Cassie - Katie Proctor

TW: animal death

My cat Cassie passed away in October 2018, less than a year after I was lucky enough to adopt her and just over a year after she was born. I was heartbroken beyond words, and still feel a huge amount of sadness just thinking about her. It was one of the worst and hardest days I’ve ever experienced. I don’t know if I got changed from my pyjamas or even ate. Every hour seemed the same as the next yet worse than the last. I couldn’t see past the next hour, or even minute. The grief felt so heavy.

I was fifteen when I lost Cassie. I’d had pets before and had always been sad when they passed away, but they’d always lived long and happy lives and been loved and looked after by me for many years. Cassie was different in many ways. I’d loved cats since I was young and had always wanted one. Adopting her had been exciting and so special for me and my family, and although I only had her for a matter of months, she had become my best friend and was so important to me. Cassie was mischievous, adventurous and full of life. I adored her. I still do, and I always will.

Losing a pet is hard, especially if their death comes as a shock. It’s much harder than the world makes it out to be, and there shouldn’t be any shame in feeling intense grief. It can be a traumatic and deeply saddening experience. Although almost three years have passed since I lost Cassie, thinking about losing her for any period of time will still make me feel an inexplicable sadness. Sometimes I still feel like I’m living that morning when I woke up and came downstairs as I normally do, but I found my parents sitting on the sofa with an expression I couldn’t read. When they told me, I felt empty. I felt like it couldn’t be true. She had been the same as always just hours before – happy, running around, playing with us.

After Cassie’s death, my family decided we couldn’t get another cat until we moved house. To me, that always felt very far away, and I told myself I didn’t have to contemplate it until it was really happening. As much as I wanted another cat, I felt completely torn. I didn’t know how to face leaving her behind. It felt all wrong – the idea of someone else living in our house with her, and us in another house entirely. But I didn’t think about it. I didn’t have to think about it, because even though I knew it would happen eventually (moving had been discussed for a while, but not in any serious depth), it wasn’t happening now. Sometimes when you’re grieving, even years later, even a pet, all you can focus on is now.

Time went by. I finished my GCSEs, there was a pandemic, I even finished my A-levels. We started looking for houses, but nothing was ever right. Until suddenly it was, and I don’t know if any of you know much about the housing market in the UK right now, but trust me when I say it is utter chaos. We bought a house and sold our own in the space of a single week. Things became so busy and stressful that I hardly had time to think about what I had been anticipating with dread for years.

When things got a little quieter, the phone stopped ringing and the visitors stopped coming, I started to consider it. Really consider it. Because although nothing was going to happen immediately, and there were still a number of months to go, it was real now.

I was sad all over again. I’m still sad. But despite the heaviness in my heart and the part of me that still doesn’t want to accept that I will be leaving Cassie behind physically, I know that she will always be with me spiritually. My cat Cassie passed away in October 2018, but her personality and her soul, both of which I loved so much, didn’t go anywhere. I can still remember everything, and I won’t ever forget it. People have many different beliefs about death, spirits and reincarnation – I’m not quite sure what I think about it all. But to think that I won’t really lose her after all make it feel easier.

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Katie Proctor (they/them) is a poet from Yorkshire, England. They write freeform poetry and prose typically regarding their experience with love, relationships and mental health. Their debut collection of poetry, Seasons, was published in 2020, and their sophomore collection A Desire for Disaster will be published later this year, both by Hedgehog Poetry. They are the editor-in-chief of celestite poetry, a journal of creative writing and non-fiction. They are a student with a passion for literature, history and classics, and plan to study English Literature at university. You can find them on Twitter and Instagram @katiiewrites.