March 15th, 2009
I have a recurring nightmare that I’ve been having for about 5 years. It’s a guilt dream involving my old black cat Midnight (dead for six years). The particulars vary but the theme is always the same: I discover my cat, who I had forgotten I even had, in some terrible state of starvation or woundedness or other misery, and realize she has been dying. And I had forgotten I even had her. Her terrible state is always a result of my neglect. Often she is skeletal thin for lack of food and has her skin split open so I can see her organs. I find her, become overwhelmed with guilt, and try to help her, but probably there is no saving her. I wake up.
It is absolutely awful. I don’t even know what to say about it beyond that. It’s just… it’s awful. Sometimes I have a rash of these nightmares and then I start dreading going to bed in case I have one.
When I met Husband, I had two other cats: a lovely tuxedo bimbo called Saladin and a big black creature called Godzilla. Husband is allergic to cats and I had to find new homes for my cats when I moved to Halifax. Sal lives in Ottawa now with the friend of my cousin, who occasionally posts pictures of the cat online, which I take as a good sign: if you post your cat pics online, you must care about your cat, right? Godzilla was taken by someone I know, and then left with her boyfriend when she left him (the boyfriend. But I guess also the cat.). The now ex-boyfriend is a cat person who already had another cat so it sounds to me like a pretty reasonable place for Godzilla to live.
The cat nightmares started when I gave Zilla and Sal away. I have never stopped feeling horribe about that, even though probably they don’t remember me at all and I am reasonably confident they have happy, loving homes. It’s just not right to give away an animal that has an attachment to you. I know people do this all the time and maybe some of you are tempted to tell me about how because animals forget it’s not a big deal, but even if they do forget, there’s something about it that seems wrong. A cat is not a book to be lent or a shirt to be passed down. It is a living creature, a mammal, something that forms bonds of affection.
But the cat in the nightmare is always Midnight, my loving lap cat, who would curl up on my pillow at night to sleep and follow me around the house all day. She was crotchety with strangers but devoted to me. I was not always a good owner to her – I made bad choices about her in the interest of ex-boyfriends and my own convenience. She lived her last few months with my dad, who was home more than I was so she was cared for better by him, but I know now that was as wrong a decision as I could have made. When I would visit her at dad’s house, she would greet me at the door, crying piteously, and refuse to leave my side until I left, when she would stand on her back legs pressed up against the screen door and watch me drive away. In the end it was my dad who had to make the decision to put her down, and I wasn’t there for it.
They say you live and learn and I have had to swallow a terrible lesson in this case. I imagine this is going to sound awfully silly to you but I have apologized many times in these last years to Midnight for what I did to her. And in the last year, thankfully, my cat nightmare has become quite rare. I guess the good that comes out of it, the gift from Midnight’s terrible dream, is that I will never neglect or abandon another animal.
It only took the misery of a good cat to get me here.
When I lived in Saskatoon, we had pair of cats, one named Squirrel. We perhaps named her too well, because she went a wee bit nuts and we had to give her away to a farm so she could be an outdoor cat.
One of the times we moved, the house we were moving to told us in advance “no pets”. So we had to leave our cats behind. For no reason, it turned out, ’cause they didn’t actually care :p
*hugs* I remember visiting with Midnight… she was indeed a cranky creature who loved being attached to you
Heh- remember that crazy black cat that CW had? Then there were those mobs of cats at P’s place *grin*
P has apparently become quite allergic to cats and doesn’t have any nowadays. His parents are down to about five I believe.
That sucks :p Though, not surprising considering where he lived.
It’s hard to imagine that house with anything less then a mob of cats. One of my happiest memories is still getting up one morning, going into the living room, laying on the floor and having a pile of kittens curl up on my chest
Oh good times! Yeah!
Fantastic job here. I really enjoyed what you had to say. Keep going because you certainly bring a new voice to this subject. Not many people would say what youve said and still make it interesting. Well, at least Im interested. Cant wait to see additional of this from you.