I never gave too much thought to the term roller-coaster – as in a roller-coaster day, week or year – until I was buffeted by my own this year.
You may recall a brief mention of my cat, who we rescued mere weeks after I moved to Paris nine years ago, becoming quite ill at the start of the year. Since then, caring for her and monitoring her progress attentively became second jobs for both of us. Amid the wrenching low points of the year were several professional highs, making that roller-coaster sensation all the more challenging and confusing. There were excellent days and disheartening ones but all of them were thinly veiled with grief. We were fully aware, though we could hardly bear articulating it aloud, that her condition would invariably worsen, leaving us with a painful decision to make.
Despite our greatest efforts to become an exception to the rule, that day arrived last week. Within ten minutes our trio was shattered. Now, our tiny apartment feels massive with pin-drop silence.
She was our little child, our greatest stress reliever and a true friend. But beyond her role as companion, she taught us to intuit the subtler symbols in life. She couldn’t…
