Grief is the thing with feathers (and fur).

I had a different post drafted for this week, but it felt disingenuous to send to you today. It didn’t fit how I’m feeling, and I’m guessing you know that’s how I show up here.

Which makes me realize: deconstruction has been the driving force for that. I grew up pushing, pushing, pushing my feelings down—denying them, lying about them (a la the typical Southern greeting: “How are you?” / “I’m good!”), etc.

I don’t do that anymore; I allow the feelings, the tears, the pain to surface. To spill out. I tell the truth about them. So this week, here’s the hard, terrible, awful truth:

I wrote this to a friend this morning: This might be the first time I'm actually letting myself grieve, which honestly feels like a gift from her.

A gift amidst grief—how can it be?

Maybe it’s hope, actually. Hope breaking through, not to dismiss the grief but to honor it. The horizon of hope promising to never disappear on us.

My favorite poem is about hope—Hope is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson. (More on that in the post I originally had for today; I’ll send it in a few days).

The morning after we had to make the decision to let Simmer go, as I cried through writing my morning pages and my One Poem A Day, I remembered I recently borrowed the first line, which is also the title, to write my own poem about hope. To imagine what I’ve been writing about & wrestling with, as a thing “with feathers.”

So, I wrote a poem in the same form as Emily’s. And I want to share it with you.

There’s a nagging voice in my head that says pet loss is not as significant as other losses. I’ve even believed it before, to be honest, which I guess is why that nagging voice feels so embedded & loud. But now I know the truth: loss is loss. Full stop. And this one is the worst of my life. Thus far?—only time will tell that.

For now, I can’t think that. It is the worst thing I’ve ever felt. I can’t stop feeling it.

And, I’ll keep giving myself permission to feel it, as fully as I can. To cancel plans. To get down deep in the devastation and let my body & soul know:

If you’re grieving something—anyone or anything—I’m sending you permission to feel it as fully as you in. To process the loss imperfectly and integrate it intimately.In ways only you know: crying, screaming, writing, poetry, cancelling everything, watching movies that make you cry, etc.

The horizon of hope is still there, I promise. She is still there.

I see her in my other kitties. In friends who are checking on me, validating my grief, sending Door Dash gift cards (because boy the last thing we want to do is cook right now… especially because Simmer loved putting her face in our food… pizza was her favorite thing to try and eat).

She’s still there for you too.