When I wake up tomorrow, It will be one year since the dreadful day that we took our most beloved kitty cat Emmy to his one way trip to the vet. The time had come. He was 19 years old, born New Year’s Day 2001, gray and fuzzy and character all the days of his life. He was the kind of kitty you couldn’t help picking up and squeezing and hugging. He was our Emmy. ( We named him Emmy when he appeared to be a girl and when that fact changed we could not change his name). He traveled back and forth with us from Canada to the Dominican Republic. He was as at home there as he was chasing birds in the forest here in Quebec.
The thing about having a kitty so long is they live so much of life with you. Emmy was born at the beginning of 2001! Our children were still at home, our son Robin did not have brain cancer and the world was a different place back in 2001, maybe a slower,gentler place.
It felt as if my heart would break that day, and the next and the next. I talked to my dear friend Kim, well not exactly talked more like sobbed while she listened. She knew how much it hurts. She got it! I put away his bowls and removed his toys but the hurt didn’t go away. We buried him and made a headstone and cried and cried. At such a time you feel like it will always hurt this much, even if you know that isn’t true.
And the next day, although we did not know it then, a little gray kitten was born in the next village. She was born because her Mother’s spay appointment was canceled due to the pandemic, a miracle kitten, really.
About two weeks after Emmy died, I said to Martin “Let’s go look at kittens”. “No”, said Martin, I don’t want another cat. Martin and Emmy were guy pals and Martin’s heart was also broken. “I understand that sweetie, but let’s just go look.” So off we went. And there we met a little gray kitten, long-haired, eyes not open and it seemed to be a boy and it cuddled in Martin’s hand. And so it was that this kitten, that was born one day after Emmy died was to become our kitten. And so we named him Corey. Corey would not come to us for two more months we wanted him to be well and truly ready to leave his litter.
During this time we grieved for Emmy, we remembered all the years of crazy sweetness and we also went once a week to visit Corey. And Corey grew and Corey turned out to be a girl and we couldn;t change her name. and we bought her a new bowl, and litter box and kept some of Emmy’s toys for her.And every week we went to see her and every week we got more attached to her.
And then when she was ten weeks old, the day came to go get her. And so we went. As we had done so many years before with Emmy, we went, we brought her home and she became our kitten. “And so it starts “, I said to Martin and so it starts.
This thing called life, this circle of love and life and loss and death and beauty and kittens and one-way trips to the vet and trips home in the car with the kitten and so it starts. And so as it turns out hearts are made to love, and even when they break over and over again, being broken is, in fact, nothing compared to the power of love.
To Emmy January,1 2001- June 12 2020 and to Corey June 13 2020