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Now I'm just burning through the last of my backlog "DLU photos" that also featured Shanti. Today's three photos are from 2021 (above), 2009 (below center—she's all of one year old there), and 2020 (below bottom). I'm good with this exhausting the photos I might have of her in DLU shots. I actually found an extra to use, as I only had two photos still tagged with "shanti" and "dlunused" on my Flickr account. That shot from 2009 was tagged with both "shanti" and "favorite," though.
I have to say, I know it's still only been three days, but that can make all the difference. I am feeling a lot closer to normal today. I was seriously fucked up Sunday night; still moving in and out of pangs of sharpened grief on Monday; and then much better yesterday. Today I feel within striking distance of normal.
I'm still having discussions about it with people, of course. I already mentioned the long conversation with Amanda here at work yesterday morning. And I got out of the office about five minutes later than intended because I ran into Sue in the kitchen and she asked how I was doing. If someone asks me that, I'll never just say I'm fine or great if that's not the case. I've been saying things like, "I'm doing better. My cat died on Sunday night." And then I wind up telling them the horrid story.
Eons ago—like, literally 20 years ago, in 2004—when Batty died, I came to work and Stephanie had left me flowers on my desk. I checked my blog about the time Peng was put down in 2008 and I don't think it happened then, but, it still did occur to me that I might get flowers this week. There was nothing on my desk when I got to work yesterday, though.
Well, Wednesdays are the day everyone in Merchandising is asked to come into the office, and it's the one day of the week Gabby reliably comes in. She did, indeed, bring me
a bunch of flowers in a vase. It was very kind of her, and I like having them here.
I totally assumed she had bought them in the case she brought them in. "I found that in the kitchen," she said. Ha! I guess I won't be taking that vase home when the flowers die. I really was hoping I could.
I'm listening to my "
In Memoriam" playlist that I made after Mom died. I will admit this: it's not hitting the same way in the wake of the death of a pet. The memory of a pet is so much different, really. There's something less nuanced, far less complicated, and sort of more pure about the bond with a pet. It's honestly prett one sided.
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I met up with Laney at Pacific Place yesterday after work. We saw
Back to Black and it was not great. I gave it a C+. I have an AMC Plus membership so it made no difference to my wallet, but it was good that we went on a Discount Tuesday and Laney only had to pay $7.35 for it.
We met on the first floor lobby first, where there are some chairs and tables. We chatted for a good 15 minutes or so, mostly about Shanti. I mentioned how I've done all my crying, my tears have dried out. She said grief may hit me unexpectedly sometime later, but I really doubt it. People like to say pets are family members, and they are, but equating them to human family is objectively bonkers. I'm not going to get triggered into a moment of grief about Shanti four years from now the way I occasionally still do with Mom, it's just not the same. Especially if I have another cat by then (and if Guru is gone by then, I really hope I do).
There's a weird mixture of worry and ambivalence now, about Guru. The fact that he's behaving pretty normally, except for occasional coughing fits that started within the past year (and which the vet thinks is athsma, of all things; who ever heard of kitty athsma?), doesn't change the fact that he's just as old as Shanti was. Shobhit can't help but be defeatist and thinks he'll also be gone within six months. There's really no knowing, but at age 16, there's no escaping that his days are also numbered. Just give us some time to move past the loss of Shanti, please.
It was a rainy day yesterday so I took the bus downtown before work, then walked the final mile as usual. I walked to Pacific Place after work, and then walked with Laney up to Broadway where her building is. I walked the last half mile home, wrote my review, went to bed. It was a refreshingly normal evening.
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[posted 1:28 pm]
