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| Around 2015. "Be my little baby" |
I was on my way back from Cornwallis beach after a lovely interlude with my cousin and her incredibly adorable baby. Baby Olive is so beautiful and funny that when I think of her it's a short, transformative meditation.
Tosca wasn't killed outright and my dear neighbour took her to the emergency after hours vet and paid for everything. She was on oxygen and painkillers, and when I said goodbye I sang 'be my little baby' by The Ronettes. It was her favourite song. She always responded to it, ever since she was a kitten with a broken leg fostered from the SPCA. I couldn't sing properly because I was crying, fearful of seeing the injuries she had. I placed my hands gently over her face and focused on the never ending source of love, and for around ten seconds she stopped panting and was calm. Nobu patted my shoulder and murmured 'it's okay, it's okay'. He loved her too; more than I realised.
The vet came in and the injection was smooth. Within three seconds she was gone, but I still had her warm body. The vet carefully moved back the blanket covering her. She showed me that one of her legs was completely crushed and her intestines were starting to come out. I turned my face away and said I didn't want to see that. I gently squeezed Tosca's eyes shut and asked them to curl her body around so that she looked asleep.
Tosca's death took my focus away from Christchurch for a few days. Then I would hear more about it on the radio and the shock and sadness would descend on my chest like a slow wave.
Nobu (the neighbour) went and got my mum, and I took Tosca home in her basket. I packed ice around her, and those freezer pads you use in a chilly bin. While I waited for mum and Nobu, I sat on the porch with her on my lap (in her icy basket). She smelled like death, and at first I couldn't stand it. Then I surrendered to it. She smelled of death. I stroked her soft ears, her little nose and the beautiful fur covering a tiny, shrunken frame. I sobbed.
For the first time in my life, I had control over what was happening with a death.
The first dead body I ever saw was my Uncle Robert's. I was ten years old, and Robert had just turned 13. He was my mum's youngest brother, but she had loved him like a son and had wanted him to live with us. As a solo working mum, she couldn't afford to do it, but this has haunted her. The way that adults behave around death sets a blue print for children. They said that he was 'safe with Jesus' but they acted like it was the worst thing that had ever happened. From my child-like perspective, I assumed that he was in a much better place than earth. As my mother fell apart, I learned something else. A relationship with grief can dominate a relationship with life.
Robert's body was strangely proportioned in the torso due to the work they had done to restore him. He had been crushed by falling machinery that he and a friend were playing on. I was sad that he died, but I knew he wasn't 'in there'. I wanted to stay with his body longer, to really absorb what this meant, what it felt like. It was sad, but there was something else too, and I couldn't grasp it. I was only allowed to stay for around ten minutes. The boy who was with him when he died came in, and his mother said something like
"Oh doesn't he look like he's going to just jump up and say hello?".
I felt like saying "no, he doesn't" but I knew she was scared and awkward.
My mother kept trying to brush some of his hair away from his forehead. She was upset about his haircut and the weird pale blue top he was wearing. In my memory it was powder blue satin and strangely baby-like. He would have hated it. He liked skate boards and doing cartoons of sharks eating people.
There are other deaths in which I couldn't be with the body overnight in order to process feelings that arose. If I were in touch with my Maori heritage then I'd be able to stay with the person I loved; I would have time to touch them and then release my hold.
With Tosca I was able to do that. Mum and I watched something on Netflix, a comedy I think. Tosca was packed up in ice but on top of a nice pillowcase, curled up, a few drops of frankincense oil to honour her. Then before bed, I lit a candle and put on a song by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. It's called 'Killing the Blues'. Mum and I were crying, but then we started to laugh because there's a line where they sing "somebody said they saw me, swinging the world by the tail, bouncing over a white cloud, singing the blues".
Swinging the world by the tail. By a fluffy, orange tail!
Mum and I held hands while we listened to the song. Afterwards we stroked her nose, her ears, her tail.
The next day the ice was melting and I had to get her back to the vet to go in the freezer. Mum transferred her from the container. The melted water was tinged with blood, and mum had to work out how to gracefully shift her from the wet pillow case onto a clean one.
Later she said "that really got to me".
I took Tosca to the vet, and the vet made sure I understood that Tosca would be frozen. I imagined that when I picked her up she would be encrusted in ice, but it wasn't the case. Her fur was still soft, as were her ears.
After we took turns at digging her 'grave', I wrapped her in material covered in silver stars. We each took a turn of holding the weight of her. A body is 'only a body', and yet it was the sacred vehicle for this life. This is what I needed time for. Not to dismiss the body in the name of spirit, but to acknowledge it and to say that it was also holy.
Mum, Nobu and I had a funeral for her in a beautiful place, buried deep. We stood and held hands over her small grave.
"Thank you Tosca. I love you." was all I could say. Nobu said it too, and then mum.
Thank you. 18 years of love.
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| Queen who? |
:(
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