The Weight of Grief

Mister Kludde

Losing Mister Kludde and relearning lessons on love and loss 💔

Having lived in other countries and being of Latina parents, I've always experienced grief differently than my white USA friends.

It was never something to overcome or get past.

In many ways, grief - individual and collective- is a gift. To be in that space non judgmentally with self and others connects me to a deep longing that is obscured by my daily living.

It reminds me to love deeply, to forgive, to honor life, and greet it with open arms even when it hurts.

Crying is so cleansing, and I always know I'm in trouble if I can't cry and access grief.

Grief is not a solitary event. It is a river running through our humanity that cannot be ignored.

When a pet or anyone close to us dies, it's not just about their death. It's about facing our own mortality and the death of those around us whom we love.

We think we are mourning the loss of one person or pet, but we are mourning so much more.

A disconnect from another living being.

A sense of our mortality.

Regrets – could we have done better, more?

There are layers to our grief that are not apparent in the moment. They unravel as days go by, and we are constantly barraged, unexpectedly, by feelings we thought we handled.

We compartmentalize, deceiving ourselves that we can deal with it, but we forget that they, whoever they are, have been part of us.

We are left with a hole in the fabric of our lives, and we have no idea how to mend it.

So, we grieve. If we are aware and lucky, we grieve.

We don't set aside our sorrow, our tears, the sobs that wrack our bodies with grief.

We give in to them, allowing all of it to course through our bodies.

Animals, pets, bestow the gift of learning to grieve without being completely decimated by loss. 

Or, by being decimated by their loss.

Both are appropriate and real.

Losing Mister Kludde, knowing I was going to lose him, despite my promise at the beginning to keep unattached in my heart (that didn’t work!), has placed me in this void, this silence that meets me in the morning when he is not purring over me in bed asking for a tender touch and to be fed.

Despite my best efforts, I fell in love. I loved Kludde. My heart is broken but surely will mend knowing that love was present in his last moments and that in some way I was the bridge to another plane, another place of love and peace.

I feel the void. I feel the grief. And I feel the gratitude for having the privilege of providing love and a good life for this black cat that only knew survival and a short time with someone else who cared for him.

We do this for all we love, no matter if they are human or animal.

We open our hearts to pain because there is something inside us that knows we can love deeply, that we can be greater than the pain of loss because of our capacity for love.

So, Mister Kludde, despite trying not to love you, I loved you. And my final decision was a profound act of love, even as my heart breaks.

I pray that we all dare to hold our losses, our grief, as sacred testimony to the love, so much love, that we are capable of

Sophie and Mister Kludde at home