Hello friends. It’s been a hot second since I’ve written, not by design or desire, but because as so often happens, life took an unexpected turn over the past few months that bent all my best intentions out of shape. Let me fill you in about what’s been happening since my last post on Harvest Home, as well as what I’ve learned about how plants have always supported humans in times of grief.

I’d planned to spend October sinking gleefully into crisp days, burnished leaves, snuggly blankets and a good book, soaking up all the hygge and natural beauty of the season. I had just spent a glorious weekend in rural Pennsylvania for Tudorcon 2021 (more on that another time), and I was inspired, energized and so ready to embrace my favorite season.

Then I noticed some changes in the behavior of my oldest cat, Jasper, and I felt a niggle of trepidation in the back of my mind that was accompanied by my sinking heart.

A note about what’s to come

[I’m going to pause here for a moment of total transparency. The next bit of the story is going to be sad, especially for the animal lovers out there, so if the topics of pet illness or pet loss are ones you’d rather not read, that’s totally okay. If you’d like to skip that part and just read more about the historical remedies for melancholy and grief, I’ll be back on Thursday with that part of the story; please join us again then! In the meantime, here’s a picture of my two adorable “J” kitties, Jasper and Jacquetta.]

How to part with your heart; or, the story of a girl and her cat

I have to say at this point that Jasper was never “just a cat” to me; it’s hard to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced this kind of connection with an animal, but we were the best of friends from the day he was adopted; he laid claim to my heart immediately and never, ever let go.

At first, I held onto the hope that Jasper’s decreased mobility and weight loss were due to the health issues he already had as a cat nearly 15 years of age. We’d been monitoring a heart murmur and developing arthritis for months, and he’d just been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism a few weeks before; surely that explained everything, right? 

I’ll skip the details of the next week (gosh, it was a suspenseful, anxious week), but after an emergency clinic visit, two days of monitoring by our regular vet, and an overnight stay with the amazing staff at the University of Minnesota’s veterinary medicine facility, we finally had some answers. Unfortunately, they weren’t the ones we wanted. 

The issue that landed us in the pet E.R. turned out to be a case of pancreatitis. Jasper recovered, thanks to the care of our vet and the U of M’s team, and I was relieved to learn that pancreatitis is generally not as dangerous (and possibly lethal) in cats as it is in dogs. Our relief was short-lived, however, as during some of the extensive testing that was done when treating the pancreatitis, growths were identified on several of Jasper’s internal organs. Further testing revealed that it was in fact lymphoma, and it had already spread enormously throughout his body, masked by the symptoms of his hyperthyroidism and other underlying conditions.

We had two options. We could go through chemo, which would be very taxing on his body given those other conditions and would give him another eight months or so (not to mention the very high price tag, which we’d gladly have paid if it could have controlled the cancer without taking too much out of Jasper). The doctors weren’t terribly optimistic about that route, though, and in the end we chose palliative care and a course of steroids that would give him a boost for a few weeks. Though it would probably only give him another one or two months, he was likely to have a high quality of life for most of that time, so we decided this was a situation in which quality mattered much more than quantity. 

Friends, I’ll never be able to adequately describe the mix of emotions I felt that day. Strangely, my immediate reaction was simply relief that, after a few days that were very touch-and-go, I wasn’t having to say goodbye to my best friend right then and there. I was so thankful to have even just another day with him. Of course, that was very quickly replaced by a panicky and tearful sense of disbelief, denial and despair as I started to absorb the sad diagnosis. 

We spent the next several weeks simply savoring our time with him as much as possible. I’d previously bought a backpack carrier to use with any of the cats, and somewhat to my surprise, Jasper adapted to it immediately. It was like suddenly he realized that being taken places, fussed over and utterly spoiled was a pretty okay lifestyle, and I’m so glad we were able to make those special memories and truly have fun together as a family. 

As we knew would happen, however, eventually the steroid treatments lost their effectiveness, and Jasper’s condition worsened a bit each day. It’s too painful to catalogue those two weeks or so in detail, but we did our best to keep him as comfortable as possible while we cuddled him and waited for him to let us know when he was ready to go. 

On the morning of his last full day, Jasper had started looking pretty rough, so I called out from work that day to be with him. By late evening, my husband and I had to face the fact that he was suffering and seemed to be telling us he was tired of fighting. We knew we’d have to make the heartbreaking call to our vet in the morning to see when we could help him cross the Rainbow Bridge. We knew from experience with Lancelot, our beloved dog who crossed the bridge nearly five years ago, that although the clinic staff would take wonderful care of all of us and would be a huge supportive help, holding a dear friend’s paw while they cross is a tough, tough thing to do. Of course we would do so willingly, but we knew how much emotional pain it would bring. We went to bed, curled up around Jasper, telling him we loved him. 

As it turned out, Jasper had one last bit of kindness up his sleeve for us. A little after 5:00am, he meowed once, loud enough to wake us up. He seemed to be trying to move, so Chris took him gently over to the litter box and the water dish in case he wanted either of those, then brought him back to his spot on the bed where he seemed to want to be. A few minutes later, I could see that his breathing had stopped. My darling boy went peacefully, and I pray without pain, and spared us all the trauma of that final vet visit. Even as I sat with him, tears streaming down my face while I kissed him goodbye and told him how much I loved him one last time, I knew he’d made his last journey on his own terms. I’ll never forget his last gift of peace. 

Learning, even in the midst of grief

When we got Jasper’s diagnosis and the expected timeline, at least we knew we would have a little bit of time to prepare ourselves to absorb the impact. In addition to purposefully making opportunities for memories together, I started thinking about how I could plan for simple things that might provide moments of respite from the inevitable grieving. Me being me, I began to wonder how generations of people before me have faced and survived great grief, which in so many eras was much more common than it is for most of us today. Perhaps, I thought, I could accept the inevitable with some measure of grace if I viewed it through the lens of the past, acknowledging the unavoidability of sadness and learning how those before me leaned on their ready plant allies to find a way forward.

NEXT UP: I share what I’ve gleaned from herbalists across the past millennium. See which plants have been the go-to choices across centuries when loss, tragedy or even just the winter doldrums strike in Feeling blue? Herbs can help.