I’ve lost a lot of family over the last seven years—my mom, dad, several aunts, uncles, grandparents, and two cats who were like best friends. The pain left behind is always unbearable.
It leaves me in a delusional state of depression where I almost always feel responsible somehow, as if I had just done one thing differently, they would still be alive. Why is it so hard to deal with death, even when it comes to our little fur babies, who we know can not outlive us?
We know death is as inevitable as life, yet we barely talk about it. When death does occur, we look for blame. We become victims. If it was a violent death, then hate is born, and vengeance must be sought no matter the societal cost.
Be forewarned. This is a story about an eclectic witch who mourns the death of her familiar—a spiritual bond between animal and human that transcends a typical loving fur baby relationship. I’ve had two cats I considered my familiars. Both of them died in a matter of three years span.
This story is about enlightenment through grief—learning how to accept and let go—and understanding the natural balance of life and death. Nonetheless, it is also a story to which any literate living being can relate as we all experience the death of someone familiar to us. We all have different ways of connecting spiritually, and those differences should always be respected as our chosen pathways in handling some of the most challenging journeys we face in life.
Death and birth are both deeply spiritual experiences.
Luna and the Lunar Eclipse
When I first got Luna, originally named Michelle, she was like the tiny little kitten in the Looney Tunes cartoon who charms a ferocious dog into being its best friend.
She never allowed anyone to pick her up, as she would wiggle and squeak at every attempt to hold her. Only on her terms would she walk onto your body, furiously making biscuits while purring and mewing until she was ready to circulate into a comfortable resting position.
Luna had an undersized body but a colossal presence, one I had never experienced with any other cat before. She understood the importance of engaging humans to get what she wanted. Not only did she have a minuscule innocent meow that could end with a question mark, but she also communicated using her eyes, body, and environment.
If she felt ignored while hungry, she would chew the air with her mouth while looking directly at me. One time, she even flickered her tongue at me to express thirst. Her persistence was sweet, making her so addictive to be around.
Almost every night, she was there, bread loafing on my hip in my sleep. I could feel the warmth of her soft, squishy belly pressing up and down as she breathed. As rain could be heard murmuring like soft white noise in our sleep, I often felt us melt into our dreams like one unified soul. The comfort of it all was so addictive.
The pain of losing Luna is like losing a part of myself.
My mind goes in circles over what caused her illness, how I could have found out sooner, how money had become a blocker from sending her to a vet for thorough testing sooner, how she was once energetic and thriving, and how I helplessly watched her youthful life energy force deplete like air from a balloon over the last year.
It was my fault. I did something wrong. I could have prevented it. Except, I couldn’t.
At age two, Luna’s health deteriorated very quickly. At first, it seemed like she likely had some sort of parasite, as fleas were eating her alive. She lost weight and lost her hair from the stress.
I took her to an emergency vet, who prescribed her flea medicine and dewormer. That did not work, so I took her to a local vet who would run tests. After two ultrasounds at other more expensive emergency vets to see if there was an internal blockage, the conclusion was still up in the air.
She needed immediate emergency care if there was any chance of survival just to find out what the root cause was, which forced me into a decision of either putting her down or racking up a large sum—over $13k collectively—on my credit card.
I thought hard about this decision. I make little money, so paying off my debt would be hard. But I couldn’t do it; I could not leave Luna to die. The thought was driving me crazy. I could never forgive myself.
After receiving days of in-hospital care and two blood transfusions, Luna was discharged with some hope, as she seemed to be getting better. But there was a warning. She may have Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP), a type of coronavirus that was only deadly for cats who could not produce immunity.
Luna must have caught the virus in spring of 2023 after California received record heavy rains. When the weather warmed, the fleas in our area became very aggressive, exacerbating her health. While I was able to purchase another two seasons of life for her, she recently died at the start of spring, the weekend before the Lunar Eclipse.
There is no end to the irony, naming a beloved cat Luna only for her to die just days before a Lunar Eclipse, which many astrologers said signified death and rebirth.
I couldn’t stop torturing myself over how I should have saved money when I had it and the many ways I could have prevented Luna’s death. It was my fault, but I was the only one saying that. Even Luna’s vet said I did everything I could, I made the right decision, so maybe it was just meant to be.
There was no cure for FIP previously. Currently, a new drug is being tested, and if Luna received positive results that she had FIP, she might have been able to participate in a free clinic study. But her test results needed to be more conclusive. I could have searched for the drug on a black market, but the stability of her health still left concerns that it would even save her.
For the extra months she did live, her health did seem to improve. She was happy, always by my side day and night as I worked, relaxed, and slept. It gave me a false sense of hope and delusion even until the end. Her loss of energy and appetite happened in a matter of days. I had already decided not to put her through any more hardship this time.
Suddenly, I had to say goodbye forever, taking her away one last time to the vet to have her euthanized.
I told her we had to part ways because her spirit was just too big for her little body to handle. I told her I hoped one day our souls would meet again. As I said goodbye, she looked up at me curiously as if she wanted to understand those words. I’m sure she had some understanding of what was happening, but she had completely given up. It all happened so fast.
I miss her little black-toed beans and her furry, squirely black tail, which she would slap against the mettle trash can to the beat of her demand for food in the mornings.
I miss her big, wide, orange-yellow eyes staring at me in an expression as if she could see right into my soul. She always seemed to smile in amusement. I miss her hitting the side of her cheek against my finger, forcing my nail to scratch her regardless of whether I was busy typing or trying to rest. I miss her sitting beside me while I worked, which she did for hours daily. I miss her squeaky, soft, high-pitched meow.
There was no end to my sorrow. It runs so deep with despair, being without Luna and unable to touch her soft, warm body ever again. It feels never-ending, even when I know time will heal.
Duke
I’ve been through this before, with my prior cat Duke, who lived for 14 years and died just two weeks before Luna came into my life. I was still depressed when my partner advised me to get her, and while I’m back in this position of losing my ever-loving mind again, I am thankful he did that. Luna has been a life lesson for me in dealing with heartbreak.
I lost my dad suddenly in late 2019 from a motorcycle accident. I lost my mom slowly from cancer in 2017.
All grief is different but somehow the same. Sudden loss interrupts life and leaves deep desires and despair, like needing water but having none within reach.
With my parents, the grief was over distance. My mom’s death enraged me; why did she take for granted the time we had together? My dad’s death left me feeling sorry for myself; just when we were reconnecting again after decades apart, he was gone.
Now, my addiction to Luna and our habits together take over my mind and play in a constant loop no one else can understand.
Heartbreak is Breaking Addiction
There is science behind heartbreak. Biological anthropologist Helen Fisher found parts of the brain in people experiencing heartache work similarly to the way the brain deals with drug withdrawal. In the Guardian article, ‘Clinically awful’: why the pain of a broken heart is real, Fisher is quoted about heartbreak in losing relationships. The difference between ending relationships and death is all too clear; there is no going back to your addiction.
One can say it is best to avoid heavy drug use to avoid the addiction and destructive symptoms of withdrawal, or in the case of relationships, stay away from toxic personalities that bring out the worst. But is it good to stay away from loving people and animals in general to avoid the torture of heartbreak? Is it better to be alone, feeling lonely and bitter, than to run the risk of losing a loved one and experiencing life-altering pain?
The thought has occurred to me now that I can’t imagine, if it was this painful losing my little beloved cat, how hard would it be to lose my daughters? My partner? My friends? We take what we have around us for granted until the ones we rely on are gone. There is no warning for the severe pain that grief brings. Grief is different depending on the relationship in which it lived but just as severe nonetheless.
The hardest part of losing someone you love is being left behind with all the habits and memories you built together. It requires letting go and change.
Losing Luna has affected me just as profoundly as losing a beloved human. She lived in my heart, and now her memories replay in my mind with the understanding that I will never see her again.
There is no replacement for a being like that, someone with whom I felt so spiritually connected. To some, that may sound like nonsense. Imagine calling in for bereavement for your pet at work, and you are denied time off to grief because the reason is deemed insignificant.
Although animals may not have the same capacities as humans, they play a significant role in our daily lives.
And who’s to say we can’t reincarnate as a well-cared-for pet in our next life as a reward for being compassionate humans even when times call for difficult choices? Or are our pets born to learn meaningful lessons before moving on to human lives? Science might say we are all just molecule energy randomly moving from one life to the next. The opinion that humans are better than animals is one of the most erroneous misunderstandings of how life and death work in modern times.
Processing Grief
Over the years, I’ve learned a few things. First of all, there is no escaping the excruciating pain and heartache grief provokes. You have to deal with it. Scream, cry, look at photos and old videos on your phone, and talk everyone’s ear off about it until they get tired of you. Do it. Do whatever you need at the moment. Most people will provide you the space to be a complete mess for a while when you are grieving, as they should.
After that, a time for quiet reflection is necessary. The voices in your head might be nonstop, chaotic, and loud. It’s up to you to quiet them down. Without a period of grief and reflection, that pain will take hold and follow your mood and personality for life. After all, the death of a loved one is a life-altering experience; you can’t just go back to your old life because it no longer exists. To do so is to live in a realm of delusion.
One of the best practices I started a few years ago was to swear off feeling sorry for myself. Struggling with one’s ego is a battle one can never win. You will go in circles, and in the end, the best you will gain is resentment, depression, and guilt. This was a challenging task. It’s more complicated than it sounds. You must put in a conscious effort and reflect every time you feel sorry for yourself.
I overcame this lousy habit by spending time in deep contemplation. Then, I wrote in a private journal about how I lean on self-pity—writing a letter to myself, for myself, as silly as it might sound, works. It also teaches you about yourself in times when you might lose yourself.
After much thought, I realized self-pity has never helped; if anything, it has left me stuck in a cycle of depression and misery with no resolutions to end it all. I could never be happy or content in a state of pity and victimhood. I had to accept that the terrible things that have happened to me or have done to me are not even really about me, so I no longer could take it personally.
Humans are so self-obsessed that believing they are even paying attention to how they hurt each other or care enough to go out of their way to target one person is part of that state of delusion I was living in.
Performing a ritual under a full moon and saying I would not feel sorry for myself anymore put the nail in the self-pity party coffin for me. That is what spiritual ritual is for. No matter what spiritual practice you believe in, utilize it in ritual practice to get over whatever is holding you back. That is what spiritual practice and religion are for. The guidance and the discipline of self-reflection, world observation, and, if you are lucky, a supportive community.
The next step in processing grief for myself is to take time to walk in nature. As a matter of fact, it is typically the first step, as the initial shock of death can put you into a state of frenzy and emotional bewilderment.
It is scientifically proven that nature improves mental health, reasoning, and thinking.
Our ancestors, who relied on their relationship with nature to survive, worshipped the sun, moon, and every aspect of their natural environment. The reasoning behind worship and pagan cults in ancient times using allegory stories as reminders of the uncontrollable power of nature. Through generational memory, these stories were necessary steps to avoid famine, catastrophe, disease, and illnesses—their understanding of how powerful they felt in the presence of nature.
The difference between our ancestors, whose lives depended on following the seasons, and ourselves, who live in cities eating prepared meals on a whim, is we have lost connection with the importance of nature in our psyche. We have taken for granted where our food sources come from, what resources are extracted to provide us with our technology, and whose lives are exploited to make room for our comfortable lives. We have taken the natural cycle of life, death, and rebirth for granted.
Instead, we believe in science freeing us from all inconvenience. In contrast, many of our politicians governing us think they will be raptured into heaven any day if they just push humanity further to the brink.
This is why many people look back to their ancestors for answers. Paleo diets, Viking cosplay, Celtic tattoos—we are lost in who we are, drowning in technology, media information, and more convenient trends than we could ever have time and energy for.
I find myself spiritually reclaiming myself as a witch, not because I believe all of my ancestors were actual cartoonish magical witches burned at the stake, but because my defiant nature would have had me burning at the stake just a few hundred years ago because I could not play along with the social delusions.
Lastly for myself, I process grief through writing. However, for other people, different forms of expression may work better. If you’re a musician, make music. If you are an artist, create art. I personally love backing up my journaling with a tarot reading. The point is that there is much creativity involved in the healing process. It is difficult for many people to understand because once they become adults, they kill their imagination. Being open-minded opens up a world of possibilities for seeing who you are and what you are capable of.
Through the healing process, I’ve come up with several philosophical questions. If we didn’t have these strong feelings around death, would we value life? Can we empathize without heartbreak and reflection?
Sorrow and grief are healthy, natural parts of processing death. We should be more concerned with society’s lack of empathy toward the life and death cycle.
Conclusion
What would our world be like without empathy? In some ways, we are already seeing a nightmare of apathy over life and death unfolding with catastrophic consequences: wars, climate change, poverty, famine, political and religious intolerance.
From a macro view of society today, most people see grief in all forms as requiring revenge to tip the scales back in their favor. Someone must be to blame. Hate and rage must be developed to cope. A vicious, unhealthy cycle that never ends.
I could blame the first vet I had seen for not wanting to touch Luna because she thought she was too flea-ridden by some regional ultra-strong mega fleas and feared she would bring them home to her fur babies. I could be angry that the FDA has not made the one drug that could have saved her life available sooner. Or better yet, I could be angry at myself for not being more persistent and focusing too much of my worry on finances over Luna’s life.
But she had a virus that has long affected cats with no cure. Before now, their fate was to die when they became ill, period. Instead, I am thankful I learned about the virus that inflicted her. More research is being done for cats, and we are getting closer to saving more of their precious little lives. Could it just be that sometimes death happens, and that is okay? Could it be that sometimes people make mistakes, and it is more important to learn from them than enact revenge and take everything in life away from them to “even the score”?
With great confidence, research, and timed planning, one can control much of the world around them in their favor. Witches often see themselves capable of manipulating life around them through ritual magic, natural science, and shadow work. Still, we are nothing more than ancient scientific medical practitioners before science and medicine were clearly defined by men who wanted total control.
People tend to delude themselves into thinking it’s possible to control what happens in their lives, but one thing we can not control is life and death itself. Death is necessary for rebirth to occur. I cannot count the number of times I had to go through the death of something, be it a person, animal, job, or living situation, that seemed outrageously unfair but sent me on the path I had wanted and needed to be on. Without change, we remain complacent and stagnant. We dream of doing things and being places far out of reach without enacting the change required to achieve our goals. Our old habits and addictions hold us in place.
Add to that our cultural contradictions. Western culture will simultaneously treat animals and humans as expendable capital meant to be owned, exploited, and used while at the same time appropriate Hindu and Buddist practices for capital gains labeled “new age enlightenment.” Who’s to say we don’t reincarnate our spiritual energy when our entire existence is born of energy from this world?
Losing Luna was a spiritual experience that grounded me in reality. It was a year-long journey filled with suffering, hardship, joy, and hope. I realized I put a certain amount of emotional dependency on Luna that was not her responsibility to own. The irony of losing Luna the weekend before a historic Lunar eclipse, which signified death and rebirth, was not lost on me. I have recognized the need to let go of her and embrace what will come. Luna’s short life will not have been lived in vain.
