Goodbye, Odie

Goodbye, Odie My little old cat is dying. His steps are awkward, eyes unfocussed and he cries when he can’t see me. I’m not sure I want to be in a world that doesn’t have my tabby Familiar. I am feeling widowed, again. I’m resigned to be grieving, again outliving another love who is dying. There’s odd comfort in this ache, the strange familiar. I gaze at him imploringly, in tears, unfocussed. He is my greatest love in our small world. He reaches out a snow- capped paw to tap me. Here I go again, making it all about me, fighting to accept death must happen, again. It seems that these past years, this is my world, sitting by the bedside of the dying, as they gaze at unseen figures in the room, unfocussed, but they hear them, and they smile, voices familiar. I push my face in soft ginger fur, the scent familiar. He always smelled like vanilla cookies, to me. Green eyes stare into mine, they’re focussed. I watch as death opaques the life from eyes, again. I hear my husband’s voice as he was dying; “I am tired. It’s time to leave this world.” Death has been a constant in my world, an entity with which I’m too familiar. Such a selfish act on the part of the dying, to love me absolutely, then leave me. I feel the empty chest constriction of grief, again. I clutch a lifeless body, I am unfocussed. I can’t see through tears, unfocussed. Odie leaves a gaping hole in my world. I’ll struggle with condolences, again. My grief is in my chest, pain so familiar. The last time one I loved held on to me while completing the evolution of dying. No longer unfocussed, I rise to greet grief, again, it’s now my world and it enfolds me, my dark, familiar partner in the dance of dying.