DORIS AND HER HUMAN: A CLASSIC LOVE STORY

23 September 2022

09:23
A woman took off her shirt and put a cat's body in it. Then she put her arms around the body as she watched the fake candles the vet had lit. Her eyes were scanning for signs of breathing. There was none. Cut.

09:51 AM
A woman is crossing streets. She walks by cafés and restaurants. Cyclists and people pass by in a steady stream. The city is still in the process of waking up. Close-up on the woman's clenched hand. She is stroking something that is at first difficult to see.

We see the movements of her fingers. Suddenly, she opens her clenched fist and brings a necklace with a name tag to her lips. She looks at it for a brief moment, kisses it, and puts it in her pocket. She enters a church. Pays for a candle, walks up to a candle holder. Lights her candle and places it in an iron holder. There she stands, looking into the light. The scene fades to black.

48 hours earlier
”9 o'clock tomorrow morning will be fine." I heard myself. The words couldn't be simpler. There is nothing that suggests drama or anything extraordinary. The words hold no darkness. No visible evil. No revelation. Everything is framed in a banal normality. But it is the hardest sentence I have ever uttered.

I tried to convince myself that the unbearable wasn't so bad and comforted myself that it would probably soon pass. But deep down I knew.

The moment had come. The one I dreaded. She knew before I did. The last days she tried to tell me. Every time I pushed her away. Or was it me hallucinating the whole thing? Who knows what communication lines there are between the living.

When I walked home from the vet with the collar in my trouser pocket, I went into the church to light a candle. I could not stop thinking of her not protesting. She faced death like my mother. They both worked with death. I was the only one who struggled with letting them go. I was left with a sorrow that contained a lifetime of presence.

What I didn't expect was that the moment I lit a candle for Doris, she lit one in me. I was not prepared that she would give me a package of raw love in her afterlife. That is why it is only when she is dead that I can tell our story. It is ours. Not mine. Not hers. But ours. A human and a cat.

The morning after she was gone, I took the bus an hour away. I needed to change location. I needed to change location. I needed a walk. That whole day she was sitting in my chest looking out as if she was a kangaroo baby. Her presence felt like redorange radiant sunset a hot summer day. The feeling carried me through the day and the night.

In the morning, my chest was empty but she had somehow mixed our beings. Every day, when I opened the door, I'd hear a small, tiny voice from within: "Gry, you're aware that I'm not here, right!"

“Yes,” I'd reply. “I know you are not to greet me as you used to.” Every time I was putting the key in my front door, I heard the same inner voice until I was no longer afraid to face the empty space she used to fill.

Doris was wild and tame at the same time. Wild to the extent that when she went out, she lived her own life. Tame to the extent that when she came in, she was taken care of, got food, a place to sleep, and love.

The thing about Doris is that she had lived in the middle of the city for over ten years. She lived with cars, bicycles, and people passing by her territory. Every day I let her out, I never knew if she would come back. She did - even on her last one. I let her out in the early morning and prayed that she would not come back in time for the appointment, but she returned in time. It was unbearable to witness.

She met people in her own way. She meowed, invited them in, and everything happened on her terms. If she didn't want to be petted by someone, she walked away. If she sought someone's attention, she went to them. She lived outside of time in her total presence. She often sat completely still. The only thing that moves is her nose, which she was completely absorbed in, noting the day's scents.

The irony is that it was only when she was dead that I realized I had been living in a loving relationship with a cat for almost 11 years. The gift she gave me was one of the purest and rawest I had ever experienced. It settled like a warm blanket around my heart, as if she were saying, "I've got you." It puzzled me.

I have been lucky enough to have felt different sorts of love from humans. This was radically different. Nothing could prepare me for it. We lived side by side as equals. I believe that is why it gave my heart a scar. I was the one deciding when it was time for her to go. When I question if I did the right thing, I used to think she would have done the same for me if she knew I was in pain. Or perhaps it’s just me trying to find a way to live with a decision that is impossible to make without guilt.

When I was six years old, I was on a caravan trip with my parents. I lost myself in daydreams as I watched a group of teenagers setting up their tents next to our camp. There were two couples. I followed their movements and gestures. I saw how they kissed. I wanted what they had. I didn't know how it would happen, but love has always been my number one goal in life. Love has also been the hardest thing in my life. I suck at it. Or so I have thought. Now I am not so sure.

I have traveled all over the world to find it, only to understand that I had been in a great love story for eleven years with a lady of four legs - without even getting it.

Perhaps the strongest emotions we can hold are the ones that are no longer ours.

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