Setting suns and dark nights

where I find myself in the beginning of this grief

I’ve been five days now without my little love, my best friend, my baby boy. I feel quiet, pulled inward, unable to convey with words the enormity of this ache, the emptiness in my chest.

A friend left me a voice message, crying with me. She said, “Losing an animal is no less painful than losing a human.” She gets it. She knows.

I don’t know how to make chit chat right now, to answer messages about life outside of this loss. I don’t know how to speak to people who don’t understand that nonhuman animals are persons, too. That there is no hierarchy. That he was not a pet or a possession. That this loss rips through me every bit as much as when I lost my Papa, though it has its own voice. That it will forever alter me.

Nights are the worst, when Tarzan would have been awake. His empty cage stands in its corner like a grave, and sometimes, all I can do is crawl out of bed and weep beside it.

The silence is heavy, screaming the absence of him. My ears hear him, though I know he’s not there.

For ten years, he has been my nighttime ritual. Preparing his food, stroking his body, tending to him, delighting in him, comforted by the existence of him.

On Day of the Dead, my love and I went to a celebration at Green-wood Cemetery. We packed our own sack of remembrances and laid them out on a cloth beneath the arms of a golden Maple: candles, marigolds, pictures, artifacts, tiny mugs into which we poured coffee and tea, soul cakes I’d baked for us. We told a few stories but sat mostly in silence, this year a more somber celebration, watching the sky blush pink, grasping each other’s hands.

That night, I found myself again in the living room at 2 am. Lighting two candles — one for him, one for Ninja — beside prints of their hands and feet. I emptied myself in tearful conversation with them.

I have long wondered, how will I move through the loss of him — of both of them — when I have long believed they are the only family I have left.

My love’s arms around me, stroking my back as I fall apart, making me coffee in bed, kissing my forehead, massaging my shoulders, showering me in I love you, gently tells a different story. A new story. One my heart will heal around at its own pace, one day at a time.

*In case you missed these posts: saying goodbye to Tarzan and Ninja.