i talk about a lot of personal shit here but i can't talk about this like i need to because people won't understand. i'm going to do it anyway because this is the only place i can. and likely nobody will see this so it doesn't matter. maybe it will help.
my first thought when i found out was "my son is dead, my baby is dead," but i can't tell people my son died, i have to say "my cat passed away." will was my fucking son, my sweet baby, and he died, in the way i was most afraid of. son is emotionally accurate to my attachment, to our relationship, to how i love him, but people won't get that, and it makes me want to tear myself open so they see he was my heart. they'll think i'm exaggerating, coopting the suffering and grief of mothers who have lost human children, they'll think i don't understand what it means to be a parent, i understand that i am difficult to understand. will was my child. the moment i adopted him and his brother, the first instant i saw their sweet sleeping faces, everything in my life changed, my world shifted around them. i have loved before, i have lived with non-human animals before whom i loved deeply and considered part of the family, but the only person i have ever loved like i love my sons is my own little brother.
my sons and i, me and will and cel, we are a family, they are everything to me. i wish it had been me. nothing has ever hurt like this. i would do anything to take his place. i would endure the worst things that have happened to me before this over again. i would give any part of myself for him to be alive and safe again. i can't believe i'm never going to hug him again, hold his little face in my hands, play with him, dance in the kitchen with him held close to my chest, hear his little meows, count his little toes. he's never going to eat his favorite food again, he's never going to see the toy i got him for his sixth birthday next month, he's never going to feel the wind again, see the snow again, he shouldn't have died like this, he should have had more time, i can't breathe thinking about him being gone, i wish i could die. but i have to be here for my other baby, who just lost his brother. i'm never going to recover from this. i hope cel can. i hope i can give him a good life. and then i'll follow him to wherever will is now. i don't care about my future anymore. i don't want to write. i don't want to learn. i don't want to go on. i want to weep until i am nothing.
the grief is consuming. it's been eight days and i wish there would be no more. i wish this was the last day. i wish i could stop existing. he'll never crawl into my shirt and curl up pressed against my stomach like he wants to be part of my body again. i called him my little puppy sometimes, the way he always followed me around, plastered himself to me, always seeking and giving affection. he was not a careful boy, he was spirited and adventurous and silly and reckless, he was someone who needed protection. i wasn't careful enough. i tried to be so careful, i was so afraid that this would happen to him, it was my worst fear, but there's a difference between being afraid of something happening and actually believing it will happen. i can't believe it happened. i keep praying this is one of the nightmares, that i will wake up sobbing and gasping as i always do after this nightmare and i'll search for him, breathless, and he'll be there and i'll be so relieved, i'll be so relieved, and maybe i'll be able to catch my breath, i haven't caught my breath in eight days, i can't believe this is real, it feels both too real and not real at all, i don't know how i am meant to exist without him. nothing matters if he isn't here except making sure cel is okay and safe and has the best life he can.
i wish i could have taken him into my body and kept him safe there. opened my chest and tucked him in with the soft warm organs, the beating heart to lull him to sleep. he had so much energy, but he also needed a lot of rest and gentleness. he was so much, so vibrant. he often needed to find a dark hidden place to sleep for a day, it scared the shit out of me every time, i wouldn't be able to find him for hours and i'd search and search and then i would hear his breath or his fur rustling or a little meow from whatever impossible space he'd managed to find and i'd sit by him until he was ready to come out.
so many times i felt the terror of losing him, so many times i felt the relief of finding him. maybe that's why i didn't worry more this time, consumed by other things, so stupidly certain he was in one of his hiding places, i didn't really panic for a while, i didn't know he wasn't in the apartment until after hours and hours of looking everywhere, even places he couldn't possibly be, the cabinets, the closet, under the bed, the blankets, behind the toilet, in the toilet, the fridge, the freezer, i checked them again and again and again and he wasn't there. sometimes i hear him and look in all the places again because he can't be gone, he can't be, he can't. i still don't know exactly how it happened, how he got out the window, how he fell, how he died alone and afraid and i wasn't there. i'll never forgive myself. i'll never recover from this. i wish it had been me. i would trade places with him in an instant. if cel weren't here i would jump from the roof and die where he died, how he died, feeling what he felt, desperately hoping to join him wherever he is now. it's unbearable. i love him so much. i miss him so much. everything is empty. it's too loud with all the noises that aren't him.
