Soft footfalls whisper through the sterile white room, announcing the woman’s return. I can tell that she’s trying to be quiet, trying not to intrude. I don’t look up at her--can’t look up.
My vision is so blurred that I can barely distinguish the soft outline of the silvery creature curled up in my lap. Her nervous purrs are so loud they even rumble through my own body. How absurd, I think, to care so much for such a tiny thing. Only fools equate things that aren’t human with people.
So I must be a fool then. Why else would the silky fur in my arms be getting so damp? Why else would hot tears fling themselves from my lashes every time I blink? I feel somehow like a cheat; a fraud. I shouldn’t get to feel such exquisite despair over something so trivial.
Shame immediately follows this thought.
She’s not trivial. And she’s not something--she’s someone. The world’s inability to see and validate her worth doesn’t negate it. She doesn’t have to be anything to the world to be everything to me.
And there it is. Absurd as it seems, I really have allowed her to become everything. I’d thought this little friend was a safe place to store my heart. Far safer a repository than any human, at least. She’s the one constant I could always count on to help me navigate the rough transition into adulthood. She’s seen me through years of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and thoughts of suicide. I’ve hidden those struggles from everyone else because I’m afraid of how they’d see me. Humans hide their true feelings from other humans. Because humans judge. Humans are fickle. Humans leave.
On the other hand, humans tend to evade death longer than pretty much everyone else--and therein lies the problem: I am endlessly reliant on an all too ephemeral friend.
Even so, I’d assumed I still had plenty of time left with her. She’s only six. What are the odds that her kidneys would fail at such a young age? How could I predict that I would be told right away that there’s no hope, that each moment she’s kept alive only prolongs her suffering?
The man sitting beside me gently puts his hand on my shoulder. “Are you ready?”
I shake my head, curling into a ball around her, burying my face into her long grey fur. Her breathing has become labored. With my face pressed against her cheek now, I can hear the soft wheeze inside each of her ragged breaths.
Awkwardly, the man pats my back as my shoulders heave with sobs. I barely know this person; he’s more acquaintance than friend. But he’s been kind enough to pick me up and take me here at 2:00 in the morning anyway--after a panicked phone call where I explained that I’d found her under my bed, unable to move. He didn’t ask whether there was anyone else I could call. My inability to foster close relationships is no secret.
I recently ended a five year relationship. During those five years, I’d kept all my family and friends at arm’s length. I seem to have burned all my bridges without considering the frailty of my own tiny island. Despite all this, there are a handful of people who are still somehow willing to put up with my nonsense--but none that would be awake at such an hour.
So here we are. I take a deep breath, sit up straight, and nod. I’m ready. But I keep my eyes lowered. I still haven’t seen the face of the woman standing over me--I’m not ready yet to look death in the eye. I can see, though, the short, bare nails on her fingertips. As she brings her hands toward my lap, I notice that they’re a soft, overly-scrubbed sort of pink. They look like a healer’s hands, I think.
My little girl starts purring louder as those soft hands apply gentle pressure to her leg. They gracefully thread a needle into the rising vein running beneath her pale skin. Finally, those gentle hands press the back of the syringe, driving its poison into my best friend. The rumbling in my lap stills. She draws one final, shuddering breath. Then, the tiny heart that’s been beating alongside mine for years...stops.
***
I expected the grief. When it rolled over me, I was ready. What I hadn’t expected, though, was the gratitude. When that wave hit, it nearly knocked me over with its immensity. I can’t explain how...thankful...I felt as I watched my little friend’s soul retreat behind her eyes. She’d taught me how to love with my whole heart. I learned that I needed to stop wielding fear like some sort of shield. I needed to finally grow up--to allow myself to be vulnerable with other people; it’s the only path that leads to a place where life is worthwhile.
Now, looking back through all these years, my gratitude to her still runs just as deep. Long before I ever had children, she taught me how it feels to love as a mother. She also gave me a soft landing onto the other side of love’s coin. She gently reaffirmed that truly caring for someone involves building up an exponential debt that must always be paid in the end.
But to merely say that it was worth it does her a great disservice. She showed me that I could open myself up, that I could care recklessly for something completely outside my own control. She showed me that I could survive the loss of my favorite person.
Finally, she showed me the way to meet her again. The best of those we’ve lost still exists: it lies dormant inside you and me, waiting for us to brave the pain of future loss again. From an undiscovered, unbound place, the spirits of devotion feed us dreams of their resurrection. I learned that I have the power to bring them back. All of us do. And that gift is so much more than worth the pain. It is worth everything. In its wake, we are changed forever. That’s the part of love that stays with us. It’s the only part we get to keep when everything else has gone.
It’s the part that’s eternal.
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