Elegy of Gali

I wrote this over a year ago before my cat Gali died. I had this cat for 19 years. so almost my whole life. Before she died I knew the end was coming and stayed up worrying about it. this is the result. I am posting it now because I feel like it might be able to help others with grief over death. 

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I’m sorry. I am sorry that there is nothing I can do to help you. You sit blissfully unaware as I lose sleep. What a joke, some might find it funny that I am getting so worked up over this.

My life span is almost five times as long as yours. I saw you being born, I watched with the eyes of an adult, and with those same eyes I will watch you die. Life is so fleeting. Days seem to drag on like years, yet years fly by in seconds. I blink and you are fully-grown, I blink again and you have been dead for months.

I feel like god watching mortals. This is the only time I have heard of being god as a bad thing. I watch you grow up and grow strong and have the burden to watch you slowly weaken. The frailty of your life reminds me of the inevitable nature of my own.

I cry because I don’t want to lose you, then I continue to cry because I don’t want to die. The irony is that despite my long life span and vast knowledge, it is you that comforts me. You don’t know why I am upset but you want me to feel better. Actually I can’t imagine how you must see the world. Living a comparatively short life, completely ignorant of death and disease.

Maybe it is you who should feel bad for me. After all, you are the one asleep and I am the one writing this down at 2am.

Standing against the rain

            I stand in the pouring rain, staring ahead, stern faced and shoulders tensed. I leave my hands relaxed to give the impression that I am just as relaxed. I put little effort into my relaxed disguise as my eyes cut holes in anything I look at.

           

            The world is frequently chaotic and on fire, but today the world is pouring rain and the cobblestone beneath my feet falls away all around me. I see windows with warm yellow light emitting from them, inside the windows people are laughing, smiling and having conversations while other windows have people with calm faces and relaxed shoulders. No one can see me from their windows and no one bothers to look out into the rain.

            In my mind I am brandishing a crowbar and have broken those smug windows with their warm glow pouring out of them. I have also broken the smiling faces of the ones sitting comfortably inside. Back in reality I do nothing but stare while life pushes on and the people in the windows live their lives, never noticing my existence or caring to see it.

            Some people stand alone and invisible and those people have to stand the strongest. Occasionally a traveler might see me and help prop me up before walking off into the night but ultimately we are alone in this world.

            There are times I feel guilty for even thinking about how lonely I am or how bad it feels to struggle with little or no support. The reality is that all humans are alone and the human race is a race of insecure and highly intelligent animals who shriek into the darkness and pretend everything is fine. There are varying degrees of shrieking in the darkness but the Grim Reaper comes for us all sooner or later and when shadow of death looms over you, that is when you will truly find out that money, lovers and “yes men” cannot save you.

             The only certainty in life is death and taxes but death can’t be avoided.

I do not fear death, I have experienced pain in life and unless I am cast into the fiery pits of hell, I know death couldn’t be any worse than life. I will embrace a new life, an afterlife or the sweet release of oblivion. If there is no heaven then I will not have a consciousness to be bothered by it. The lights go out, the curtain falls and that’s all she wrote.

            I do like to think there is more than this life but I am not in a hurry to find out. I would like to experience the bliss of heaven but living on earth the way I have, it is easier to believe in a hell than believe in a heaven. Still all the same, I believe in heaven despite everything.

            So I endure the rain and the darkness, I take comfort in the little things and I curb my rage against others, even those who capitalize on the misfortune of others. Any time my mind decides that the only solution is violence, that is when I do nothing at all. I know that any action I took at that point would lead to something I might regret, or worse, something I would enjoy too much.