I believe I’ve always had a good relationship with death. Not that it isn’t a sad event for me, or that I don’t suffer terribly from the absence of those I’ve loved—quite the opposite. But I’ve always accepted the fact that life has an end.
Living with animals from a very young age meant that I experienced the end of life often as a child. I clearly remember the death of my first cat when I was five, and before that, the death of my hamsters. Then, great-grandparents, a cousin when we were both very little, and some friends.
But above all, I saw the end of my animals’ lives. Many years ago, I began accompanying them in their passing, every time I could, when it was the right thing to do. Almost all of them crossed the door to infinity in my arms. And I call it the “door to infinity” because the whole “rainbow bridge” story makes my blood sugar spike. Especially given how the ladies on social media use it. You know the kind of comments: “Fly high on the rainbow bridge, little angel!!”—followed by a flood of broken-heart emojis, rainbows, and fluffy clouds. Gee.
Death: that inevitable thing no one accepts, and about which you’re not supposed to joke. And it’s true, separation is hard, absence leaves enormous voids, and this life is strange—it’s often difficult to find meaning in it.
But everything is created and nothing is destroyed, they say. And I think that’s especially true in the case of animals, who have remained one with the chain of life—they are nature, they are one with an infinite universe.
Even cats, despite their “chain of life” seemingly requiring them to be fed tins of rare albino wild boar meat, organic berries from protected forests, and salmon fished only by Norwegians named Olaf—or else they won’t touch it—even they are an eternal part of life. Whatever that means.
Maybe I’m completely crazy, but sometimes I feel the presence of some of my cats even though they’ve been gone for years. I hear a sound, catch a scent—random things, completely out of context—and depending on what it is, I connect it to a furry companion who’s no longer here, at least not in the form I once knew.
Sometimes, when I’m sitting and reading, I feel a light weight settle on my legs, but when I look around, there’s no one there. And even if it’s maybe just the beginning of losing my cognitive or motor faculties, I like to think that the one who used to curl up next to me while I read is there beside me once again.
Because when I welcome animals into my home, I promise them: I am always with you, and you are always with me.
And maybe, for cats, that “always” goes beyond what we can see.
