One of the most challenging aspects of this period is that, as a collective, we are in the midst of complicated grief. Also called “traumatic grief”, this is a form of grief that can’t be easily resolved. How do you move through the tragedy of over a million lives lost in this country alone, so many of which could have been spared were these folks to simply get vaccinated? How do you process the grief of climate change and the escalating numbers of natural disasters? How do you process a senseless war? How do you process the grief over gun violence?
Our distress has been compounded by the fact that the institution that is designed to protect us has become a perpetrator. Recent supreme court decisions have made people more vulnerable to gun violence, women more vulnerable, and our very environment more vulnerable. Many feel terror in addition to complicated grief in witnessing the dissolution of our democracy and the rise of authoritarianism in our country and the world.
These emotions can’t always be held and metabolized within families, as so many families are fractured by political polarization. This has left too many people feeling too alone.
In the midst of all this traumatic grief, I had a rare and wondrous experience of uncomplicated grief. I saw my little familiar, my brown tabby cat, through the end of her long and lovely life.
Unlike complicated grief, this is a grief I could move through. I felt I did my best to care for my cat through the end, and felt her love for me in return. We created many rituals together, from spooning for a few moments on our way to sleep at night to her sitting on my lap (she was generally not a lap kitty) during my morning coffee. I saw how these rituals served to regulate her as she declined.
I cried. A lot. To my embarrassment, I couldn’t hold back my tears with a few clients. While I initially faulted myself for being unprofessional, one client told me it actually helped her feel closer to me.
I reached out to friends and family and drank in their support. I was fortunate to feel so held by them in the process, which served, as all good social support does, to buffer me.
Although I had been concerned, like many pet owners, about whether I’d know when the right time was to put her down, that time did ultimately become clear both to me and my husband. I shifted from dreading the event to feeling grateful for being able to free her from her suffering. I booked an at-home pet euthanasia appointment with a vet.
Just after the kind vet confirmed that my cat’s heart had stopped, I felt the faintest purr in the palm of my hand on her chest. I took it as a loving farewell.
Soon after, I was surprised how light and peaceful my house felt, and the relief that I felt. In uncomplicated grief, positive feelings, like relief, joy, happiness, and peace accompany feelings of sadness. The more positive feelings one has, the more resilient they are in the face of loss.
Susan Cain argues in Bittersweet that melancholy isn’t all negative; it has the power to elicit joy and a sense of wholeness. We cannot fully experience light without an appreciation of the darkness. As I grieve, I am grateful for how my cat helped to further heal my heart, and to enrich my life. And to boost my resilience in the face of my own and others’ traumatic grief.