I couldn’t wear my jacket anymore, it smelled like the sweet, nauseating smell of death and decay. I held her against my jacket and it became ruined. It became tainted. I swore I was going to be sick. While my mom buried her, I threw my jacket off in a panicked haste, threw it onto the wet ground with heaving breaths, disturbing whatever peace the morning had to bring. I hate my jacket. “It smells like her, it smells like her, it smells–” I’d repeat like a mantra, voice shattering and wavering as I held back the bouts of nausea that overcame me while I sobbed. I thought it wouldn’t hurt so much to bury her. I felt weak, like I couldn’t function – it felt like every single fiber in my being had been torn apart and ripped away from the once stable structure I called my composition. 

In that moment, I lost it – Going home and having to bottle it all up, felt harder than it had ever been. I was so used to locking my feelings up and throwing away the key, yet something about this feeling I had wouldn’t shake me, it refused to go away without tormenting me a while longer. I grew up with her, I got older, as did she. Her name was Sophie, she was a small, ivory colored cat with sapphire eyes and no hearing, which was usual for her breed. That didn’t matter though, she possessed the most love I have ever seen a tiny animal hold. I could’ve sworn it was impossible for her to be so affectionate, solely because I couldn’t fathom how something so small could hold so much compassion. Sophie loved to cuddle, she loved being held and she loved the attention. If you hadn’t pet her in at least 5 minutes, she’d yell at you until you did – her meows louder than any other cat I’d ever heard, yet I didn’t care. That was just part of loving her. 

I hadn’t seen her in over 5 years, having moved to Minnesota, leaving her and other family behind. When I returned she was frail, an old little thing. That love never wavered and that volume certainly never lowered. She still loved all of the attention, it felt like she actually craved it more than ever. I miss her, I miss her more than I’ve ever missed something that has been lost, more than any stupid piece of clothing or useless object that got thrown under my bed. It’s funny how I miss something I forgot I had, isn’t it? Missing something I didn’t even know would hurt me so much had it been taken from me is like some cruel force of nature tearing my heart from my chest and throwing it to the ground, like it was just some useless mound of muscle. 

Days turned into weeks, weeks full of grief and mourning – of wishing, thinking, “maybe if I had done something about it sooner, if I had been more adamant on getting that stupid house clean, that maybe she’d be around for a little bit longer.” I had to remind myself that it wasn’t my fault, that I couldn’t have prevented death, it’s inevitable. My mom has to emphasize that fact to me every single day, that she was hurting, she was just old and that’s what happens to everything and everyone – it still didn’t make the hurt any less loud as it screamed at me relentlessly. 

I tried to wear my jacket again today, it felt like being suffocated in an aura of discomfort. Nevertheless, I persisted. I went to school like normal, and after a while it felt a little less like I was being smothered and it began to feel more like a comforting embrace instead, for how could I project how I felt onto an inanimate object? My jacket was no longer the tainted, ruined subject of my life as I believed it to be – it was me all along.