Beloved Pets

Today’s post will be a multi-coloured spectre of emotions for me. I named this post ‘Beloved Pets’ but in reality it’s so much more. A very dear friend just lost her pet and I understand her pain so well. I had a canary bird. Or rather, he had me. He was not just a pet. He was a family member. Actually he was even more than that. Our entire lives revolved around him. He was with us wherever in the flat we were. He slept in my room, or better I slept in his room. I was allowed to stay in his room. We took him with us to the kitchen for breakfast. We took him with us to the living-room when we watched telly. We spoiled him rotten and he deserved it.

I loved him. I loved him with all my heart. I still do. He was my everything. I teared up every time I thought about the fact that at some point he would die. He was only a canary bird after all. They live 8 years normally. Mine made it to almost twelve. He was an old man when he died. But it was still too early. But everything would’ve been too early in my eyes. This is the hardest thing about pets. They die. It doesn’t matter how much you love them. Your love can’t keep them alive. In fact the more you love them the more it hurts.

When my sweetheart started to develop rheumatism in his little feet we bought a salve to help him with it. He hated it. I held him while my mother treated him with the salve. He always wriggled and tried to escape. The massage did him well, though. He just didn’t like the salve. He always tried to lick it off his feet when we were done. When he went blind on one eye we rearranged his things in his cage so he wouldn’t have to jump around too much. He had always been clumsy but with only one working eye it got even worse. I wouldn’t have thought that possible, I have to admit. He always was hurting himself and even falling on the ground. I’m not sure if he knew that he was a bird. When we let him out of the cage at weekends it wasn’t something rare that he fell from the table. Any bird would’ve caught themselves and flown away. Not mine. He fell. And landed on the ground, looking indignant as if to ask who had thrown him down. And he waited till my mum or I picked him up. Once we decided to wait to see if he would just fly up again. He didn’t. He spent half an hour on the ground, pouting that nobody had come yet to help him. So it was quite a surprise that he could even be clumsier. Then he went blind on the other eye, as well. We now had a blind bird, who didn’t know he was a bird. Again we rearranged his things. And we developed the ability to see when he wanted what. He had trained us well. And he was happy. He was blind, rheumatic and clumsy. And he was happy. He had even started singing again after a year-long. He was well and content. But of course that didn’t change the fact that he was old.

And it hurt like a bitch, if you pardon the language. It hurt. It still does. It was two years ago but still there are days I just want to spend in my bed and cry. At first I was a lost case. I would hear him making noises, shuffling around, calling even though he wasn’t there. In retrospect I have to admit that it sounds like I had gone bonkers. I more or less hallucinated about hearing him, smelling him. For months I dreamed that he was alive again, only to wake up to the fact that he wasn’t. Thinking about this time scares me, to be honest. Despite all my psychological problems I never thought myself crazy. But what I experienced when I grieved for him was borderline insane. Hearing voices, smells that can’t be there. I didn’t notice it at that time but I think my mind was slowly falling apart. And my body followed. Every time I thought I had heard him my heart literally skipped a beat only to pump furiously after that. That couldn’t have been healthy. So, yes, it’s official: I lost my shit over grief. (Again, pardon the language) But – and yes, there is a but – it got better. I would’ve laughed at anyone who said that during my insanity period. Or thrown things at them for even suggesting they knew what I was going through. Not that people would’ve said that. Even with my delicate state of mind I didn’t show it. When around others I put on a poker face, no matter what happens. But if they had known how the grief ate away at me and said something like that I probably would’ve thrown heavy things at them. You think that they don’t have the right to say such things because they never loved their pet as much as you loved yours. That’s total bullshit, of course. But it’s okay to think like that. It’s a part of grieving. It’s okay to think nasty thing about people who just want to help. Because they don’t understand, right? They can’t understand or they would just shut the hell up! But it’s true in the end. Time is great in healing wounds. Better than any doctor. It’s very rough, the journey to Okay, though. I don’t like to think about that time. Everything seemed so pointless to me. I didn’t plan anything. Why should I? I was busy surviving day to day, hour to hour. You carry on somehow but it feels like you’re thrown off the path. It’s like someone has shifted you just a millimeter out of you normal path. Everything is wrong. But slowly you’re shifting back to where you belong. It’s not easy and it’s not nice. It takes months but one morning you will wake up from having had a dream about your beloved and you’re smiling instead of crying. You can think about them and savour the absolutely brilliant moments you had with them instead of focusing on the fact that they aren’t there anymore. You can laugh at their shenanigans. And slowly you learn to be happy again. At least, it was like that for me. I can be happy again. Step by step my mind went back to normal. I don’t hear him anymore. At least, not often. Sometimes I hear a noise and my mind thinks it was him. I’m sad when I realize it was just something else sounding similar. But it’s okay. I’m okay. He was a huge part of my life and I had to learn to live without him. And it’s wonderful that the human heart and the human mind can. It showed me the true magnificence of the humans. We can survive anything. We keep going on. We can stand so much more than we think we can. And though it still hurts like hell sometimes I can concentrate on all those beautiful, funny, fantastic moment I had with him. I’m okay.

 

My dear friend – you know who you are; I just don’t want to mention your name in case you don’t want me to – I hope this post helps a bit. I wrote it entirely for you because I know so well that all those I’m-so-sorry, I-know-how-you-feel, and It-will-get-better suck. They suck big time. And I do realize that this post is nothing different than that. And I didn’t want to say those things directly because I know that you have enough heavy books to throw at me. But maybe, just maybe, I managed to write one or two sentences that are helpful. If not, then you can throw all the books at me you like.