Different from Yesterday

My cat is in the refrigerator.

Inside three bags.

Dead.

(This is what you do when your cat dies on the weekend and you can't send it to the crematorium via the vet until Monday.)

He was ~19 years old. And an outdoor cat. I find it amazing that he lived this long.

I had scheduled the euthanasia procedure for Monday night, and I'm relieved that Mike died on his own. It may have been more painful for him to die in that manner than it would have been for him to have been heavily sedated before his heart stopped, but I don't know. I do know that I would have had a much more difficult time coping with that situation, however.

Perhaps avoiding making an event out of it affords me the ability to deny / repress / ignore the situation. But perhaps it is more complicated than that.

I don't feel different than I did yesterday. However, maybe I am numb.

It's also possible that I do feel different and don't know it yet. Alexithymia makes for interesting times. Perhaps in a few days I will know that I feel different. Then I can figure out what word goes with that different feeling. The situation calls for grief -- perhaps this will be a simpler emotional puzzle to solve -- I already have the final label.

During middle school and high school, when I was most deeply depressed, Mike was essentially the only object I loved and felt love from. Overly-simplistic love, and unconditional love. But nonetheless, far more than I could give or receive from my family or friends. It would make sense, then, that his death would have a significant impact on my emotions.

But not yet, it seems.