Death is theft.
The death of a kitten is ghastly grand theft.
I respectfully part ways with those who say that death is natural and good and right. I’ll give you “natural,” maybe. But something in us knows that death is wrong.
Death is theft.
Death should not be.
Something screams out, through our loudest wails and most reasonable reflections, that things are not as they ought to be. Death shatters us, because we were not built for it. On some level we know this.
When it’s the death of one young and small and new, we know it all the way down to our burbling blood.
I don’t have the words to describe watching Sabine fade. Her extraordinary foster mom, Jess, will be paying tribute to her on this blog in the near future, but meantime I find myself fumbling for words, needing to speak of this great, tiny, galaxy-sized life that was. I can’t shake her. I can’t forget her. I can’t quite move past pondering her up in my heart.
Stricken with a storage disease, the same wretched diagnosis that stole Maitreya and Beamer and Tyke, Sabine had an incurable foe. Her days were filled with wonder and larger-than-life love in the care of Jess and her family.
But her days were shorter than they should have been, and they ended with a peaceful passing that felt like a war lost.
We all grieve differently, and the older I get, the more loosely I hold my explanations. My comfort is a feisty faith that love is stronger than death, that the very wrong wrong we feel at “goodbye” will be made right by life everlasting.
It’s comfort. But sometimes, to be honest, it doesn’t help much in the hour of agony.
And so we grieve, wail, reach beyond the place words and propositions can go.
My words fail in the face of such a shredding loss, so I’ll close with a poem that tells more truth than any Band-Aid platitudes.
Until we meet again, Sabine, walk in the love that many waters cannot quench.
Tis a Fearful Thing
by Judah HaleviTis a fearful thing
to love what death can touch.A fearful thing
to love, to hope, to dream, to beto be,
And oh, to lose.A thing for fools, this,
And a holy thing,
a holy thing
to love.For your life has lived in me,
your laugh once lifted me,
your word was gift to me.To remember this brings painful joy.
Tis a human thing, love,
a holy thing, to love
what death has touched.
Angela – Jess – Tabby’s Place friends – we again suffer the loss of a loved one. Knowing and watching them fade, hoping and hoping that our love can cure them. You all know someone who says – how can you do this – how can you put yourself in the situation of loving so much what you know you will lose? You know the answer – how can you not do this? Thank you thank you for loving the little lost ones – the old tired ones – the wonderful ones – all the cats at Tabby’s Place. Painful joy indeed – they live forever in our hearts. Bless you Sabine – we are glad we knew you – thank you for being so wonderful.
A beautiful little one so well loved and lost.
The poem is absolutely lovely, tears are falling.
Jess and family I am so sorry.