When I was 17, my parents adopted a cat for me while I was in basic training. Her name was Tigger. She ate dog food, drank from the toilet and begged for food with the other dogs. She came with me when I got married, and moved all over the country with us. She fostered kittens and raised human children with an endearing mix of gentleness, grumpiness and sass. She was pretty overweight and as the years passed, she became less mobile. Happy to move only to follow the spots of sunshine in the house, she had regular perches from which she rarely moved.
I took for granted that she would be with me forever, but today, she left. Tigger had been sick for some time and had finished a few courses of medication to help the problem. Her breathing had become increasingly labored, and she could not climb the stairs any more. When we took her from her carrier today at the vet's office, she could no longer breathe, and struggled through her last minutes of life.
As I held her head, trying to help her get some breath, I felt the life go out of her. After the vet confirmed that she was gone, I sat there looking at her lifeless body and wondered where her life's energy/soul had gone. With all my new questions and shifting thoughts on faith and religion, I am in a strange place with my beliefs on what happens when something dies. Where is Tigger now? Heaven? Reincarnated into another living thing? Nowhere at all? I really don't know, nor do I have much of an idea. The strange thing is that even though I have fewer beliefs, I am more at peace with the concept of death and I suppose that, in fact, I don't have all the answers.
I'll miss Tigger, she was an integral part of our family from the beginning and she has left an un-fillable hole. Even though I'm not sure where her energy/soul/spirit is right now, I feel that she is in a better place.
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