Anticipatory

I don't know how to start this. I don't know how to look it in the eye and talk about it. My heart rises in my throat and my vision blurs whenever I try.

I am curled around you; your fur is soft and your bones are not. I couldn't count your vertebrae a few weeks ago. I wish you could speak, if only this once to tell me what's wrong. You purr beneath my hand and I wish you could understand me, so you could know, certainly and without a doubt, how much I love you. I feel foolish, crying while you're here, like I'm wasting time I'm in the middle of realising will always be too short. Be it another week or a decade, my heart will still be overflowing with love for you, spilling out and turning into grief when you're gone. When did I start losing you?

If the cost of knowing you is this loss, this grief, I'll pay it every time.

Your hands have been wrinkled as long as I remember, and as I look at the picture hanging in my office, I see just how deep the wrinkles have become over the years. It feels impossible to see the incremental change, the wear of a body that has seen good and long use. Those hands have made dinners, knit scarves, raised children and rubbed many backs, mine included. I wonder if I've ever told you that mum's back rubs feel the exact same as yours. When I comfort a friend, I always wonder if mine feel the same, too. Do I carry that part of both of you with me? Will I be able to share it when you're gone? It feels ridiculous to cry while you're still here, with such a momentous milestone on the horizon.

If this is the price of a full life, this pain and ache, then I will grit my teeth and pay it every single time.

I recently reading the Adrian Chiles piece where he speaks about losing his father. It should not be surprising that a man known for his charming and eccentric columns, including but not limited to "I thought my pigeon curse was lifting. Then it took a darker turn" and "I’ll never forget the day I tasted roast chicken crisps – it changed my life for ever", would also be capable of writing a beautiful eulogy. He pontificates about preparation for death, wondering if there would have been anyway to be ready for his father dying. I understand the impulse; feeling the pain and grasping at anything that will help make sense of it, hoping to find an armour you can wear from this point forward to stave off the inevitable pain that loving others brings. I understand but I don't think I believe it's possible. Everyone I love occupies their own inimitable corner of my heart, each instance of grief will take its own form, shaped by a thousand smiles, ringing laughter and each deep breath taken wrapped in an embrace.

I am sitting on the floor so I can be next to you as you sprawl out on the couch. I have to help you get up now because you can't make the jump yourself. I am worried, I need to go to Winnipeg to celebrate Grannie turning 99 and I am afraid of what will happen when I am away. I cry, anticipating the end. You nuzzle my arm, your small nose wet and seemingly forgiving me for all the trips to the vet, for all noisy tears. I feel you keep me buoyant, floating in the grief, safe in the knowledge that it is simply the beginning of my unspent love, pooling and collecting. When you go, it will become an ocean.

Thank you for being here, friends. I wrote this over almost a month, one difficult sentence at a time, walking away crying and coming back. I'm sorry if you found it hard to read, I found it unbelievably hard to write. Kafka isn't well and we've been spending a lot of time at the vet. As a matter of fact, as this goes up she will be going in for xrays and an ultrasound. I have no answers right now, so all I can do is try to make her as comfortable as possible and hope she knows I love her. Whatever comes, I hope you have all appreciated her very rigorous editing services over here. I know I've loved her every step of the way.