Losing my Kitten

Losing my Kitten

A free verse poem on loss and memory

The imminent loss of my beloved Anne evokes childhood loss.

Anne, my Kitten, a mortally wounded creature,

quivers in my arms,

her body folded into the shape

of soon-to-be eternal surrender.

I whisper her pet name, “Kit, Kitty,”

my lips brushing the soft curve of her ear,

the hospital room silent but for the tremble

of her struggle, the shiver

I cannot soothe.

Time compresses – her final days

swallow hours, then minutes.

I hold her as I once held

another feline, my dearest childhood pet,

crushed on asphalt,

warm still, stunned by loss,

my hands desperate to mend

what cannot be mended.

Anne’s eyes search for mine,

the world narrowing to our breath,

the ache of letting go echoing

across years, childhood to now.

Grief fills the silence.

I learn, again, how love

is a fragile thing, trembling

in my arms, waiting for goodbye.

When I was a small child, I had the gooiest of soft spots for all animal creatures, fictional or otherwise. Every night before bed, my dad would read me a story featuring the little forest and meadow people of Thornton W. Burgess, including Grandfather Frog, Jimmy Skunk, Johnny Chuck, Jerry Muskrat, Paddy the Beaver, and my all-time favourite, the saucy Sammy Jay. (My mom constantly bawled me out for being saucy, but I took that reproach as a compliment.)

I would also watch all the animal shows on tv, which usually featured intrepid or inspirationally caring dogs: Rin Tin Tin, Lassie, and the most heart-rending of all, The Littlest Hobo. Whenever a dog was lost, miserable, or perished in a show or movie, I would blubber uncontrollably for hours.

In grade three, I finally got my first pet, to whom I gave the splendidly original name of Frisky. (To do this day, I’m always typing in that moniker to answer one of those annoying first-pet questions to open a bank account or procure a new credit card.) A girl in my class, Janine Adams, announced in show and tell that she had kittens to give away and immediately became a popular sensation, even though she had been shunned for having cooties during the entire grade two year. I absolutely had to have one of those furry bundles! I hectored my parents mercilessly until they relented, with the proviso that it would be my job to deal with the litter box and dole out the cat food, tasks that I carried out with no little amount of gagging.

I so loved that pretty tortoise-shelled cat! My parents graciously allowed her to claw their sofa and armchair to shreds, and she woke up the entire family during many a night when she fought screaming skirmishes with other felines or became a yowling predator pursuing backyard rodents or birds. (She would even proudly bring home various gory trophies, which we hastily buried without last rights or sacraments.) Listening to those cat fights, I suffered endless anguish, but Frisky usually emerged unscathed or at worst with some minor ruffled tufts.

My precious cat was crushed by a car when I was in ninth grade, and I felt that my life was over.

Frisky wasn’t killed on impact. Instead, my father rushed her to a nearby veterinary hospital. I held her in my lap while she shuddered and trembled as the life force left her.

My Kit, my Anne, now shudders and trembles in her final days as the brain cancer that has crushed her delivers its final blow.