Too Good at a Bad Thing

I planned on writing this week about making my life less complicated and coming up from below the surface. I had a whole spiel about crawling out of my own head after 25 years, or however long I chased subversive/transgressive art (and people). I realized that flocking to this as a default was at first interesting, but the fun begins to wear off after time when everything/everyone is attempting to be subversive or transgressive and the world around me is a reflection of that. To be honest, I think that’s about as much as I need to say on the subject for now.

Late this week, I learned that our cat, Stella — long sick from kidney disease — took a turn for the worse and is unlikely to make it past the spring. As my wife and I Are currently childless, Stella is everything to us. When she first received her diagnosis in 2023 for CKD and subsequent surgeries, my wife and I took the time off to help her mend and rehabilitate her. We wholly upended our lives to take care of hers, forgoing vacations (save for me traveling to London for two weeks), trips to see friends/family, and many social functions just to make sure she stayed on track. In these three years, we have not been away from here (together) for more than 36 hours. As I mostly work from the office and take external meetings, my wife bore the brunt end of cat care.

By now, I am almost too good at dealing with loss and all things leading up to it. After quickly losing my father and three grandparents across three-plus years, I’ve been through all the motions, lows, and the like. That doesn’t mean the next loss will be dulled; it means I know what to expect and am better prepared to parse it.

This pending one feels different. The amount of time we spent with her and saving her from an early demise (including when a vet asked us to put her to sleep because she had a kidney stone in 2023) was all out of love. Because my wife and I, through strengths and faults, can only give all of our love to those we love. We don’t know how to show some love, but all the love we have to give and at all times. This is true for friends (sometimes to our detriment, sometimes reading as off-putting), to close family, and to our Stella. I don’t think I was always this way, and I understand how saccharine this sounds, but it’s what I learned late in adolescence from my father and it served me just fine thus far. Yet because of our love and attention, the idea that the recipient of such things will not be here in a few months — someone we sleep in shifts for, blow off weddings, spend nearly every weekend dedicated to getting back on course — feels unfamiliar and wrong.

This is not a eulogy, mind you. She is lying on a pillowcase three feet from me and her tail is in high spirits. There is less perceivable physical/illness today than yesterday, increased activity, and the same amount of love as there’s always been. We know from speaking with our doctor that she will decline faster than she had over the last three years, and our time is limited, but we will make the best of whatever time we have.

I just feel that to make the best of that time, I may not write about comparatively less important things I’m currently thinking about or experiencing. I may even write less frequently or not write at all. I’m aware of the state of the world and some horrible things that have happened in the last week alone, and how speaking about that (or, rather, about anything other than that) may seem tone deaf. I understand that other people, including those reading this, have their own awful happenings in their equally complicated lives that take their full focus. This is what occupies mine at the moment, and I felt important to share it because it may help someone in some way, and it certainly helps me.

I also know that even with illness, death, and every horrible story on every person’s lips, the world is still an amazing place and worth taking in with complete and total awe whenever possible. Death may come, but flowers will bloom. The sun will rise and set, one day without me or my loved ones, but even in the worst of times there will always be someone to take it all in and appreciate it. Most importantly, there will be music. There will always be music.

-Scott