Fragility

It took me a while to think of a title for this post. But it’s the best I can come up with right now, because it describes how we’re feeling. Fragile and a little bit lost.

Last week Joe and me were just getting ready to go out for the morning, when someone I’d never seen before (she turned out to be a neighbour) knocked on the door and told me that a cat had been hit by a car down by the main road, and that she thought it was ours. When she described him I knew straight away it was Mackie, and I burst into tears. Joe heard everything and was absolutely beside himself, and we had to go to her house and collect him.

A cardboard box on top of the bin, covered with a black rubbish bag. Distraught as we were, the woman was intent on talking animatedly to us and seemed to find the whole event incredibly exciting, which didn’t help at all. So we stood there crying in the rain until she ran out of things to say to us, then we took the box home to the garage and I took a look at the lifeless little body. Not a mark on him thankfully but his eye was wide open and I tried to tell myself he’d have died instantly, not slowly and painfully, wondering what was going on and where we were. I couldn’t work out why he’d headed down there in the first place, as he’d been hit by a car in the past and was afraid of the road. I felt guilty because the last time I’d seen him, the night before, he’d tried to climb onto me but I told him no because it was time for him to go out, so he’d walked away.

I tried to phone Jay but he was in a meeting at work. I rang his stepmum instead and was barely coherent. We didn’t know what to do. So we went for a drive, and I kept breaking down in tears.

Losing a pet is hard, and you do grieve. I recognise all these stages, these emotions from when my mum died almost seven years ago. It’s no different when a much loved animal dies; you still feel shock and pain and denial. The hope that it’s not really happening then the gradual acceptance that yes, it is.

As soon as Jay got home we threw away Mackie’s food bowls and favourite cushion and bed. We just couldn’t bear to look at them. We wrapped his body in an old cardigan of mine, then took him to the vet and said goodbye.

And now, almost a week later, we’re still finding it hard. I don’t want to go out in the garden any more because he always followed us out there and I don’t want to sit on the bench with an empty space beside me. There’s no rustle in the bushes as he suddenly appears, no little brush of a tail on my leg as I hang out the washing. The evenings are sad - he’d sleep on one of us while we watched TV together. He was Jay’s cat, but I was Mackie’s person. He rarely let me out of his sight. He was patient with Joe and always placed himself firmly in the centre of family life. He had a big personality and the house isn’t the same. I don’t want to be here any more; this impersonal rental feels even less like home now. I miss that little presence horribly. I feel tearful a lot of the time.

Fortunately, Joe’s been staying with his grandparents for a few days. It means we can cry if we need to without him getting upset too. Grieving for a pet means you need time and space to process it, and we’ve had that for a little while and we’re grateful for it.

I’ve been at work and done extra hours as holiday cover, and it was a welcome distraction from being home and being reminded of Mackie being gone.

To be honest I’m just sort of… ticking over. Trying to be gentle with myself. Sometimes swallowing the tears back, sometimes letting them flow.

I still need to complete my last two photography assignments, but I don’t feel like it just yet.

Instead I’ve started drinking tea again (from a pot - I actually found a Hornsea ‘Bronte’ teapot at the flea market), and have rescued an abandoned knitting project (a hat which I kept messing up). I’m reading at night as usual, and have just started The Salt Path by Raynor Winn. The September issue of Country Living magazine has been purchased as I only really like the autumn and winter editions. I’ve been rewatching Anne with an E and Schitts Creek, and am working my way through the Storyville documentaries on iPlayer.

Watching for the first signs of autumn. There are lots already.

Finding comfort in small things, routines and rituals.

On the day Mackie died, Joe and I drove over to Rossendale (my home, where I was born and grew up) because I needed to just be there. And while we were there I received a phone call from the estate agent to say our offer on a house had been accepted.

I promptly burst into tears and explained we’d had a tough day, and she was very understanding and suggested I go and give Joe a hug then call her back to discuss what we needed to do next. So I did.

And here we are.

It’s very early days and I know that sales fall through at every stage of the buying process. Someone could make the sellers a higher offer and we could lose the house. Or they may decide to stay put after all.

So I’m not tempting fate by saying any more just yet. We’re cautiously optimistic that everything will go through to completion, and then we’ll have somewhere to make new memories. It won’t be painful to walk around the garden any more, or to glance hopefully out of the window in the mornings looking for someone who’s no longer there and who isn’t coming home.

I know this hasn’t been the most joyful of posts, and that the photos haven’t been particularly varied or inspiring. You know I use this place as a journal of sorts and it’s not always sunshine and rainbows. Our relief at the house has been tempered by losing Mackie. It’s Joe’s first real experience of loss but children are resilient and maybe one day we’ll give a home to another cat - hopefully in the house by the woods, away from busy roads and surrounded by trees and with a stove burning away on the cold nights.

But not just yet. Right now, it feels as though nobody could - or should - take his place.