September 26, 2006

• Scheduling Death

  Because I could not stop for death
  He kindly stopped for me
  The carriage held but just
    Ourselves –
  And Immortality.
    - E. Dickinson

  Sitting on a bright late September  noon with the door open, listening to the breeze rustle the just-tinging trees and hearing the cat purr in my lap, I thought:  we anthropomorphize death because it is so feared, and in our society so taboo, a topic.  But on this gaspingly beauteous day, which itself brings to mind another woman’s poesy:

  O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
     Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
     Thy mists that roll and rise!
  Thy woods this autumn day, that ache and sag
  And all but cry with colour!  That gaunt crag
  To crush!  To lift the lean of that black bluff!
  World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!
  Long have I known a glory in it all,
     But never knew I this;
     Here such a passion is
  As stretcheth me apart, -- Lord, I do fear
  Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year;
  My soul is all but out of me, -- let fall
  No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.
  -    E. St. Vincent Millay

  … it’s possible, as my old cat purs and rubs, to put aside all  thoughts of Death as the interloper, the ghoul, the ax-man, the executioner, and think rather of death, not as a person, or a thing, but as the absence of it.  Life is the Thing.  Death is the not-thing.  What we mourn, when we mourn death, is the life that is gone.  We don't really mourn that death happened, or even how death happened, but instead the absence of life.

  The cat purrs.  Her eyes close.  Tears catch in my throat.  Time presses.  It’s 12:42.

  Today:
  3:45 answer first email
  6:25 rouse the family
  7:00 re-rouse the laggards
  7:42 off to work
  7:43 back in the house for forgotten item
  8:30 find IT and get the newest computer quote
  10:30 teach first graders creative writing
  12:00 meet with Principal about PTO
  12:45 euthanize cat
  13:05 watch sobbing husband bury cat
  13:30 ice down soccer team snack in cooler
  13:46  discuss stock issues with subordinate
  16:03 give up on work and write

  It is easy to say:  the cat was old, feeble, sway-backed, failing on her legs.  That renal failure rendered her unable to make it to the box.  That she could no longer clean herself.  That she cried piteously into her aging night.  That her quality-of-life was fading.  That nineteen years, in cat-dom, is aged indeed.  That I myself would want to go quietly on a beautiful day in early autumn.

  It’s easy to say:  the system is okay with this.  You call up and make an appointment.  You bring in the animal.  You sign that you have the right to do this (you pause….you have the right?  Because …. you own this cat?  This Cat Who Walked By Herself, all these years?).  The vet is soothing and hands you the tissues.  There is no questioning of your decision.  It costs $20.  They expect you to bring the remains to your vehicle before you sign the check.

  No-one says:  who are you, to stop life like this?

  It’s hard to know if it was okay.

  Or who (if you are me, without a System to explain Who) would have the authority to say:  

  It wasn’t.

   Or.  

  It was.

  • 4:28 pm
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