Following on from my cat-sitting post, I wanted to share something that happened the penultimate day I was looking after them.
When I went to see them in the morning, I was overcome by deep grief. This being nearly the last day, I was sad to not be able to see and spend time with them, yet happy of course for them that their family was coming home.
But doing the work I do, this felt like more.
I honoured my grief and just let myself sob, and it was sobs, not just a few tears.
And yes – they picked up on my emotional state and there were a few bats between them which i had to gently tell them not to do, as they had been fine all the time I had been there otherwise. Our heart is an electromagnetic field. They sense the world through them.
But as I left, I had this memory pop up of me looking after my boss’ cats when they went to Oz many a time.
I was often cat-sitting them for 6weeks at a time, and it was intense – one with pancreatitis, one with vestibular syndrome, and the other one I think had kidney/liver issues. But I put my heart and soul into looking after them and making them happy, spending hours there, singing to them, playing, keeping them company, feeding, meds, litter changes etc.
Although I have cat-sat since then, they are a friend’s cats, so i get to see them regularly anyway.
This was different, as I won’t see these kitties until I cat sit again, same as my boss’s.
With every experience, there are layers to situations (like peeling an onion), and I feel there was a layer of grief I hadn’t worked on, or was conscious of, relating to cat-sitting my boss’s cats. I remember the first time they went home to Mum and Dad, I was absolutely bereft, went to the cinema and cried through the whole film. So it make sense with such a familiar situation, that layer would pop up to be healed.
By the afternoon, when i returned to these kitties, I was ok. I let them know their family would be back the next day and that I may not see them in the morning if they got back early (which is what happened). So i told them how amazing they had been, and are, and said my goodbyes on that night.
Triggers can happen when you least expect it, but they are golden nuggets of healing!
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