Peanut isn’t well. She is recovering in many ways, but her injuries seem to be more permanent than we first expected. 

For those new to the blog, Peanut is my nephew’s/sister’s cat who suffered a hip injury after, we think, being hit by a car. Her hip is healing beautifully after the operation. Her tail needs to be amputated, which isn’t as a big of a deal as it sounds. But she may have lost sensation of her bladder and bowels permanently, meaning she may need help to empty them, at least once a day, for the rest of her life. 

My sister is the kindest, most empathetic and compassionate person one can meet. And like most people with such traits, she also has the tendency to put everyone else’s needs ahead of her own needs. We are all devastated, obviously, but she will be the one bearing the responsibility of looking after this sweet cat in the long term. 

What would you do in a situation like this? Currently, we are trying to focus on what’s happening right now. Things like getting all the cat medication that the vet has recommended, giving Peanut the occasional massage to stimulate the area and looking on the internet to get as much information on the topic as possible. But we cannot help but wonder about the future. 

I am angry that this happened to little Peanut and I am really angry that this happened to my sister. But what’s behind that anger?

The frustration and sadness around the lack of control we have in life. That I can’t protect my loved ones from pain and suffering. I feel sad that someone as kind as my sister needs to face such a heart-breaking situation. We both know that whatever decision she makes, it will be after spending a lot of time thinking, trying to find the best solution for everyone involved and sitting with incredibly hard emotions, never mind having to explain to my nephew whatever decision she ends up making.

When having an emotional conversation with her this morning, we also talked about the reason behind what had happened. What could be the lesson here? She mentioned that she is not very good at letting go of things and maybe that is what she needs to learn here. 

Well, fuck that! Sometimes, there is no lesson or reason. And yes, as humans we constantly need to make sense of things happening to us, otherwise life could be just devastatingly random. 

But what if, occasionally really bad things just happen to good people, without a reason or lesson to learn. There is a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering in the world and most of it has no deeper meaning. If it helps you move on, by all means find that lesson, but don’t ever allow anyone to tell you “Everything happens for a reason” if you are not ready to hear it. 

Maybe one day, years later, you can look back and see how managing to overcome that adversity has made you more resilient and changed your life for the better.

Until then, please stay with your pain, grief and anger and hold yourself with gentleness. If you can, reach out to loved ones or find the right support to hold you through your pain without trying to fix it or make it go away.

Be gentle with your tender heart. ❤️