Dear Little Stuffed

Stuffed died Tuesday afternoon, and I have never felt such pure undiluted sadness in my life.  Mike and I have been calling it "grief-concentrate":  There is no anger or guilt or confusion or denial to dilute it, and there has not been a series of tasks and events (no meeting with funeral home directors to plan a service, no gathering or luncheon with all our loved ones after, etc.) to distract us.  It is just us in our little apartment alone now--just the two of us for the first time in our entire relationship--missing him.  Stuffed was a few feet away during Mike's and my first kiss; He is just part of our relationship and home.  I ache in a way I've never ached before.  I've never felt anything like this.  Is it because he--even at 21 years old--was still less than a foot off the ground so still seemed like a baby who needed to be looked out for and protected?  Is it because we couldn't really talk with each other so I don't know for sure how much he understood?  "Doesn't it seem creepy to you that he doesn't talk?" I'd always ask Mike, and Mike would always reply, "He talks.  Just in his own way."  But that was never what I meant, and he knew that.  I was always half-expecting him to talk.  Often, Mike would walk into a room or get home from work to hear me chattering away to Stuffed, and he'd say, "You talk to him like he's a person" or "Gee, you talk to him more than you do me."  :)  "Well, what if he understands us?" I'd always counter.  "Of course, I'm going to talk to him."  :)  Once I got to know him, I never really thought of Stuffed as a pet or as even as completely a cat.  He was the third person in the apartment--Mike would joke that I was the third person since he and Stuffed had been together long before I came onto the scene to "girl up" their shared bachelor life--and I thought of him as a soul who was living on earth in the form of a cat, and as a sweet little soul with whom I'd been entrusted.  We knew it was coming, but that made it no easier.  I had expected it to hurt when the day came, but this is infinitely worse than I had expected.  When Stuffed woke up Tuesday morning suddenly unable to stand, we knew it was time to call the vet, and the memory of my own voice saying as much to Mike still sickens me.  "We suffer so they don't have to," I read online this week, and I understand, but knowing it was time has yet to make this that much easier.  

Around 7:30 am Tuesday, Mike gently lifted him up to hold him one last time, and Stuffed actually tilted his head way back to look up at him.  Stuffed did that twice--and it was something I'd never seen him do before--and the two of them kept eye contact for about ten seconds each time.  I always called the two of them "Frick and Frack," as Mike was very much Stuffed's Person.  He loved me and stayed at my side through every illness I've had since 2007, we posed for a picture together on my wedding day, he loved me and showed it--a gentler, sweeter cat's likely never lived--but Mike was his best friend.  

Mike got Stuffed back into his round bed on top of the patchwork wing chair (which he so loved ♥) while we tried to find a mobile vet who could come that day.  They were all so overbooked because of Covid, we had no "luck" until the third vet we called said she could be there by 5 pm that day--and only because she would already be in our neighborhood for another appointment.  5 pm seemed like an eternity to us since we weren't sure if Stuffed was in pain or just paralyzed ("just"--how grotesque), but by 1 pm, she texted to say she could be there by 1:30, and there we were with less than half an hour left with Stuffed.  We kept his favorite toys around him in his bed and took the picture above while we were waiting.  He used his mouse as a pillow, we kept "Girl Cat"--the green and pink once-Catnip-filled toy I'd made for him for the first day I was going to meet him in 2007 (and whom he'd instantly taken to ↓ ♥)--beside him, 

the now-held-together-with-packaging-tape "crinkle ball" he and Mike used to play fetch with was tucked nearby, as well, and I pinned our wedding picture to Girl Cat's heart-shaped belly to add some extra love to Stuffed's little bed.  These were the things we buried him with later that day, and I like to think they had each been infused with enough joy and love from all the memories to continue to bless Stuffed forever as his floofy little body rests beside them.  

The vet instinctively stroked Stuffed's incredible black/white "divider line" from nose to forehead while she worked, which is a sweet memory for me, both that that was her instinctive reaction to this adorable aspect of his face, the same way we always petted it and straightened his fur along the line--"Fix his stripe!" I'd say to Mike if the fur was in disarray while they were playing--and that she was so gentle with him.  Stuffed passed easily--bless all involved for that ♥--with our talking to him and petting him in his cozy round bed up on the patchwork chair, and with everything I said and did all day Tuesday both before and after that moment, I remained in constant prayer to Sommer to beg her to be there for Stuffed and to greet him and hold him and comfort him and play with him and explain things to him if he needed it.  You can ignore me the rest of my life after this, but don't you dare let him be lonely or scared, Sommer, I mean it.  Help him.  Help him!  'Prayers with every heartbeat all day and night.  The vet explained before leaving that given everything we'd described of Stuffed's last couple days, she was almost positive he'd experienced a blood clot--because cats lose use of their limbs that fast from them.  I told her I'd taken a video just the day before--Monday morning--of Stuffed running from his food bowl by the patchwork cupboards all the way to the bathroom--and she said yes, she hears that a lot:  "My cat was fine two hours ago and now she's at death's door."  She said there was nothing we could have done or that she even could have done, and how especially at 21 years old and dealing with other health issues, there would have been no coming back from it for Stuffed.  We felt huge weights lift off of us from her explanation and talked another few minutes before she left.  In about twenty years of this work, she had never heard of another animal named Stuffed.  :)  Hearing that made me feel good, just as seeing her stroking Stuffed's divider-line had.  She recognized a couple unique things about him in the very short time she was around him, is all, but it touched me.  

I had already set up a cuddly towel-lined container-box for us to place Stuffed into for burial, but watching Mike carry him over to it broke me, and I was soon bent over the table sobbing, "Why are we putting him into a BOX?  A box with a LID!?"  Oh, my heart.  When that wave of pain and nausea broke, I was able to brush him one last time and arrange the mouse, crinkle ball, Girl Cat, and our wedding picture around him.  His soft little body was curled up in a ball with his tail wrapped around him, and Mike placed his paw over his eyes--the way he used to sleep--and I was okay ("okay") then:  I had tried to close his eyes, but they wouldn't stay as closed as I'd have liked, as the vet had already told me would be the case, but with his paw up, now Stuffed just looked like he was sleeping curled up in a little yin yang ball with his toys.  We touched him some more and bawled--"I want him back," I kept crying.  "I want him back."  Mike didn't want to see me cover Stuffed the final time before putting the lid onto the box and then wrapping the box itself, so he left to go pick up our rental car so we could make the drive to his mom's house to bury Stuffed there.  I had a few more minutes with Stuffed then.  

I don't write much about my work in this space but will share that I worked for seven years as a caregiver to children of all ages--newborns to young adults in their early twenties, and all of them differing in developmental levels and physical ability--so I know from that that I'm capable caring for a sick, injured, and/or dying person and body.  I won a few awards for it in my years of doing it.  I did not think I could handle Stuffed's decline and death, though.  Something about Stuffed just made it seem like it would be impossible for me when the time came:  Impossible for me to handle physically his little fur-covered body, and impossible for me to handle emotionally being around him in the moments before, during, after his death--to the extent that I'd ever let myself contemplate it at all.  And instead, now I know about myself that I didn't just manage to care for him both before and after his passing, I did it beautifully, if I may say so, and with a grace I hadn't expected, albeit with a seemingly-bottomless bucket of tears too.  That is one of Stuffed's gifts to me:  He taught me this about myself.  The depth of my love is both what makes me good at it and what makes it hurt so very much--But I can do it even for sweet Stuffed, probably down to 3 pounds when he died, just a little puffball who trusted that Mike and I would always be there for him and help him.  And we were.  I had been praying the past couple years for Stuffed to die peacefully in his sleep, and now I'm indescribably grateful that was an unanswered prayer:  I wouldn't have wanted him to have been alone as he passed, and I wouldn't have wanted to miss the opportunity to take care of him in so many ways this past month and past week, especially.  

Before covering him completely, I talked to him and snuggled my head into his fur a final time--I've never felt anything as soft as his fur and likely won't again in this lifetime--tearfully pinned a blanket around the box and a note to its top, and soon, Mike and I were on the road.  I kept Stuffed in my lap the during the two-hour drive, my turn now to hold him a last time.

I had bought Baby's Breath and Rosemary--Rosemary for remembrance--and arranged it on the box before Mike began replacing all the soil.  Just as Mike couldn't handle seeing Stuffed's body being covered a final time, I couldn't watch as he covered the box.  While he shoveled, I stood by my mother-in-law's rock wall and held myself while I cried, shaking and nauseous again at the thought that Stuffed was disappearing right behind me.  Once he said the box was covered, I was better again and able to help replace the sod and clean up the spot a little.  Stuffed is buried under a Lilac tree ♥ with pale pink roses, Foxgloves, Spirea, and ferns nearby, and with two bird feeders in the Lilac branches above him.  In even the short time we were there, my mother-in-law's yard was visited by two cats--hers and another that just sauntered through--a Baltimore Oriole couple, Sparrows, a Cardinal, Mourning Doves, and a Hummingbird.  The lovely rock wall is a few feet away.  It was sunny but also rained intermittently while we worked, so everything around us was glistening and sparkling and smelled of good soil, fresh grass, and roses.  It is a beautiful spot for such a beautiful little soul.  Oh, my heart.  My sweet Stuffed.  It bothers me sometimes that Stuffed's beautiful little body is underground in the dark, but as I told Mike in a calmer moment this week, my beloved Daffodils and roses and Lilacs and Hollyhocks and Foxgloves and glowing autumn Maple trees all start from underground in the dark too, and if that's good enough for them, it is certainly good enough for the body of gorgeous Stuffed. 

And then there was this:  I didn't fall asleep until after 3:30 in the morning that night, and we got up at 7 to make the drive home.  I started sobbing as we prepared to go, and I couldn't calm down, so we ended up sitting in the car for probably half an hour as I tried to get it together.  Leaving Mike's hometown meant leaving Stuffed there--and why would we ever leave Stuffed in another town?  'Hideous howling pain.  While we talked, I silently prayed to Sommer to let me know that Stuffed was okay.  He's so short and little, is he okay, he's so trusting, who's taking care of him, what if he gets lost, he's never been outside, is he okay, he's probably lonely, does he miss us, is he okay, does he understand, who's cuddling him?  'Wild thoughts borne of wild pain.  I know better and have stronger faith than this, but this is grief talking.  I wish I could see even a short video of what Stuffed's up to now, just to stop my heart from howling.  I finally calmed down enough that we could begin the drive to a now-Stuffed-less home, and we were on our way.  Maybe an hour later, as we drove under a cloud-filled blue sky, I saw Stuffed in it:  There was, quite clearly, a smiling cat resting in the clouds over us.  I took picture after picture as we traveled below the clouds, and when the image of the face and body started to fade a bit, a paw print appeared.  He is lying down with his face resting on his front paws. 

Do you see it?  ♥  It's almost like a photograph superimposed onto clouds. 

And a close-up of the head on top of the front paws:

Thank you, Sommer.  ♥  Now that I can't hear Stuffed talk, I somehow understand what he's saying:  We're still here for each other.  

He's another of my angels now, and I'll keep talking to him every day of my life, here and hereafter, same as I do with Sommer and Papa and Grandma and my other grandfather and Grammy and Mike's dad (who also loved Stuffed and is undoubtedly loving him all the more now) and others who have gone on ahead of me. 

We returned home Wednesday afternoon, a scene too sad to recount, Mike worked the rest of that day, and I returned to work Thursday.  Life has gone on.  I have another crying jag probably every three hours, although I've told Mike that if I let myself give in to it, I have it in me to cry--to bawl, really--every minute of every day this week.  Stuffed came to me late last Saturday night to let me hold him on my lap for what would be the last time, and there was something different about it--he was leaning against my breast in an almost child-like way, and he stayed in that position a long time.  I finally reached around him with my phone to take a few pictures--both to see his face to make sure he was okay and to get the picture.  I didn't know it would be the last time, but I wonder if Stuffed did, just like he seemed to when he arched his neck back twice to hold eye contact with Mike Tuesday morning.  

Sunday--Father's Day--was a bad day for him, and Mike and I discussed whether it was time to call the vet even then, but Monday morning, he was up and running--I even took the video--so we thought maybe it had just been old age plus the 90-something-degree days that weekend that had slowed him down, since he's so floofy and never eats much in the heat.  When I got home from work around midnight, though, after a day of text updates from Mike, I was worried and stayed out here with Stuffed until 2 in the morning, sitting in front of him on the ottoman while he slept in his little bed up on the patchwork chair, talking about everything with him, our last long "You-talk-to-him-like-he's-a-person" talk.  It was still a shock to be where we were with him just six hours later, but I see now that all three of us seemed to know it was coming and that all the pieces fit together.  I met him in June 2007 and said goodbye-for-now in June 2020.  You may remember that another vet had told me in the summer of 2018 that Stuffed probably had six more months--and what a wreck I was after hearing that, having to contemplate Stuffed's death in specifics for the first time, and how I soon found a heart-shaped piece of Stuffed's fur by his food bowl.   'A fur-heart before he died and a smiling cloud-cat after.  These things do not just happen.  ♥  

 It has not been lost on us this week that one of the unforeseen gifts of All Things Covid-Related was that due to Mike's furlough and then his work-from-home status, Stuffed got four months of having Mike home with him 24 hours a day.  ♥  We look back now and see how all the pieces fit together so that just as Stuffed's health declined and he started having real issues, he always had someone here with him--we could not even leave for a few hours for dinner and a movie since nothing's been open, you know--a luxury of time at home with him we literally could not have afforded with both of us working/in normal times.  

We know this will feel better in time--and maybe someday I'll even be able to keep mascara on my eyes more than two hours  :) --and that we'll bring another whiskered soul into our home at some point.  Although we don't yet know who our future cats are, I am already picturing them as part of Stuffed's "litter"--just separated by years in "delivery."  He's the Patriarch, as Mike put it, and I keep thinking of him as "Uncle Stuffed" to all the cats who will come after.  We will love them deeply too, I'm sure, but Stuffed is forever the One and the Best.  'Stuffed the Magnificent, who won a "Pretty Kitties" photo contest by more than 40,000 votes ten years ago.  :)   'Stuffed who could stand on his hind legs for impressive lengths of time.  'Stuffed who played fetch with the crinkle ball.  'Stuffed with the perfect cat-head-shape on his back, angel wings below that, and whose front legs featured a heart.  'Stuffed whose red heart-shaped identification tag on his collar began with the words "I am Stuffed."  :)  'Stuffed of the perfect name.  Mom found us a Thanksgiving card years ago of a black and white cat being asked if he wants more turkey, and the inside read, "No thanks, I'm Stuffed."  :)  'When a little girl in my care a few years back asked me if I had any pets and what their names were, I told her about Stuffed and she immediately responded, "Like stuffed crust?"  :)   We have so much to smile over now.  And he is not really gone, as we have seen.  He is still safe and loved and happy and very aware of us, he's just out of our sight for awhile.  

There was an awful moment after we returned home Wednesday while Mike sat beside me listening to me when he asked me if I was going to be okay.  "Yes, Dear," I answered.  "It'll just take awhile."  But this first stage of grief is so raw, it was almost unbelievable to me even as I said it.  I trust that Sommer and Mike's dad are cuddling Stuffed until we can again, though.  And I won't disrespect the memory of Stuffed's perfect little soul by lingering too long in sadness over this separation from him.  I will honor the good, beautiful, sweet gift that was Stuffed--and express my gratitude for him--by creating and sharing goodness, beauty, and sweetness in all the ways I know how.  But oh, my heart, how I miss him.  Dear little Stuffed!  

♥