Absence

So much of life entails accumulation. We accumulate things, experience and relationships. The most abstemious person must work diligently to avoid materialism in this time of gadgets and urban living.

Today I am acutely aware of absence. Francine, an adopted white Van cat who had been part of our lives for eight years, died yesterday. 

I am a person who relishes trips to the recycling store where I donate my excess stuff. The proceeds of the sale of my old items funds AIDS-related assistance. I delight in the empty spaces vacated by packed boxes of old stuff. Cluttered basements and attics irk me. 

I am also a person who does not foster many superficial relationships. I am not a big networker, I guess. Knowing people for the sake of having their pictures on my Facebook page, like trophy heads on the wall of a billiards room, has never interested me. Many years ago I realized that much of the superficial networking people do is about money and social status for themselves or their offspring. As a registered nurse, I obviously was not motivated much by money in my day when salaries were much more humble than they are today. I have not reproduced, so there is no motivation there either.

This probably makes Francine's absence more profound. She was never unnoticed. Her presence was woven into our lives. She was not a cute accessory. She was a being with whom we interacted with regular attention, affection and appreciation of her eccentricities. We realized we were as much part of her experience of life as she was part of ours. This is an aspect of compassion.

The empty front hall chair stands as an informal memorial. The new silence without her strained cry is a bit unnerving. When 4 PM comes, I will itch to get out her brush groom her thick white coat. It will stay in its drawer. I will develop another habit. Her absence will melt into other losses, other vacancies, which inevitably accumulate as we live on. Learning to live with accumulated loss is part of the practice of mindfulness and compassion. It aids the understanding of the basic commonality of all living creatures who are born, age and die.