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Nov. 22nd, 2003 04:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zestfiveToday A and I made the decision to have Jaz put to sleep. In the last few weeks she has stopped eating and drinking. I had her on antibiotics, prednezone and IV fluids to try to salvage her damaged liver. She has deteriorated too much for me to try to maintain her life. She mainly sleeps.
Tonight I will attempt to dig a hole in the cold ground before the snow comes beneath the tree that A and I planted together. A selected this spot. When A comes back from TF's on Sunday, together we will bury her.
I delayed coming home from work because I knew that I
needed to dig Jaz's grave. When I finally did and
started to dig by the light of a clip on
light(attached to A and I's tree)my neighbor
yelled across from his house to figure out what I was
doing. I couldn't speak and when I finally told him
tearfully what I was doing, he went back in the house.
I was thankful for this because I wanted to regain
composure. He came out again and told me he was sorry
and helped me dig.
I went back in and took Jaz from the bathroom floor,
earlier this week I put her in there after I noticed
she peed in A's bed. I brought her back to A's
bed and she meowed and then had a blank stare. I
initially thought she passed away right there but then
saw she was breathing. I don't know if she had a small
stroke, seizure or if she was dying but after hearing
me cry she came back. I was glad she did because I was
able to cuddle with her and I heard a very slight
purring. I spent some time with her and told her she
could go and what a good kitty she was. Then I wrapped
her up in blankets and laid down next to her and fell
asleep with my hand on her until it was too sore to
remain with it there.
When I woke up at 2am, I saw that she had gone. I do
think that I called her back and I'm glad that I did
get a few more moments with her. I also don't think
she felt she could leave with me right there watching
her, but I like to believe that she was happy I was by
her side.
Found this about self respect...I like it.
"To have that sense of one's intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference. If we do not respect ourselves, we are on the one hand forced to despise those who have so few resources as to consort with us, so little perception as to remain blind to our fatal weaknesses. On the other, we are peculiarly in thrall to everyone we see, curiously determined to live out--since our self-image is untenable--their false notions of us. We flatter ourselves by thinking this compulsion to please others an attractive trait: a gist for imaginative empathy, evidence of our willingness to give. Of course I will play Francesca to your Paolo, Helen Keller to anyone's Annie Sullivan: no expectation is too misplaced, no role too ludicrous. At the mercy of those we cannot but hold in contempt, we play roles doomed to failure before they are begun, each defeat generating fresh despair at the urgency of divining and meeting the next demand made upon us.
It is the phenomenon sometimes called 'alienation from self.' In its advanced stages, we no longer answer the telephone, because someone might want something; that we could say no without drowning in self-reproach is an idea alien to this game. Every encounter demands too much, tears the nerves, drains the will, and the specter of something as small as an unanswered letter arouses such disproportionate guilt that answering it becomes out of the question. To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves--there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home."
--Joan Didion, "On Self-Respect."
Tonight I will attempt to dig a hole in the cold ground before the snow comes beneath the tree that A and I planted together. A selected this spot. When A comes back from TF's on Sunday, together we will bury her.
I delayed coming home from work because I knew that I
needed to dig Jaz's grave. When I finally did and
started to dig by the light of a clip on
light(attached to A and I's tree)my neighbor
yelled across from his house to figure out what I was
doing. I couldn't speak and when I finally told him
tearfully what I was doing, he went back in the house.
I was thankful for this because I wanted to regain
composure. He came out again and told me he was sorry
and helped me dig.
I went back in and took Jaz from the bathroom floor,
earlier this week I put her in there after I noticed
she peed in A's bed. I brought her back to A's
bed and she meowed and then had a blank stare. I
initially thought she passed away right there but then
saw she was breathing. I don't know if she had a small
stroke, seizure or if she was dying but after hearing
me cry she came back. I was glad she did because I was
able to cuddle with her and I heard a very slight
purring. I spent some time with her and told her she
could go and what a good kitty she was. Then I wrapped
her up in blankets and laid down next to her and fell
asleep with my hand on her until it was too sore to
remain with it there.
When I woke up at 2am, I saw that she had gone. I do
think that I called her back and I'm glad that I did
get a few more moments with her. I also don't think
she felt she could leave with me right there watching
her, but I like to believe that she was happy I was by
her side.
Found this about self respect...I like it.
"To have that sense of one's intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference. If we do not respect ourselves, we are on the one hand forced to despise those who have so few resources as to consort with us, so little perception as to remain blind to our fatal weaknesses. On the other, we are peculiarly in thrall to everyone we see, curiously determined to live out--since our self-image is untenable--their false notions of us. We flatter ourselves by thinking this compulsion to please others an attractive trait: a gist for imaginative empathy, evidence of our willingness to give. Of course I will play Francesca to your Paolo, Helen Keller to anyone's Annie Sullivan: no expectation is too misplaced, no role too ludicrous. At the mercy of those we cannot but hold in contempt, we play roles doomed to failure before they are begun, each defeat generating fresh despair at the urgency of divining and meeting the next demand made upon us.
It is the phenomenon sometimes called 'alienation from self.' In its advanced stages, we no longer answer the telephone, because someone might want something; that we could say no without drowning in self-reproach is an idea alien to this game. Every encounter demands too much, tears the nerves, drains the will, and the specter of something as small as an unanswered letter arouses such disproportionate guilt that answering it becomes out of the question. To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves--there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home."
--Joan Didion, "On Self-Respect."
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Jaz
Date: 2003-11-22 08:26 am (UTC)I remember the kindness with which you responded to the death of my friend's cat, and how you were worried about Jaz. I told my friend about you, and I called her this morning to tell her about Jaz. She sends her sympathy, too.
It's hard to lose anybody we love. We can take some small comfort, though, in knowing that we loved them the best we knew how, and they we cared for them to the best of our abilities. I'm sure that Jaz, on some level, knew that she was loved. And perhaps she still knows it.