I Am Cat Lady
December 03, 2024 at 12:03AMThis personal essay for Virginia Quarterly Review follows a double abecedarian structure. In the piece, Sandra Beasley reflects on living with and caring for cats, as well as an adult life without children.
Grief is a shell game. The first time I tried to write about not having children, someone put forward the specter of the unbearable grief I would experience if I did not. They had told me I might change my mind. Of course, I’ll feel grief, I wrote. Howling grief. Who doesn’t howl over their lives unlived? I can’t be glad I’ve stayed in DC without grieving the woman who would have moved to small-town Mississippi. I can’t be grateful for Sal without knowing that, if Whisky had recovered, someone else would have gotten a rescue cat named Salamander.
When Whisky died, a friend said that every time he’d ever had an animal, he’d gotten “better” at having an animal. Meaning, more confident in managing their lives and deaths. I thought, that is a powerful thing. I also thought, that would not be okay to quote as one’s approach to having children.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2024/12/02/i-am-cat-lady/
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