Cat White Socks was one of the best spiritual coaches of my life. July 2018, I found him in the morning walking in circles on the street. He seemed confused and I picked him up. My first impulse was that this was not going to end well and he was going to die. The vet reassured me and wasn’t worried at all. Part of me reared back and wanted to scream at her, “Can’t you see he’s going to die or don’t you want to see it?”
His state of confusion didn’t get any better. So I did what I thought a good pet owner would do: I took him to the vet as an inpatient so she could give him the medication and support he needed on the spot. He also ate and drank properly there. Two days later I kept seeing his picture in front of my eyes and had the urgent need to pick him up there.
Back at our home, from that point on, he ate nothing and drank nothing. He refused everything. He just lay in the corner and wanted his rest. He was getting worse from hour to hour. In the meantime it was also clear to my mind that he was going to die. He was hardly responsive and crawled away.
Resisting
It was pathetic for me to see him in this dire state of health. So I headed back to the vet to have him euthanized so he wouldn’t have to suffer any further. She confirmed that his dying process had begun and that this could now take several days for the body to give up.
She examined him for the anesthetic injection and he resisted. Against any touching by her. He was fighting. He was rearing up. He was scratching her. He was meowing. He didn’t want to be touched by her, which had never been a problem before. White Socks liked the vet. It was amazing how one could still be so unruly with so little life force.
In desperation, I picked him up and he was abruptly calm. He pressed himself against me and put his head in the crook of my neck. It was only in that second that I realized: He doesn’t want to be put down and wants to die at home. So I took him with me and didn’t allow any discussion with the vet.
Letting go part 1
I made him a death box, sat on the floor and gave him a good talking to: That he can go if he wants to. That he can let go. That I can manage without him. That he’s an incredibly great cat. That he doesn’t need to take me into consideration. I kept touching him briefly to let him know he wasn’t alone. It was not easy for me.
A few hours later I was suddenly overcome by tiredness. At that exact moment, I heard him take one last deep breath and then he fell asleep forever. If I hadn’t listened to the soft sounds, I would have put him to sleep against his will.
He lovingly showed me that dying is a natural process that we humans often shorten for animals by putting them to sleep. This he did not want and I would not have respected his wish by a hair, because I was so busy with myself and my grief.
We made a nice place for him in the garden. Now “White Socks” has become a white cloud. He woke me up and taught me to follow my intuition even more. I can feel his presence all the time. Especially when I sit quietly on the sofa. Even now, he is still a coach for me. He keeps impressively showing me that death is really not death, but just a transition into another “energetic state.”
#runfree #throughballs