Public Grieving

Growing up in my house meant yielding to a few taboos: no discussion of bodily functions, no prioritizing individual needs over the collective, and finally, no wallowing in sadness. Tears were to be held back, sadness to be pushed aside, and routine to be reestablished as soon as possible. I learned this so well that when I was teaching second grade and my grandfather passed away the day before Halloween, I went into work the next morning dressed as Red Riding Hood and carried on as normal with all the festivities including eating cupcakes and parading around the school grounds during which I had to smile and wave a la Princess Diana to all the parents watching.

Grieving, it would seem, was something to be put on hold, to be dealt with later, certainly not in public, and only within the privacy of one's own room. This may not be an uncommon lesson internalized from my generation's parents, many of whom bore up as deprived children during the Great Depression and World War II, those whose later young marriages and parenthoods were forged by the stoic blue blood protocol-following appropriate grieving of JFK's assassination by Jackie O.

When my friend had to cancel family plans this past Sunday to retrieve my cat Buddha's body from under my deck, he called to let his mother know that after a week of disappearance, we had in fact found Buddha dead, and would need to preserve his body for the night until we could get to a proper vet. As he hung up the phone she said, "Have fun." (Which, in a  moment of great sorrow, actually made the two of us laugh out loud--a lot.) This was not unlike my own mother's response to my own phone call the next day. After a few seconds in which she allowed herself to cry, she pulled it together, rallied, and said, "So enough. You should go back to work." I had been grieving my 17 year old cat just 24 hours. He was still in my shed in a cooler.

While Buddha died in peace, he had been dead in the elements for a few days. I discovered him because of a swarm of flies hovering on my deck and because of an unmistakeable smell of death. How does one publicly grieve, especially when you have been taught to do so privately, especially when you live alone, especially when your pet has been through every major milestone in your adult life from age 30 onward with you, especially when the final details are unpleasant?

Buddha came into my life after I had lost my first cat, Tuna, tragically at six months old to a rare disease. Devastated, I swore I would never get another pet. One month later, a phone call from my brother changed everything. A cat had shown up or been dropped outside a full shelter, they had no room, he was living in a house with multiple dogs, cats, 80 chicks and ducklings just hatched (not joking), and was not doing well. He was maybe a year old. After travelling to MA and seeing him hiding in the back of a closet, I took him home to NY. One ferry and car ride later, he became my constant companion and confidant. We moved to CT shortly thereafter, from an apartment to a house six months after that.

I loved Buddha. I loved Buddha more deeply and for longer than I have loved most people. The longest we have ever been apart, until now, was for two weeks when I went to Australia in 2005. As when my father died, I have trouble imagining a world, a life without him. I see him everywhere because this was our house, our life together. I see him waiting on the front steps for me to arrive home from school. I see him standing at the sliding glass door meowing to come in. I see him looking adoringly at me, perched on my chest. I see him in the garden, curled under the elephant hosta, sleeping. He is every bit a part of me as my right arm, which he once bit when I was practicing my flute.

What I know is simply this. It will be some time, an undefined time, an elusive time, before I can fully enjoy my bed, my house, my gardens, my life once again. It will be some time before I don't feel so fragile as to expect to burst into tears when another person looks me in the eye or heaven help me, tries to hug me. It will be some time before I can even articulate what is enough, when is enough, how much is enough. But the time will come. I will continue to honor Buddha s best I can. I will try to honor myself by at long last, finally, and in a new way, publicly grieving.