Saturday, November 13, 2010
The Anatomy of Sadness
When one hears sad news, where does it go in the body?
The ears receive it - or the eyes - then the mind comprehends it, and thinks thoughts, creates images inspired by the news - and then the body becomes a kingdom of feelings, physical sensations and reactive energies. .....the entire body contains the news and revolution occurs.
Angel Kitty passed away over the weekend. Laura K. , who was kind enough to take Angel Kitty as a pet, since we knew he was too decrepit to make the SF trek in one piece, came home from her Saturday night show at Barter Main Stage, and found Angel Kitty cuddled up in the box she had made for him, and he was resting peacefully, dead and gone. Laura was so upset and sad , so guilt-ridden and wretched, that she could not break the news to me and Peter. She feared that she did not take good enough care of Angel, so she thought maybe he died from neglect and loneliness.
Of course this is not true - Angel Kitty was older than we knew for sure, as sick as the doc suspected, and on his last kitty legs anyway. Dr.Mask, at Virginia Highlands Animal Hospital kept warning us that he may not make it through a week, and to be vigilant of his fragile state when we took him home with us, after his having been shaved and cared for at the hospital. She warned us. And we took him anyway, loving him all the way home and beyond. We wept when we realized we could not take him with us to California. We cried as the loving and caring Laura drove him away to live with her at the Barter Inn.
And so, given a good life these last few months, well fed and petted and cuddled all the time we could give him, and surrounded by annoyed yet affectionate doggie siblings, and by a new caring mistress, Angel Kitty decided it was is time to go away from this earth and go to Kitty Heaven. And he did it snuggled in the warmth of the historic Barter Inn. Poor Laura just happened to be the one who discovered his final decision's outcome. And she finally gathered the courage to call and tell me about it last night. I somehow knew something was wrong. I'd written to ask her how Angel was doing, and when I didn't immediately hear from her, i had a funny feeling all was not well. And so it was.
Even though I expected Angel's demise at any time, even though I was with him for many days and discovered his increasingly decrepit state to be a sign of his old age, and that made me sad, I was still taken by surprise being told he was gone. And that brings me to the "anatomy" of sadness: my body went into an outrage of reactions that i had no control over:
A curious leaden weight invaded the area under my eyes, as if a storm of tears were gathering there ...my stomach got incredibly nauseous and nervous.....my jaw ached with a mild agony....my heart literally palpitated with apprehension..and my entire face felt like breaking in two. I knew he was old...i knew he was not long for this earth...yet i immediately felt a paralyzing grief over the death of this cat....an animal that had not been in my life for very long at all...i felt like my heart was going to burst with sadness...and so I cried and cried. Peter was upset of course - he had a true feeling for that cat - but I felt thoroughly inconsolable and in pain. That feeling in my face...it was bad...it was heavy and hurt. It hurts again, as I write this, and warm tears are spilling from my eyes, as again that odd heaviness, that leaden weight pushes agains my throat and heart. Sadness is as anatomical as indigestion: a disturbance of how we process life....or at least life as we usually let ourselves experience it. Grief surprises us awake and forces us to be tender again.
Once again, i realized I feel deeper pain at the loss of an animal than I ever seem to have about the loss of a human friend - and the sight of a stray dog , clearly set loose from a family or owner, drives me to a distraction of sadness. I'm filled with the frustrated futility of powerlessness as I realize there is nothing I can do to help that lost soul wandering the streets - and i NEVER feel that about the human homeless! Animals and their comparative inability to care for themselves , their utter need for human connection and affection, make me feel deeper concern for their well-being than I ever feel for the human lost. Maybe because i think that humans can get up out of the gutter and ask for what they want, whereas dogs and lost cats are at our mercy. Which brings me to how Angel Kitty really chose us: he picked Peter and me to take care of him in his distraught old age, to pick him up , clean him off and care for his poor old skinny body that had been tossed out by his other crueler owners...he chose us, he came to us like an Angel - thus the name - to teach us the depth of our ability to feel compassion, no matter the pay-off....he taught us we could care more deeply than either of us thought we could care for something as ...well...disposable...as a stray cat. Turns out he was not so disposable after all.
Angel Kitty entered our lives, changed us, and now is gone. And as i recall his softness, his graceful agility, his sweet deaf ears and searching eyes, i feel a mournfulness that reminds me of life's fragility. Even in his brief time with us, he taught me to look at life in a different way, to see it from the point of view of the rescued, the needy and the gentle...to come up close to life, look it straight in the eyes, and examine its face. I loved Angel Kitty while he was ours, and I will remember him always. Rest well, Angel....and know: you were loved. And are missed... by hearts made to ache by the loss of you.
The ears receive it - or the eyes - then the mind comprehends it, and thinks thoughts, creates images inspired by the news - and then the body becomes a kingdom of feelings, physical sensations and reactive energies. .....the entire body contains the news and revolution occurs.
Angel Kitty passed away over the weekend. Laura K. , who was kind enough to take Angel Kitty as a pet, since we knew he was too decrepit to make the SF trek in one piece, came home from her Saturday night show at Barter Main Stage, and found Angel Kitty cuddled up in the box she had made for him, and he was resting peacefully, dead and gone. Laura was so upset and sad , so guilt-ridden and wretched, that she could not break the news to me and Peter. She feared that she did not take good enough care of Angel, so she thought maybe he died from neglect and loneliness.
Of course this is not true - Angel Kitty was older than we knew for sure, as sick as the doc suspected, and on his last kitty legs anyway. Dr.Mask, at Virginia Highlands Animal Hospital kept warning us that he may not make it through a week, and to be vigilant of his fragile state when we took him home with us, after his having been shaved and cared for at the hospital. She warned us. And we took him anyway, loving him all the way home and beyond. We wept when we realized we could not take him with us to California. We cried as the loving and caring Laura drove him away to live with her at the Barter Inn.
And so, given a good life these last few months, well fed and petted and cuddled all the time we could give him, and surrounded by annoyed yet affectionate doggie siblings, and by a new caring mistress, Angel Kitty decided it was is time to go away from this earth and go to Kitty Heaven. And he did it snuggled in the warmth of the historic Barter Inn. Poor Laura just happened to be the one who discovered his final decision's outcome. And she finally gathered the courage to call and tell me about it last night. I somehow knew something was wrong. I'd written to ask her how Angel was doing, and when I didn't immediately hear from her, i had a funny feeling all was not well. And so it was.
Even though I expected Angel's demise at any time, even though I was with him for many days and discovered his increasingly decrepit state to be a sign of his old age, and that made me sad, I was still taken by surprise being told he was gone. And that brings me to the "anatomy" of sadness: my body went into an outrage of reactions that i had no control over:
A curious leaden weight invaded the area under my eyes, as if a storm of tears were gathering there ...my stomach got incredibly nauseous and nervous.....my jaw ached with a mild agony....my heart literally palpitated with apprehension..and my entire face felt like breaking in two. I knew he was old...i knew he was not long for this earth...yet i immediately felt a paralyzing grief over the death of this cat....an animal that had not been in my life for very long at all...i felt like my heart was going to burst with sadness...and so I cried and cried. Peter was upset of course - he had a true feeling for that cat - but I felt thoroughly inconsolable and in pain. That feeling in my face...it was bad...it was heavy and hurt. It hurts again, as I write this, and warm tears are spilling from my eyes, as again that odd heaviness, that leaden weight pushes agains my throat and heart. Sadness is as anatomical as indigestion: a disturbance of how we process life....or at least life as we usually let ourselves experience it. Grief surprises us awake and forces us to be tender again.
Once again, i realized I feel deeper pain at the loss of an animal than I ever seem to have about the loss of a human friend - and the sight of a stray dog , clearly set loose from a family or owner, drives me to a distraction of sadness. I'm filled with the frustrated futility of powerlessness as I realize there is nothing I can do to help that lost soul wandering the streets - and i NEVER feel that about the human homeless! Animals and their comparative inability to care for themselves , their utter need for human connection and affection, make me feel deeper concern for their well-being than I ever feel for the human lost. Maybe because i think that humans can get up out of the gutter and ask for what they want, whereas dogs and lost cats are at our mercy. Which brings me to how Angel Kitty really chose us: he picked Peter and me to take care of him in his distraught old age, to pick him up , clean him off and care for his poor old skinny body that had been tossed out by his other crueler owners...he chose us, he came to us like an Angel - thus the name - to teach us the depth of our ability to feel compassion, no matter the pay-off....he taught us we could care more deeply than either of us thought we could care for something as ...well...disposable...as a stray cat. Turns out he was not so disposable after all.
Angel Kitty entered our lives, changed us, and now is gone. And as i recall his softness, his graceful agility, his sweet deaf ears and searching eyes, i feel a mournfulness that reminds me of life's fragility. Even in his brief time with us, he taught me to look at life in a different way, to see it from the point of view of the rescued, the needy and the gentle...to come up close to life, look it straight in the eyes, and examine its face. I loved Angel Kitty while he was ours, and I will remember him always. Rest well, Angel....and know: you were loved. And are missed... by hearts made to ache by the loss of you.
Labels: Angel Kitty, Emotions
Post a Comment