A Letter to my late Duchess Georgiana, aka Georgie

It’s been nearly 5 weeks since I lost you on May 17, 2023.

I remember that day all too well. I remember how I woke up that morning, feeling soothed by your silky body lying right against the top of my head on the pillow. You meowed to greet me as I woke up. You didn’t do this very often, so it touched me deeply.

Then as I did my makeup before the mirror, you moved to your own pillow and watched me like you had done on so many other occasions.

That morning, I felt especially thrilled when I heard your familiar patter down the stairs to munch on your dry food: you hadn’t done that in ten days! I usually had to bring you food on a little saucer as you sat in the upstairs hallway. I know you were freaked out by those two separate visits to the emergency vet only three days apart.

I ate my lunch happily, thrilled that you seemed to be returning your normal self. Just yesterday, you barely nibbled your food and you threw up your pill, leading me to fear that you would not be here for very long. But imagine my horror when you started to yowl very loudly and painfully as I reached for an apple. I rushed upstairs as quickly as my osteoarthritis would let me and was aghast to see that you had lost mobility in your back legs.

Then I whisked you off to the vet, fearing you had suffered some sort of stroke or blood clot. But the vet tech discovered that your front right paw was completely limp. Neither the vet nor the vet tech could explain it. After sedating you to examine your paw, the vet informed me that surgery or bandaging would be required. She felt that both were pretty invasive procedures given your age (you just had your fifteenth birthday), your Stage 3 kidney disease, and your general weakness. You would require weekly bandaging and sedation. How much longer would you be able to survive?

I wanted to scream when the vet suggested that euthanization was the most practical choice–to which I reluctantly agreed. But I didn’t want to subject you to further pain as I did for your predecessor, Sir Fopling Flutter, when I gave him a feeding tube, only to see him die two weeks later. I wanted to scream when that needle passed through your body. And I wanted to scream on the way home when I had your empty carrier in my hand. But I held it all in until I got home.

As I sat at the computer, dizzy with grief but knowing I had to pay for the thousands I had spent on you and your brother Charlie these last two months, I readied myself for a long night of editing. Sometimes, I simply had to stop and cry, knowing I wouldn’t hear your soft, familiar patter on the stairs as I did this morning. Knowing I wouldn’t hear you approach me at the dining table if I stayed up very late–which you usually did, as if to demand, “When are you coming up to sleep with us?”

I couldn’t bear to enter my bedroom that night…knowing you would not be on your pillow, meowing when I turned on the lights. Knowing you would not be moving from your pillow to mine as I showered. Knowing you would not be giving me good night licks on my hand after I had turned out the lights. Knowing I would not feel your soft, furry body at the top of my head — just like you did last night.

When I walked to the kitchen for a snack, all I could remember were those other nights I had brought you home from the emergency vet as I let you out from your carrier and stashed it near the door…just in case you would need it soon. (No one anticipated that it would be that soon.) And then I thought of the times I had sat at my usual spot, occasionally feeding you some of the turkey and cheese I was eating. You loved cheese.

So I slept downstairs on the family room sofa that night. But even here, there were memories of you. Memories of your leaping onto the arm of the sofa, staring into my face.

Memories of you standing at the open door, peering through the screen on warm summer nights.

Memories of you sitting on the pillows on the armchair. Even though your brother Charlie was nestled closely by my side, the loneliness without your presence felt overwhelming.

As I got up, I suddenly recalled a song I hadn’t heard in over twenty years “How do I live without you?” And I thought, how do I get through the nights without you, my fur queen? How do I breathe and survive without you? I need you in my arms because you’re my world, my heart, and my soul for fifteen years, everything that’s been good in my life. Playing the song over and over again on my tablet for nearly an hour, often alternating between the Rimes and Yearwood versions, I cried long and hard.

And while walking to the kitchen, I found one of your little sponge balls that you managed to slip behind a box of books. A feather toy was not far off. So that’s where you stashed them!

Indeed, as the weeks pass by, I find accidental reminders of you everywhere. Your brushes are not only in my bedroom and family room, but scattered throughout the house. And whenever I go to scoop the litter in your nursery, I always think of your first few months there when you and Charlie were still kittens. I see the empty bottle of pills I gave you just two months ago.

Everywhere but nowhere, Georgie–because you are indeed my world, my heart, my soul. But I know this pain is borne of the love and comfort we’ve given each other over the years. The love that was apparent in your precious purrs and licks–and my love that went into handfeeding you and fretting over you whenever you seemed the slightest bit off.

And that, I do not regret. The grief I feel is the price of our love.