself into.  His legacy is now tarnished and the calling he was entrusted with by his own masters robbed from him.

He is, after all, still human, despite his title and role as Jedi Grand Master.

Grief, shock, despair, loss... these things do not just go away.  I suspect as the trilogy continues we will see that Luke is not just hiding on Ahch-To because of his loss but also because he fears further loss.  I suspect he wants nothing more to do with galactic affairs or training more Jedi because he cannot bear the thought of the betrayals and destruction happening all over again.  Just as a wound of the flesh takes time to heal, so do the injuries of the soul.  And while the healing takes place it is unimaginable to expose one's self to the pain again, to risk even more suffering and loss.

Sometimes we have already lost so much we just cannot bear to lose any more.  And so we keep our babies in the known security of the four walls of our home.  Or we flee to Ahch-To where we can protect ourselves from further injury.

At the end of the day we all deal with loss in different ways and on different timetables.

And that is OK.