In Memory of Minnie

I’ve rewritten this post multiple times. Each time I wrote a new draft, it did not feel right. Like, maybe, what I wrote was something private that is part of the processing?

Is it too raw? Is it too vulnerable? Too coated in tears?

I dunno. Vulnerable, maybe. Yeah, vulnerable…let’s go with that.

Though, I wonder if the reason why I’m having a hard time figuring out what to say about the death of my cat is that her death is part of my book that’s happening right now, in real-time. Not a part that’s already happened, that I’ve reconciled, and I feel confident writing about, like the day I got divorced.

I’m not sure if that makes sense to you, so let me rephrase—

Minnie was a big part of my life for 12 years. She came into my life when I was with my ex-husband. And he abandoned her like he abandoned me.

She followed me to Switzerland. Then to Tokyo. And then we moved back to Lausanne together, where my apartment was our home.

When she got cancer in October, Boyfriend told me to look up pet cemeteries and funeral services for cats.

No. Minnie does not belong in a pet cemetery. She belongs with me.

I was her home. This apartment was her universe. It was the place she remembered after we moved back from Tokyo. She was my girl. My sense of home. My anchor. She connected me to the life I have now and to the life that I had before.

<deep exhale>

Minnie’s a huge part of my story. In French, “pet” is “animal de compagnie.” Companion. She was my companion.

After her death, I felt grief as a weighted blanket wrapped around me. Similar to the one that must have helped keep me going and taking care of her in the last 5 weeks of her life. Meanwhile, my heart was slowly breaking.

I imagine that blanket was woven out of fibers of anticipatory grief that started when she got really really sick in July 2022 and we found out she was diagnosed with Chronic Kidney Disease. Or maybe that anticipatory grief started earlier? Before I had a reason to worry?

I don’t think can write more about what I’m feeling right now. Or package it into a nice, neat little thing with a bow and 10 things I learned through the death of my cat…I need to feel my feelings first.

And it’ll probably end up in my book.

But I’m doing OK right now. I’m still sad, but the blanket is getting less heavy. Minnie’s ashes are home. She is home. She is on a shelf right behind me.

And every day when I start work, I say, Hi Minnie, because she’s sitting there, on my desktop, waiting for me to get started. <3