Thank God for my recovery

Last night my kitten was hit by a car and killed. She was 4 or 5 months old, and I had only had her for a month ... but how long does it take to fall in love with a cat? She was one of the sweetest, most affectionate kittens I've ever met.

I miss her terribly, and I feel lonelier than ever. Grief sucks. Loneliness sucks. This is why people turn to the bottle or the needle, or go on spending sprees, or lose themselves in sex, or zone out in front of the TV. Our culture is afraid of painful emotions -- frustration, fear, anger, loneliness, hopelessness, despair, grief. It doesn't know how to handle them in a healthy way, so its response is, Get over it and cheer up! And to help us do that, it offers us a huge array of drugs to dull our pain -- for cheap -- and encourages us to use them.

I was lucky, last night, to have two friends who came over to be with me as soon as I called them about my cat. They didn't try to minimize my grief or talk me out of it. They sat with me while I cried and stroked my cat, and then when I was ready to be alone with her, to say goodbye and bury her, they left. Friends like that are rare and precious, and I'm going to make sure they know it.

I am also fortunate to have years of emotional work behind me, that have taught me that the only way through grief is through it, not around it or over it. Pushing grief down or medicating it doesn't make it go away ... it only pushes it down deep so it can fester and grow. The way to get through my grief is to feel it, all of it, as it comes to me, badly timed and painful and messy as it is.

Thank you, God, for all of that. Thank you for giving me the courage to face my addictions and recover from them. Thank you for guiding me down a path of healing old hurts, dealing with new ones as they come up, and through all of that, becoming a better instrument for spreading your love in the world.

The next few days are going to be hard. There are reminders of my kitten everywhere I turn -- things I bought for her, things she played with, favorite places where she slept and played -- and in my daily routine. My dog and my other cat know something is wrong too. They're anxious, looking around for the kitten, and acting out of character in various ways, so I have to help soothe their anxieties.

I'm going out with my two friends this afternoon, tagging along on their errands, and that'll be good -- both getting out of my house and being with people. And tonight, if I can gather my energy, I'll go to the weekly meeting of a Spanish conversation group I recently found. Be with people, eat good Mexican food, and try to take my Spanish up another notch. Sounds like good therapy.