I have always walked at night.

Sometimes I run as well, but before I even considered the possibility that I was capable of running without an asthma attack, I walked. Sophie was a very active puppy who did not tire easily, and up until five or so years ago I still routinely took her out for three or four miles at night. It’s where I work out fight scenes with my book playlists in the background, where plots untangle and books fix themselves.

Particularly during times of high stress or worry, I would walk at night. Always. In 2005, when Aunt Judy was seriously ill and hospitalized, and I learned she might not make it, I would go out with Sophie for two hours or more at night and just walk around town. When she died, I walked. When my dad died, I walked. When I grieve, I walk. Less so in winter, obviously, and there’s always a period in the spring when I build up the habit of 5-10K a night for five nights a week.

It’s been nearly four weeks since Dinah died, and I can’t walk at night.

What happened that night is something only a couple of people know: I was getting dressed to go out for my nightly 5K. My friend Danni is in Australia, so it’s usually late at night that I get her emails for freelance stuff. I’d had one email and a couple more came in, so while I had my shoes on and was dressed, I sat by the laptop to answer them real quick, then got up to go.

Dinah began vocalizing from the kitchen, and then I discovered one of her legs was paralyzed. What followed was the longest wait I have ever experienced as I tried to find someone up that late to take us to the emergency vet out of town. She died not ten minutes on the road (from a blood clot–random, unpredictable, and the likelihood of the emergency vet having a clot-buster was unlikely, I have learned…even humans die routinely on the way to the hospital from blood clots, although it brings me no comfort to know she couldn’t be saved).

Had I not stopped for that email, I would’ve come home to find her dead (or not found her at all until it was time to go to bed around 2am). She was already in horrible fear and pain that I couldn’t stop, couldn’t comfort her over, but she would’ve died entirely alone as well.

For the next week I functioned in total shock, still unable to believe she was gone–the first four days I spent entirely in bed, not speaking to anyone. And when my friend suggested I meet her in Montreal two weeks ago, I hopped on a train and spent the next week and a half traveling. I could do that, for some reason–I could leave the rest of my cats for a week and a half and trust they would be okay. Part of me even believed somehow I’d come home and she’d be there, like it was all some horrible nightmare. (She was waiting for me, just in a different form.)

But now I can’t go out at night for a walk. It’s like there’s a block there and I physically get sick and start having panic attacks when I even think about getting up to go out. Every time I try, I just keep thinking about how she would’ve died alone, about how I lost the rest of my heart that moment out of nowhere, and I can’t move. And I also have no reason to–with no dog (and no, I do not want another right now, please do not ask me), I have nothing external making me do it, and no reason to leave.

It feels stupid and illogical–realistically I know no one is going to die the moment I step out of the apartment. I have always had anxiety and always had pets, which means I am very used to the feeling of “What if the apartment is on fire and my babies are dying” that I have to fight against every damn time I’m outside the home.

But this is different and it’s paralyzing and I relive her dying over and over again.

I have gone all this time not really speaking about it to anyone–most people excel abundantly with making it clear they do not understand this bond that I’ve lost, or the actual trauma this has been, and it’s better for my mental health if I juts keep it buried than have to deal with explaining to humans who aren’t going to get it. But course my Platonic Murder Wife did. In discussing health issues last night and needing to pick up some good habits again, I finally confessed the difficulties I’m having and she simply said to me “Just go downstairs, go outside, and then come right back in. Next time, try one minute outside. Then five minutes.”

Oh, I thought, of course. Baby steps.

I am an all or nothing person and it LITERALLY never occurred to me that I didn’t immediately have to start back up with 5K around the canal. It’s the kind of lesson I have to keep learning over and over again.

So last night at 11:30, I went out.

I walked to the park, and then came home. I set the stopwatch on my phone–it was five minutes exactly.

A five-minute baby step.

It might take a few months but I’ll try to get back in the habit. I have neighbours downstairs now, and no matter how well-insulated their ceiling is, I don’t want to risk my very old, loud treadmill bothering them. My health will suffer if I stay physically inactive and I can’t be out during daylight without getting really sick.

Everything is different now–my entire household is different. Temperance von Eviltry, aka the Doombuggy, is the one that grieves with me–she was Sophie’s cat this past seven years, and Dinah was the matriarch she grew up with. When she isn’t lying on the back of the couch behind my head, she sits in the hallway and stares at me and cries all day; at night, she’s the one who sleeps with me now, as we’ve both lost those we were bonded with. It’s not the same–not for her, not for me–but at least when I reach over, I find a cat there in the dark at night. But it’s never Dinah, and I can’t even walk myself to exhaustion at night to be able to sleep.

Baby steps for now, though.

No, I’m not okay yet, but trying to keep busy.

Next month I’m launching a Livi postcard story via Patreon–folks $5+ will get a postcard in the mail every month (for five or six months?) with a personalized note from Livi so you can follow her on an adventure.

For folks at $10+, you’ll also get a fun package at the end with your own little travel journal, a map, and a little gift in that box that will be a surprise.

I have a lot of postcards so if you want to join after the first round goes out, you’re welcome to join then, but an FYI that it’s starting soon.

Folks on Patreon got an update today about the new title of Livi #3 and what I’m currently working on.

The first thing you need to know is that my beloved cat Miss Dinah Fantastico died suddenly last night.

It was everything Sophie’s passing was not. Sophie was planned and peaceful, done at the right time when she was ready, surrounded by love and comfort.

Dinah’s death was horrific, filled with sudden terror and pain I couldn’t stop for her, and was so deeply traumatizing to witness I expect it to be scarred on me the rest of my life. I’ve slept for two hours in the past day and a half–it’s like I don’t remember how to sleep without her at my side.

Not to minimize Sophie’s death, but there were so many ways in which I could recognize I was lucky, and my gratitude tempered a lot of the pain. It was something I could cope with and have a sense of peace over.

There is no such thing now. I am holed up in my room and not planning to leave for at least three days. For a writer who generally enjoys describing pain in exquisite detail, I have no words for this. I waver between utter shock and feeling like I’ve been cleaved in two. This is a nightmare and I can’t wake up and I just want my baby back again. I have many cats I love very much, but Dinah was the one who was MY cat. My dæmon.

So I’ve once again reached a point where people are checking in on me to ensure I don’t spiral past the point of no return and kill myself (not going to lie, while in my opinion I am not at risk right now, the only thing I want in the world is to just be with my babies again–I only got those few hours of sleep this afternoon when I imagined joining them. Such thoughts can be a survival mechanism, so until you suspect i’m actively making plans, please leave me to them).

Despite my gratitude that folks check in and worry about me, and want to be there for me, I also know that their deep concern comes from awareness that I am mentally ill and have a long history of dangerous major depressive episodes.  I know the knot of worry I have with ill pets, how I am so afraid I’ll miss something, and it’s exhausting.

I tried to condense my thoughts into a Twitter thread and will once again try to describe a recent realization I had here in this format as well.

There’s a built in assumption that those acting as caregivers for a long period of time to someone who is deeply ill/in pain do have feelings of relief when the person they care for finally passes. Not that they didn’t love or care for them, but it’s a complicated situation and some relief (and guilt for it) would be natural. (Note: anyone who feels that way, your feelings are entirely valid and every situation is different).

When you’re mentally ill, that narrative plays in for you as well.

I think more non-depressed/non-suicidal people would understand the thought processes better if they realized we essentially feel like we’re terminally ill. We’re in constant pain, there is no hope of it getting better, and some of us just want that pain to stop the way someone with a terminal physical illness would.

So while yes, we may be surrounded by people who care and love us, we feel like we are a burden, and that while others would be sad if we died, ultimately they’d be relieved. Just think–they wouldn’t have to call and check in, they wouldn’t have to drop by for a wellness check, they wouldn’t have that persistent knot of worry that they might miss a sign. Knowing all people do to help ensure we stay well or don’t kill ourselves can make us feel burdensome.

I have operated under this assumption for years about myself.

When I described in my previous post of what it was like living after Sophie was gone, I said I was prepared to feel guilt for any relief at her passing…but there was none. Not an ounce of relief.

To the outside, she probably looked like a burden. My entire world revolved around her care–my time, my schedule, my finances. It left me homebound all of the time and limited in what I could do or where I could go; all of my money was tied up in vet bills; physically I was exhausted carrying her up and down the stairs, going out in the middle of the night with her, etc.

But none of that was a burden.

It was extremely difficult. It was taxing physically, mentally, and emotionally. But I would’ve gladly done it the rest of my life if she could’ve stayed. Nothing ever felt like I was making sacrifices–there was nothing I wanted more than to have her in my life.

So I have realized in the weeks since losing her…I am someone’s Sophie.

While caring for me as a friend or family member can be taxing and difficult, it doesn’t mean I’m a burden. That this is work some people will gladly do if it means I’m in their life. Not once is the weight of all the extra things done to ensure my wellness greater than my presence in this world.

I recognize that the concern people are showing me in the wake of Dinah’s sudden, devastating passing as my mental health takes such a violent blow is not a burden they bear; it’s the work they do without regret because I matter to them.

You are someone’s Sophie too.

She’s been gone almost seven days.

I now live in the after; there was the eighteen years I had a dog, and now the after when I don’t. I’m heartbroken.

I want to do a proper memorial post for Sophie, something positive and celebratory, but I’m still dragging myself through this swap of the after.

I’m trying to focus on the many ways in which I am lucky: I had those eighteen years. Her health was excellent for most of them and we managed the months it was not. And she was ready–it was the right decision. Since I made the call and started counting down our last two weeks, she rapidly began to deteriorate in a way even I wasn’t expecting; by the time last Tuesday rolled around, she didn’t even want to get out of bed and we moved up the home vet visit by a few hours so she didn’t have to wait any longer. She knew, she was ready. She went peacefully surrounded by those who love her–even her two cats sat on either side of her and watched. It was a good life lived, a good death. I am lucky.

The final veterinary and cremation costs were well over $500, plus two weeks of all her favourite (fucking $4/can) foods and freshly cooked chicken that cost god knows how much total–I am lucky I didn’t have to even think about it, from generous donations sent my way by friends and family. There was no scrambling to figure things out, and I got to spend her last days without taking time from her to worry about work. I am lucky.

Not a single person suggested to me she was “just a dog” or that my grief was/is misplaced; I am lucky (that I am not in jail for having to kill anyone for saying something stupid like that).

I have so many someones who care about me to check in and help out, chief among them a someone who would cross timezones and spend a small fortune to fly here last minute, rent a car, and ensure I didn’t fall into the black hole of depression and be unable to climb out again. I am lucky.

I am lucky. I am grateful. But I am still so wounded it’s hard to breathe.

The apartment is quiet now in a way I tried to prepare for but couldn’t. My life is quiet in a way I couldn’t anticipate. Everything about my entire day has always been about her: I got up because she had a food/meds/pee schedule, I dressed because she had to go out, I knew I took my meds because I had them after I gave hers. These last few weeks, I only slept when she did.

I expected to feel guilt for the fact that I’d be relieved I can now sleep the entire night through without stumbling down the stairs with her in my arms for a pee break, that I can sleep in, that I don’t need to climb over baby gates (meant to keep her from the kitchen floor where she could slip), that I don’t need to scramble to figure out how I would pay for her hundreds in medication this month, that I can leave the apartment for more than four hours at a time and don’t have to schedule it around her bathroom breaks, that I don’t have that constant knot of anxiety in my gut worrying about something happening to her.

But I don’t. There is no guilt because there’s no relief. I would happily spend the rest of my life with those sacrifices if it meant she could be here forever. The only relief to be found is that she’s free from any pain or discomfort.

Her two cats know something happened. What they understand, I can’t say, but they’re somber. I’m glad they were there to witness, that I didn’t just leave with her and have her not come back, although I’ve still found Doombuggy crying inside the door when she hears me come up the stairs, and Mo sits and looks at me with some sort of knowing in her eyes.

Tomorrow I have to ease back into work, to keep up the cleaning Dina did while she was here, to keep breathing (with the chemical assistance) even when I want to stop. Another tool for my coping toolbox: to not forget how so many rallied around me during this, and to not let myself slip over the edge when Dina and others were so willing to sacrifice (and spend) to keep me standing. That the value I can’t see in myself could not only be glimpsed in Sophie’s eyes but the eyes of those around me–if I pay attention and look.

It was three years ago today that I was dealt such a crushing blow, it still steals my breath and my will to live–and if you’d told me three years ago today that I’d still be standing, I wouldn’t’ve believed you. I’m here, in no small part, because Sophie needed me. Now she doesn’t, and I have to find a way to be here for myself.

When she was a puppy, she was a holy terror. Smart and energetic with a terrible attention span, she was hard to train and constantly in trouble.

The year before I got her Disney’s Tarzan released, and that first summer with her, the theme music was still on heavy rotation. I used to walk around with her cuddled to my chest singing that song, because I knew she might be a brat, but I knew no matter what anyone thought or said, she’d always be in my heart.

That wasn’t entirely accurate, though–she was my heart. And now it’s gone.

Still, I am lucky I recognized how special she was, that we had that bond right away. I am grateful.

This played while she took her last breath.