Bellis perennis

People say that one cannot love an animal as they love another person. Unfortunately, one has to experience a loss of life to realize the falsehood of this statement. 

The pain is still sharp. As soon as I start thinking of that overwhelming event, an unstoppable wave of hot tears fills my eyes. I never thought that crying could be initiated so easily. Almost effortlessly. I find myself in the most random moments doing the most random of things, reminded of this reality, and I want to sob. I hold back my tears as I write this. He was so tiny. 

An overwhelming event such as this one, makes me think of the things that we usually avoid thinking of. Mortality, and the character of death. Death does not seem to have a preference. It picks its victims randomly and silently. Death is a mystery. No one can predict its next move.  

I think about the Herculean feat we needed to undertake for his birth. His mother, our beautiful black cat half adopted from the streets, struggled with labor. Her water broke, but the vet later told us that the kitten did not enter the birth canal. Therefore, before the second visit, she struggled for two days, coming over to our house and meowing. Meowing for help. You see, this is why I write half adopted. She does not live with us, but she kind of does. She comes and goes. She likes to take strolls around the neighborhood and do her own thing. She comes a few times during the day for food but never sleeps over. Her affinity towards a wanderer lifestyle made everything more complicated. Those two days were like living in hell. We realized that she was barely eating, and had a fever. 

The second visit to the vet. My mother always mentions that part. My mother was holding the cat in her lap, while I was driving. During that short ride, her body was weak, she did not give any resistance, and only… purred. The vet put her under anesthesia and delivered the kitten. The kitten was delivered through a c-section. Sort of funny when I write it down like this. Anyways, the vet even went back to her house to get a hair dryer, so she could help him stay warm. 

He was not set to survive. Nothing about him indicated any possibility of content and long cat life. Even during the first visit, the vet had suspected that whatever is inside of her could be dead. 

But, somehow impossible turned into possible. Destiny rolled its dice, or however it goes. 

We raised him in our tiny two-bedroom apartment. I had given up my bedroom for the two of them. They were in a box. The very same day it was born, the cat (our local batman), started feeding it. 

In a matter of two weeks or so, his eyes had opened, and he was half crawling, half walking. I named him after a charismatic opposition leader, as he was born on the day of a certain country’s elections. I would take him out of the box (while his mother was away on another one of her adventures), and I would giggle each time he would make a sound, or improve his walking ability. When I would giggle, he would just stare at me with his two blue eyes. 

Six weeks later I had found him just behind the house. In the cut grass section. We had moved him and his mother to the countryside. To see him in a state that was anything other than playing, purring, jumping, running, was a horrible reality. I could not bring myself to believe it. 

Something had ended his life. 

Every time I think of his death, I philosophize. He was so small and so innocent. His presence almost unnoticeable. He did not take any space nor did he harm anyone or anything. Who or what put its life to an end? Why did he have to die? 

The philosophizing sessions either calm me or intensify and increase my regret. If something does shorten our lives, it is probably regret and a strong conscience.  

Did he have any idea how much we loved him? 

I sit by my desk and stare at the screen. I stare at the written attempt of breaking down my feelings about the current reality. A few days have passed since the overwhelming event, and that picture, the first picture that my mind processed when I found him in that state, won't leave my head. Engraved in my brain. Probably forever. 

Somehow I do the things that I have to do. I cannot bring myself to get stuck in a rut. It is the easiest thing to lay in my bed, stare at my screen, and lament. 

He was so tiny and so innocent. So playful. We had started calling him a tiny bagel. He looked like one whenever he was sleeping. 

I look through my window. My apartment is in the shade. Sunny. Somewhere in the afternoon. I get up to go for a walk. I want to be by myself. 

This city has a lot of stray cats. I ignore all the cats that look at me longingly for pets or food. I do that for the very first time in my life. I have to ignore them. 

The hills. This city has hills. They sometimes seem never-ending. Especially when you walk up one during the scorching sun. Anyways, it is a distraction. This is what I came for. For the distraction. 

I walk uphill. I feel the sweat going down my back. I turn around. The city beneath my feet. I smile to myself. I see a bench. A bench under a tree. No one sitting on it. Is this heaven? 

I rush towards it. I lean back once I sit down. I let out a satisfactory sigh. I sit there. I am not sure for how long. I hear a bell. I turn to my left. I realize it's a school. The grass of the school yard colored with white flowers. I get up. I lean my hands on the school fence, and I focus on the flowers. What is the word? Oh yes! A daisy. Or bellis perennis A lot of them. For some reason, I feel my eyes burning again. I am crying. Great! Now everything makes me cry. I cannot stand here anymore, and I decide to go back home. 

I find myself in bed. I am thinking of him. I look at his photos. They make me smile. 

I dream of him. I see him in the grass. I hear us laughing. I hear myself laughing. He is jumping up and down. We cuddle. He disappears. The grass remains. The grass colored with daisies. Hundreds of them. Thousands. An endless grass field of daisies. I wake up. I look at the clock. Time to get up. 

The daisies won't leave my head. I decide to go through the pictures again. Many pictures are of him in grass full of daisies. There is even a video of me making him a necklace of daisies and putting it around his neck.

I drive to the countryside. Fear and trembling as I descend the stairs. The stairs lead to the back of the house. To the place where I found him. I stare at that place for a while. I again cry. Since the overwhelming event, I have continued crying, but the crying sessions are shorter. Anyways, I look around. The grass covered with daisies. I take a moment to sit down. Silence. The wind gently blows. The only thing missing in this serenity of a place is him. For some reason, I crouch, and I… start plucking. Pluck pluck pluck. 

Plucking turns into a bouquet. I look at it. I turn around to look at the place where I found him. I lay the bouquet there. Not enough. Pluck pluck pluck. The second bouquet I take with me home. The sight of daisies on my window right beside my work desk, both makes me smile and cry. But, I cry just a tiny bit. 

Years have passed. I left my country of origin. The same time of the year when the overwhelming event happened. The wind blows gently. I turn around to look at the vase of daisies on my kitchen table. An identical vase like that one in my study. On the wall of my study, a picture of him. In the grass field wearing the daisy necklace. 

I go to my garden to drink the afternoon coffee. In the uncut grass section daisies. No one really dies as long as there is someone alive who mentions their name and refreshes the remaining memories of them over and over again.