Journal from The Year After Several of My Cats Died by Luanne Castle
Journal from The Year After Several of My Cats Died
January 1, 2022: I’m sewn into my house with my husband and remaining cats, but we have a wall of green through glass. We live inside a florist’s vase. We live with empty spaces on the couch and windowsill.
February 13, 2022: At my daughter’s wedding they raised us in chairs and threw us up and down, and I laughed until later when I saw my son lonely-talking to someone. The night before seemed fine when my daughter’s feathered skirt and lily earrings brought us out into the world. So that’s why. When they tossed me into the air, I heard the stitches snapping. When I saw my son, I heard my heartstrings snapping.
March 3, 2022: That spring I cut and glued angels for Ukraine and photographed my still-alive cats in cute poses until I saw in one picture Tiny Queenie slumped on the cold granite and knew more that was not right.
March 14, 2022: In his distress, my son brought me two more cats. The house walls sighed, but I stayed inside.
April 22, 2022: My mother gave me her old scrapbook with all she was forgetting. There I found her wedding bouquet. Roses and carnations, she wrote under the white ribbons, one stem, and the tape used to fasten it to the page darkened into earth.
April 28, 2022: My friend brought me Mason jars of limoncillo from lemons, rum, and honey. She prepared bags of fresh-grown tea blends that smelled like her garden. I chose the Healing Heart mix and she read the leaves before she left for the library.
May 15, 2022: When the sweet acacia fur blew across the sidewalk, my husband picked three kinds of peppers from his pots. I watched from inside.
May 21, 2022: My daughter shared her new kitten sisters with me. They were cute, but no cats. She took them home.
June 19, 2022: I couldn’t find my son, but when I discovered his old dog, the dog was almost gone. I held him to the end.
June 25, 2022: After I hung my daughter’s bouquet upside down from the chandelier, it crisped too fragile, and I read up on rehydrating the petals.
July 2, 2022: One day, a flame skimmer dragonfly balanced at the tip of a tall grass culm, and I was there to see it from my window.
July 30, 2022: A friend said it was time for me to leave the house. At the farm, a horse ate a bite of my sweater, and a piglet nipped me.
August 4, 2022: My husband and I drove out and found our son and applied a tourniquet so he could make corned beef and cabbage.
October 18, 2022: Everyone packed up their childhood board games and CDs for donating. My kids filled several more boxes with what they had forgotten and wanted to remember. I remembered that I just wanted to forget.
December 31, 2022: Tonight closed with a coral and lavender striped sky. I sipped tea from the last of my friend’s tea bags.
P.S. January 1, 2023: A rainbow showed up all over Facebook.
© Luanne Castle
I love how the melancholy and healing and joy all mixed together.
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