It is 4.14 in the morning of March 5, and i am sitting in my living room upstairs, grieving the loss of my 20-year-old cat Casey. She passed away at exactly 1.23am (perhaps there is a significance in the numbers, but I am unable to work it out right now).
All I know is, we’re only in the first week of the third month of the year, and already I have had to say goodbye to three of my beloved pets. Sunny, at 16, was the first to go home on January 31. Eighteen-and-a-half-year-old Noo Noo went just three-and-a-half weeks after her, on Feb 24. Now Casey is gone too, and I am looking at Monty sleeping beside me on the couch who, at 21, is the one we will have to watch next.
As several of our pets are aged between 15 and 21, last year my husband and I talked about bracing ourselves for the likelihood of a few of them passing within short intervals of one another in the near future. So we kept a close eye on the older ones, and worked on preparing ourselves emotionally for that eventuality.
The thing is, in any situation – no matter how prepared you try to be, or how prepared you think you are – when eventuality becomes reality, you cannot escape the challenge of having to actually face up to your worst fears and wading through your deepest emotions. In doing so, you will somehow, some time, find the strength – which was always within you – to propel yourself out of the muck.
This is the purpose of every challenge and struggle that comes up in our lives.
At the beginning of the year, I did an oracle card reading for myself, and was given clear messages that I would be in for a roller coaster ride in the months ahead. I knew that for me, this will be a year of being roused from quiet preparation to personal expansion and big growth spurts; of loss and gain; of change and transformation. I knew I would have to take my work beyond the boundaries of Singapore; to clear from my spiritual plate several things that have been on it for a while. And I knew I would have to face the loss of my older pets; I just did not realise how many would go so quickly, and so closely on the heels of one another.
Looking back, I realise that I had been like a tightrope walker, desperately holding on to my pole for balance as I walked on eggshells littering my path.
I knew a lot was coming up for me, my home and my work, but I still tried to maintain status quo for as long as I could. I knew I was being called to travel, but I was loath to go because I wanted to be around for my ageing pets, and was worried about the expense of travel.
So my little dynamo, Sunny, came to my rescue by setting the wheels of release into motion … for my higher good.
For you can’t leap forward without first bending low. Nor can you receive new gifts or blessings when your hands are too busy clinging to old energies that no longer serve you.
I am aware that more changes are coming my way; more releases are required so that I may learn to hold on to only what is truly worth cherishing. And every one of my beloved pets – dogs and cats, from past to present – are God’s angels sent to teach and help me with these lessons of the spirit.
For now, I will allow my heart time to grieve until it heals – as it will, as it always does – and I return to a place of peace in my soul, secure in the knowledge that this parting is only temporary. For we will always be family. They have simply gone ahead, and they will, like those who went before them, be waiting to welcome me Home when it’s time for me to join them.
Sleep well, then, my darlings. Sweet, sweet dreams.
I will walk the path that you have helped to clear for me … hopefully, with as much strength and grace as you have shown.