Leaves from the Vine

How do you even write about grief?

It is not something you tackle or process, I don’t think. I’m kind of new to it, but I also am not sure any of us are prepared for it. Not really. I have grieved friendships, and family members, and failures… that alliteration was unintentional. I have known grief, but I fear our relationship was quite distant. A random person you went to school with whom you can point out in a crowd, but you only know vague details of. You don’t know their last name, but you know their home room.

Something like that.

It occurred to me only this evening that the grief I once knew was more likely grief for the sake of those hurting the most. An aunt who lost her husband. A daughter who lost her mother. A sister who lost her brother. I grieved with them, and for them, for grief like that is too heavy to carry alone. Of course, I knew these people for whom they grieved. I knew them dearly. But the ache I felt in my throat as I cried with them was for the people hurting in front of me, not for those that had passed. My grief was intertwined with their pain, first and foremost and above my own.

I recently got to know my own, in the form of a cat, of all things.

Stacked against the grief of those listed above, this feels so inadequate. It’s so pale and irrelevant. And I can see myself typing that sentence and that omniscient version of myself looking over my shoulder is saying, “You idiot, no one would ever make you feel bad for this. Grief is grief. Hold space for yourself. Yada yada yada” and all that other supportive, smarmy nonsense. And she’d shake her head and do that little pinched face furrowed brow thing I do when I think someone is being stupid.

I see you, Other Marisa.

I hear you, and you’re excused.

Because the feeling that my grief is small is still there.

It’s small like the little box my little buddy now occupies.

My Zuko.

My tiny, vicious boy.

Never thought we’d be here.

Well, no, of course I knew we’d be here eventually.

I knew one day I'd be stuck listening to this damn song ever since I gave you the name "Zuko."

I thought it would be a long time before I had to type it into the search bar, though.

Much longer.

But here we are, four years later. I signed up for double-digit years with you, kiddo. 10 years minimum was what I had in mind, even longer if you decided to be one of those stubborn cats who lives to be older than God and looks like he would blow away if the right breeze hit him wrong. You had the tenacity for it. I would have bet on it if given the chance.

I would have lost the farm if I had, so maybe that’s for the best.

So here I am in Google Docs, having lost a bet I never placed, trying to use mere words to organize my grief. What I want, what I hate, what should be, what shouldn't, what I feel... This is the best method I have for making sense of any of it.

You know, your Aunt Catherine only picked up a couple of things from French class, including but not limited to the word for “fork,” but one of her favorite things she learned stuck with me ever since she told me about it.

The French have an interesting way of saying “I miss you.”

They say "tu me manques.”

The literal translation, so I've been told, far more accurately describes our situation right now than my measly English degree could ever capture.

"You are missing from me."

"I lack you."

I feel so much… lack.

It’s like everything looks normal but it's hollow all of a sudden.

Nothing feels or looks like what it used to.

Home isn’t even home anymore.

I think, more than anything else, grief forces you to beg the question of what “home” actually is.

It's you.

I hate going home because I won't be coming home... to you.

I don't know how to return to these four walls each day and have the nerve to call them home.

The rooms seem far too still. Too quiet. Too tame. Too empty. Too lackluster. Too… bleh.

They can’t be home if you are not there.

They lack your terrible and sweet and malicious presence.

Where is the little panther lurking in the shadows?

Where is the ferocious beast who hunts my ankles?

Where is the conqueror of cardboard boxes and clutter?

I know where you are.

You are not a puzzle piece I can find by moving the couch and swishing my hand under it.

You’re on my desk, right beside me in a pretty cedar box.

But I still expect to see you behind every corner. I look at my alarm clock when I wake up in the middle of the night, expecting to find you delightedly poised to knock it over. I look up when the floorboards shift, expecting to find your begrudging face staring at me, pissed that I haven't fed you yet only to find plenty of food in your bowl and that you just wanted me to stir it or pat your butt while you eat. I shuffle in my slippers slowly so when you inevitably attack the pink fluff I don't accidently roundhouse kick you across the room. I still expect the jingle of your collar when I open a packet of tuna. I glance at the faucet in the tub while I shower, expecting to see your little black paw batting at the water you loved playing in so much.

I can't stop closing the front door quickly.

I can't stop searching the windows as I approach the house, looking for your bright green eyes.

I can't stop waking up at 3am, waiting for you to curl up on my chest and rub your face on mine as a silent acknowledgement made only in the dark of night that you weren't as much of a badass as you let on.

And I can't throw your antifungal away.

It was $80, Zu.

You could have at least let me use more than a single dose of it, though I know the first bottle really put you through the ringer.

Each syringe full was just a drop in the proverbial bucket, though, for both of us. We went through hell side by side for months on end, and now I worry I did not see that you were done fighting soon enough. I still had more steam. I was worn threadbare, but I would have rather seen myself in tatters than give up before you wanted to.

Now that it's all over, I see that I am in full blown Oliver Twist rags. Like “please sir, may I have some gruel” and that weird episode of That’s So Raven with the “but you’ve got to work your fingers to the bone” song. That’s pretty much where I am at this moment, emotionally.

And, hell, physically.

I barely recognize myself in the mirror. I didn't see what your being sick had been doing to me. I woke up 4-5 times a night every night to make sure you were eating. Any time I was away from you, my last thought of the night was of you. My first thought of the day was of you. I stopped caring about the dark circles encompassing my dull eyes. I haven't touched my makeup table in weeks. My lipstick doesn’t even look right with my skin tone - it feels that foreign. My skincare routine is out the window. My jewelry is dusty. My bass needs tuning. The only time the gym saw me was when I was beating the worry out of me. All those trivial little Marisa things completely fell apart.

It took everything I had to write.

Writing is coming a little easier now that it’s been two weeks since you’ve passed. Maybe it's sleeping a bit better, and maybe it’s just fourteen days of perspective.

I don’t know.

I feel a bit guilty that my days feel easier. Not that grieving is easier than caring for you, but that it is easier grieving you than watching you suffer and struggle every day. Dealing with my own pain is easier than watching yours, I guess.

God, I miss you so much.

I want to see you again.

I want to pester you and bat at your paw as it hangs over your perch on the cat tower. I want to put your leash on and stand with you in the warm sun. I want to watch you become overwhelmed by the wind as it rustles the palm trees high above your head.

I want to giggle at you again.

I want to kiss you between the eyes again.

I have so much "again" in me.

Again and again and again.

I want to do it all again.

Over and over.

From watching that squat, black fluff ball scream at me from a kennel in a humane society, to the volunteers warning me that you were a terror, to tending to every little scar on my hand, to cleaning up every water glass you knocked over, to driving to California, to rubbing my face on yours because I read somewhere that that’s how cats interpret love from their mothers, to hating every minute I spent worrying about you in the waiting rooms of clinics, to playing “Soothing Cat Music” to help you sleep by my desk when I knew it was your last day, and to my whispering “Bye, Zu” as I left you with that very kind and very sorry nurse one final time, I want to do it again.

Every exuberant and heartbreaking moment…

Let's do it over again.

I think I’ll play it in my head every day for a very, very long time.

Much like this song has been stuck in my head for the past few days.

“Leaves from the vine / Falling so slow”

It evokes a much softer sadness than I have right now.

I don’t have a lot of “soft” when I think about losing you.

I am… furious at the lack of you. You should be here. You should be by me, nudging my phone out of my hand and demanding I pet you. You should be curled beside me. You should bite my pinky as I type, and I should be swatting you away only to pull you in to kiss your forehead.

I find no sense in your not being here.

I am extraordinarily frustrated by how you are nowhere and everywhere all at once. Your absence is bitter, but while hints of your presence are welcome, even begged for at times, they are so inevitably untimely. Bits of you can’t help but follow me even when I try to find some peace away from you. In my cubicle, you’re there. In Cancun, you’re there. In the desert, of all places, you could not give me a break. Imagine my surprise as I reached in my duffle bag for my Aquaphor and found a length of red ribbon I had not seen since we moved out here. Just days after you passed, I sat in my tent, staring at that ribbon, in awe of the fact that, even in death, you are still a little shit.

I have never been so proud as I was at that moment.

You’ll find me like that for the rest of my life, I think. In ribbons and chat noir posters and cartoons, and at the most inconvenient times.

I wouldn’t have it any other way, little dude.

…So much for organizing my grief.

1,993 words later, I still feel that this is falling short, whatever “this” is.

But how could it not. Unfortunately, words cannot alleviate grief. They can just take it outside of me for a while.

Oh, Zuko.

What I wouldn't give to see my little soldier boy come marching home.

I would march to you.

If that is how any of this worked, I’d run.

God, this song is emotional.

Why did I do this to myself?

Why did I have to name you after a character from this show?

I don’t know how to do this, grieve. I guess you put a picture and some incense on a rock at the base of a tree on a hill and you sing the most depressing song known to man, like Iroh did.

I'm not mature enough for this.

Okay.

I’m rambling.

Time to stop listening to “Leaves from the Vine” and end this somehow.

I just don't understand how your story is so short...

You deserved volumes.