Adulting: Mourning Our Cat Yoshi...

It’s been a little over a year since our beloved cat, Yoshi, passed away.

It has not been easy with that little guy gone.

I still let myself cry. I don’t try to bottle my feelings up and be brave. Especially this past year: I let the tears fill my eyes and fall onto my cheeks. And while no major comfort came, the physical relief of crying was a welcome friend.

Over a year later, I’m typically doing well with his passing. Other days, something silly, like draining a can of tuna (he loved drinking the tuna water) will make my stomach cave in with sadness. My eyes may not shed physical tears, but the mental tears are flowing.

Oddly, a huge source of comfort came to me in the form of a memoir, Primates of Park Avenue, and I wanted to share what I read with you, since it might give you comfort too.

The author, Wednesday Martin, communicates her tragic experience of a miscarriage, and how another mother came alongside her and spoke these words:

“It won’t ever be okay, but it will,” she said with an apologetic smile as we stood there on the sidewalk.

Her friend’s words filled my mind and have since made a home. Because that mama morphed the concept of grief into one sentence that brought such healing to me. No, Yoshi was not a human being, but he was still a living being, and his death changed my world. And while I knew life would go on and “it” would be okay, ”it” never would be.

I now know that I can waver between the opposites of okay and not okay and thrive there. In fact, the paradox is actually something I want to live with; it’s comforting. Life shouldn’t just casually resume after such significant death. It would seem irreverent. But at the same time, when it comes to death of a loved one, I need to be able to reach that baseline of okay. That’s right… just okay… not sparkling, energetic, or full of hilarity.

Because the energy, the sparkle, the hilarity can eventually come back; Until then, it can wait patiently while I grieve.