Scattered pieces

Winnie

1994 – 28/12/2011

Forever resting under the Pohutukawa…

Sunbathing (2011)

On alert (2009)

Disdain (2008)

This is my spoiled rotten, gorgeous cat…

This photo was taken on Wednesday night, after I’d taken her to the vet.  She doesn’t like the vet, let alone a vet with broken air conditioning on a hot Summer’s night.  So, on top of the usual indignities that accompany visiting a vet, she was heat stressed as well.  This wouldn’t have bothered many cats, but my gorgeous cat is now 16 years old.  She’s also starting to experience kidney failure.

The one constant in my life for the last 16 years, is dying.

To put her into my life context, I got Winnie one cold Winter’s night when I was living in Wellington.  She had been caught in a humane cat-trap, in an effort to ease the number of stray cats in the area.  She was worm ridden and tiny.  She purred as soon as I picked her up and cuddled her on my lap.  She was so tiny, but determined.  She had a stubborn streak in her a mile wide.  She had decided that I would make an acceptable feeder, but she wasn’t so sure about my partner.  Winnie never did like any of the people that I was involved with… considering who they were, she has proven to be a better judge of character than I.

Winnie accompanied me when I went to university.  She sat with me through late night studying.  Threw up in the car during my travels between my home town and where I went to university.  She traveled in my car through rough ferry crossings, and my loud off-key singing.  Sometimes she’d come and curl up on my lap, sleeping the whole trip; sometimes she’d stand on my lap and peer over the steering wheel, almost like she was trying to drive us home quicker.

She proved time and time again, that cats were smarter than dogs.  Well, at least smarter than a previous flatmates Great Dane.  Winnie would sit on the couch with quiet dignity, watching the Great Dane run in faster and faster circles around the house – until a human happened to get in her way.  You could almost hear Winnie tsking at the stupid antics of a dog with more energy than brains.  I do like dogs too, but this Great Dane happened to be the dumbest dog I’ve ever met.

When I moved back to my home town, Winnie was a cat in heaven… a fire which produced good heat. But, it was soon after moving back, that I moved in with my now ex-husband.  Winnie never liked him, but tolerated him with a disdain which fluctuated depending on whether he was offering her chicken or not – her weakness is cooked chicken.  I was with him for approximately nine years, and she was my constant companion.  She would come into the study with me when I was woken with the nightmares, or recovering from the abuse he inflicted.  She would follow a young part who was scared and wandering the house.  She would tolerate me picking her up and cuddling her – for a short time anyway.  She seemed to know when I needed her companionship.

More recently, she comes with me whenever I venture outside into the garden.  It makes both of us feel safer to know the other is nearby.  When I go out driving at night, she is always waiting in the doorway to the lounge when I get home – almost like she’s checking that I’ve found my way back.

She’s often used as an excuse by parts of the system why we can’t complete suicide.  In a world that had seemed out of control and full of pain, she’s been the one consistent positive factor.  Now she’s dying.  I know that she could have been taken at any point through accident or illness, but kidney failure can be awful.  In the factsheet the vet gave me, I read the list of symptoms and freaked.  I can’t let Winnie go through that.  No way.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do.  But there’s been chaos in the system ever since we knew we had to take her to the vets.  We were half expecting not to bring her home on Wednesday.  But, the vet said that we were to come back in three months for more blood tests, so they’re expecting her to still be alive then.

I’ve always valued her more than myself.  When I was too poor to buy food, her food was always purchased first.  But I can’t fix this.  I can’t fix her and it’s causing chaos.  I don’t know how I’m going to get through this.

One moment at a time…

—————-
Now playing: Sarah McLachlan – Angel
via FoxyTunes

I was 24 when I last talked to the father. It was during my first year of being on-campus at university and I’d agreed to stay with him for a long weekend. He hadn’t been contributing to our care since the divorce when we were 16, but we still a sense of duty to him because… well, he is the father. To say that the weekend was a disaster, would be an understatement. He lived alone in a cold, small, two bedroom semi-detached house situated at the bottom of a hill. The house felt dirty, but I think that was our association of his dirtiness getting mixed up in the perception of the house. He had become a bitter, mean old man who took pleasure in putting others down and feeding his narcissistic desires.  He was not pleasant to be near.

In a move similar to asking the mother to leave when she came to visit, I left the father’s house earlier than planned. I couldn’t cope with him. The day I left I knew that I would not be able to see him again as he was too toxic. I grieved on the drive home… grieved for the father I realised I would never have, and the one I was now leaving behind.  While listening to the radio during the drive, a song came on that started the tears – Stand by me by Ben E. King.  To me, the song is about being strong enough to face the darkness of your fears, as long as there is someone standing beside you.  During that car trip, this was particularly meaningful… I knew I was about to tell the family about my decision to no longer have contact with the father.  I also knew that I was probably going to have to confront the father as well.

At the time I was living alone – I didn’t even have Winnie (our cat).  So, I knew that there would be no one standing beside me, instead it would be up to the dissociative system to come together in a meaningful way to protect us all.  This was at a time when I had no working knowledge of my dissociation, but I remember the internal conversations which evolved as I was taking the long trip home…  There was fear, screaming, celebrations and physical pain caused by tension…  But then, in a shift that I’ve now come to identify as M taking over, there was a sudden calmness and knowledge of what needed to be done.  This calmness allowed Sophie to listen to the song and begin our grieving.  I don’t think we fully explored the grief, but the song allowed us to cry for things we wouldn’t have and to get to a place of accepting what was happening.

When we got home, we made the necessary phone calls to the family.  I don’t remember much about that time, but I do remember slamming the phone down on the father with the parting words that he and I had “never been able to talk”.  I have seen him since that time – grandfather’s funeral etc.  We’ve tried to be civil to him, purely out of fear and not wanting to cause more trouble within the family.  But I know that under that veneer of civility, Frank is waiting to tell the father just what damage he has done.  I also know that such a discussion would be pointless, as he is incapable of seeing his own faults and it would only serve to frustrate us further.

There have been other versions of the song done, but it’s Ben E. King’s version that affects us the most…