The Risk of Love

One of my cats passed away on Tuesday—Uma, our 7-pound crabby tabby. She was such a feisty little thing, and sweet, too. We loved her so much. She was only 10 years old.

And I have been an absolute wreck since then.

I wrote to my Daily Dirtnap subscribers that she had passed, and over a thousand people wrote in, expressing their condolences—which was wonderful, but also terrible—with each email, I relived the pain over and over again. I deal with my emotions by writing, so I wrote a tribute to Uma in my most recent issue of The Daily Dirtnap, which resulted in more emails coming in—and I have spent the last two days in the office sobbing at my desk. I have also tried Chipotle and Valium as coping mechanisms, and Chipotle seems to work best.

I loved that cat. And that’s the thing about cats, is that they don’t live as long as humans, and there is a very good chance you are going to outlive your cats. After Uma passed, I have six cats left, and each one of them will end with a trip to the vet, dying in my arms, like Uma did. Holy hell. I have no idea how I am going to go through this six more times. They put her body in a white cardboard box with an angel sticker on it, and on the way to the cemetery, we realized that Uma still had her collar on, and we wanted to save it. So I had to open up the box with my pocketknife, and remove her collar from her lifeless body, which is something I will never forget.

Some people never own pets. Also, some people never get married or have romantic relationships. The good news about not having pets or people in your life is that you will never experience loss. The bad news is that you will never experience life. Yes, you can play it safe and sit in your living room with your HBO Max and never connect with another living being. I know some people like that. That is basically the plot of Good Will Hunting—a young man pushes everyone away because he doesn’t want to be hurt. He doesn’t want to be vulnerable.

I have lost some pets, and I will tell you that losing pets is harder than losing people, because a relationship with a pet is unconditional love. I will love you no matter what. You love the dog or cat no matter what, and the dog or cat loves you no matter what. With people, things are a bit more complicated, because people can let you down. People will let you down. They will deceive you, and worse. At the end of any 40-year marriage is a lot of good and bad. On balance, there is love—but it is not unconditional. With Uma, there are only good times to remember, but marriages are a swirl of both positive and negative feelings. But that’s what makes it better.

Much has been said about kids these days and the wussification of adolescence, kids wearing helmets to ride their bike in circles around the driveway. You might guess that I am against this sort of parenting—you can wrap yourself in bubble wrap and you will never get hurt, but there is actual bubble wrap and metaphorical bubble wrap, which is the single person who spends most of their time on the couch catching up on their shows. I dislike Michael Knowles, but he is right in that people should get married, but he is wrong about why—the why is that people will experience spiritual growth when they do. Not because they will have a bunch of stupid kids and populate the earth. And about having kids—I don’t have any, which was both a choice and not a choice, and maybe I am missing out on that part of my spiritual development, not knowing what it is like to raise a child. I acknowledge that. So I have a bunch of cats, which is the next best thing.

If you love someone—or a fuzzball—truly, madly, deeply, it is going to hurt at the end, no matter how it ends. When I held Uma in my arms as she was dying, I looked into her eyes, hoping she could see the love I had for her, hoping she could feel the love through my body. I know she had been worried about her health for some time, and she was connecting with her own mortality. She had spent her entire life getting picked up and tossed around, hugged and kissed. This, from a stray cat that was once living under a dumpster. We did absolutely everything we could for her, and I think she knew that. I have one half-brother, a couple of nephews, my mother, my wife, and my father, who I am estranged from. I don’t have a big family of 50 people on the Shutterfly Christmas card. The list of people who I care deeply about is actually pretty small, and it begins and ends with my wife, who I have been married to for 26 years, and been together with for 34 years. I haven’t experienced much in the way of loss. Just two cats in the last 10 years. A high school classmate recently passed away from cancer—she was my age. I didn’t know her very well, but I could tell that her family was devastated by her passing—and she was loved.

It all comes down to vulnerability. And we, as a society, have a big problem with vulnerability these days. We are hard, hard people. We don’t share what we’re thinking or feeling. We close ourselves off to any and all forms of affection. No person is perfect. But love is about getting to know someone’s perfections and imperfections, the actual and metaphorical warts, and knowing every aspect of a person’s soul. That is the point of life on earth. It’s funny—I have a big book coming out, and I’m trying to sell as many copies as possible, and I’m making an idiot out of myself pumping it all the time, and after Uma’s death, I realized that it’s all about my ego, and my material desires, and everything that goes along with it. It just does not matter. My relationship with this pussycat is what matters.

I had a dream about Uma last night. I dreamt that I was in a field of green grass, in the bright sun, and Uma came running over a hill, through the grass, to see me. I don’t think it was a dream—I think it was a premonition. I think that is what I will see when I ascend into heaven.

It’s been a tough 48 hours. Just when I think it will get better, it gets worse. It was so sudden. I keep turning around and expecting to see her on the kitchen counter, making her little mews and chirps and bird noises. Uma was a special cat with a beautiful soul, and I miss her dearly. Now just make the pain stop.