The cat is dead. My fury love, my source of comfort, the yang to the yin of his brother or cousin Tigre, a royal black lion of a cat in winter, fluffy, with a mane framing his face and his Egyptian nose, died suddenly yesterday morning. He was cuddled up at my feet on the bed, and when I stuck one foot out of the covers at 6:30 or so he put his little paw on me to say hi, yes, I’m here. At 7am he went out when Tigre came in, and at 7:15, when Cyrille turned out of the gate to catch his early flight, he saw his lifeless body on the side of the perimeter wall of the property. He stopped to see that he was already gone. He tried to call me, but I silenced the call, not wanting to wake the kids, then saw a text come through to look at my WhatsApp, and when I did, I saw the terrible, unbelievable news. Réglisse is dead. He is outside, already gone. Don’t wake the kids.

So I ran out to find him, and picked up his floppy, warm body and cried and cried. Not this poor innocent creature, who loved us so much, brought us so much joy and comfort. This loving beast that was still so young, who I thought would be around for years and years as part of our family. Not another loss. Not now. He was part of my plan of recovery, of convalescence. Work a bit, write a bit, cuddle and nap with the cats. Now one is gone. Now what am I supposed to do.

Never have I felt like such an adult. Cyrille is not here, for a couple more days. I have a dead cat in the doghouse, the dog house that I bought for when we go away for a few days and need to feed and shelter the cats, something that has probably never been really used until now. Now there is a dead cat in there and I have to dig a hole in the cold ground and bury him.

Now I am devastated. I am more shocked by this senseless and sudden act than by the death of my mother. At least her death was warned, was impending, immanent. Réglisse was alive one moment and dead the next. The bed was still warm from where he’d been sleeping. Not an old fat cat with health problems, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can only assume that he was hit by a car from one of the four houses on our dead end street, at 7:10 in the morning, on a Saturday. This seems ridiculous, but it’s that or he landed on his neck and broke it from a height of five feet. This seems even more preposterous that the unlikelihood of the first explanation.

And why God, why? Why would you do this to us now? Losing my mother was a spiritual experience like no other. I was lifted up into my faith, into my belief, and now this: completely senseless and hurtful, it is breaking me. There is no peace from this, no release, only further heartbreak in a place where I’d prayed for peace and comfort. Why this now God? Do I not deserve some respite for all that I have given? I feel that I am being tested. Does everything happen for a reason, or are somethings just random and can be horrible. I don’t know where this is going to take me, I am still too far down in it. I’m still looking out of the corner of my eye when I hear a noise, as I think it’s him. I broke down sobbing on the way home yesterday, as I was aware of the familiar feeling, usually so subtle, that I was happy to go home and see the cats. But yesterday, it was just one cat, for the first time, and I cried and cried and cried. Why would God take such an innocent, perfect, loving spirit away from us, from me, in a time when he was so deeply needed.

Why God, why?