Living on Love

My friends and I in the last few days have felt perplexed at Louie-Louie's hanging around in the body. Surely, we have thought, he must be tired and wanting to go home. Or, perhaps he's changed his mind and wants to come back fully into the body. But when I give him offerings of his heavenly yogurt, he wants none of it. Nor water or any other liquid.

Sometimes he gives little mew-mews, as if he is in distress. I turn his limp body, I put my hand lightly next to his spine. I hold the jin shin jyutsu points of transition, the 4s, that are situated under the occiput. All that doing doesn't satisfy. Singing softly a rendition of a friend's song, "I Will Sing You All Home," and just being present seem to be the most welcomed strategies.

Louie's siblings and cousins continue their celebrations of life, as if nothing special is happening. They come in and out the door, chase balls and spirals and toss the catnip mouse, and test Puffer's resolve to keep them out of her part of the house. They curl in deep sleep, stare out the window, and rub against my legs. Each day, they give one look in on Louie tucked into his house for a few seconds as if to say, "Still here? Love you, bye."

When I was a young girl I aspired to be a missionary. I wanted to "save the world". That aspiration has shown itself through my entire life. For many years it was channeled into social activism of the progressive bent. It requires a lot of "doing" love, the sort you do for someone's good. The mind then logically insists that without constant vigilance to actively loving, the world will suffer. Exhausting for me and exhausting for others coming into contact with the energy of fixing.

My missionary zeal has greatly diminished in recent years. The remnants of it has popped up in the face of being with the cats who died in recent months. It's the habit of doing something to make it better, which is just another way of expressing feeling guilty. Jorge pointed out in a conversation that guilt is a distortion of compassion. How weird, he said, that we think if we love everyone we'll all be okay, but if we don't, we won't, as if Love is untrustworthy.

When Louie mews, I can create a story he is suffering and I must, at all cost, do something to remove his suffering. Or I can instead forgive the guilt that arises and sink back into the spaciousness of Love/Awareness/Consciousness/All/God/Life. I try turning, touching, sitting near, or not. In some way it is all the same if done with Presence.

When I asked Sharon what her impression is of Louie continuing to hang around, she wrote, "Lou is completely prepared to leave and unafraid. He just wants to get every last moment of love he can from you and everyone who love him and from the environment itself......" Once again, I am reminded of Pamela saying Love is enough. For these past few days, it seems all he needs is love to live on.

When I sat to write this a few days ago, I was going to title it, "One Less Bowl", but I saw immediately it was going to turn into a sad story. Louie's life is in no way a sad story. He is the sweetest being I've ever known. His life may seem brief to us but I suspect if he could say in words what this time has been like, he would say it's perfect.