Dark Seasons of the Soul

I am inevitably going to loose my pet cat companion of over sixteen years. Her name is Pandora, she is seventeen plus years old and I have had the honor of sharing her life with her since she was about one years old. She is a gentle and loving spirit. All who meet her (of quality) recognize this immediately. I wonder about those who cannot see animals have a spirit of their own and consider them mere things, but that is a topic for another time. Pandora has been in an extended period of kidney failure, high blood pressure, and partial blindness since April of 2010. I have taken ALL measures possible, sparing no expense or inconvenience, to keep her quality of life high and pain at a very minimum if not nonexistant. I give her several daily medications, daily IV fluids and take her to the vet for regular injections of hormones.

She is failing despite all efforts and being a valiant fighter and survivor. I must now watch her get weaker, loose her sight, struggle to eat and walk, and loose her quality of life.

I am not handling this future loss and current pain at watching her slowly decline towards death. It is torture for me, daily and insidious, and has been for months now. I hurt. My heart feels dead in places. I cannot 'be' with this loss and pain, cannot accept it even though there is nothing else I can do but accept it. I want to fix it, make it better, make it stop. I am powerless to stop aging and death and, so it seems, to be at peace. I cannot love her and care for her without crying, robbing her of my peaceful energy that might help her also be at peace. This last part plagues me with guilt. I want to at least help her pass with love and peace.

I have a few close friends who have pets, feel as strongly about them as I do, and whom have gone through their loss before and therefore empathize with me and try their best to support me while living their own lives. I also have some who do not seem to register my despair. Perhaps they cannot deal with this pain, they do not find it of importance, it is inconvenient for them, or perhaps just do not care that much. It unsettles me that I do not have that support from all of those whom I consider close to me. Perhaps because I would do anything for a friend in need. I have been there when it is inconvenient, uncomfortable, and painful. Perhaps because it is at these incovenient, uncomfortable, and dark seasons of the soul that I especially need community, understanding, and support. I treasure those friends who know me so well and care for me so much that they see me or at least ask and find the truth there where it is difficult for them to see and then are present with me both in joyous times and despair both. I wish from the depths of my being for a true friend to go with me through this. I wonder if this only happens when you have a partner/spouse/significant other, not with mere friends. Maybe the sense of family I feel with my friends is not true reality or is different for me because I do not have that partner as many others do. Or worse, do we, like when we die, ultimately deal with darkness and despair alone.