Gone

Ten days ago, Luna died. In my arms. Peaceful. One moment there, licking one of those Churu treat pouches, the next minute gone. Her whole body relaxing into me.

It wasn’t until then that I realized how much she didn’t relax anymore. How I hadn’t felt her melt into my arms like this in forever. I couldn’t pinpoint the last time. How there must have been pain I didn’t know about, stiffness I hadn’t noticed because it had quietly, steadily built over time.

She didn’t sleep with her legs in the air anymore. She didn’t sleep pressed against me.

There must have been pain I didn’t know about.

There’s something about this knowledge that destroys me.

*

I expected the way grief would rip my heart out. I expected the part where it felt like being hit by a truck. I expected the tears.

I expected to feel some relief too–that she was not suffering anymore, that I was not feeling her suffering on my skin, in my bones, in my stomach. That the sleepless nights were over. That the horrible decision-making was over.

The second part I didn’t get. No relief. No deep breath. No deep sleep.

The first part I did: the sitting in bed hugging her plush toy, staring into the void. The trying to sleep and not finding it. The ache, the physical ache, in my body. The tears. Of course, the tears.

The part I didn’t expect was the way it felt like cutting a thread that was actually my anchor.

I had built my life around this precious girl’s aging.

My schedule, my alarms: they were hers, not mine. The apartment with a garden that I bought–my first ever home purchase–for her. The couple years with very little travel because she simply couldn’t anymore: hers. The choices about what I would say yes and no to because I had to be home for medications, for potty breaks: hers.

I didn’t expect how lost it would make me feel to watch all those things disappear in an instant. How overwhelmed. How many times I would feel “I must get home” when actually there is no must.

Or maybe there is no home. Because she was home.

*

What do I want my life to be now?

The answer: I don’t know.

Do I travel more because I can? Do I give the grief space and then eventually pour myself back into my activism work? What does art look like without her? What does work? What do the things I enjoy?

Because the truth is that she was the strongest pillar, the strongest life decision-maker, but not the only anchor I lost this year.

Portugal ripped the rug out from under me, changing the law about citizenship just before I became eligible for mine. Instead of starting the process in a few months and having my passport in a year or two, I’ve had at least 5.5 years added to my sentence. If I trust them not to pull the rug again in 5.5 years. It destroyed my motivation to take B2 level Portuguese to true fluency. And I’ve watched B2 become something less these past months.

The writing feels lost, too. My friends and I suspect that US publishers are pre-complying with the censorship they know the current government wants. Buying less revolutionary books. Less queer books. More status quo. A successful friend said she keeps seeing books that would have gone to auction three years ago dying in editor inboxes.

I could self-publish but I’m tired. I’m tired of being a one-woman marketing team. I left most social media because of the tech fascists that run it. And because their new terms and conditions say that all our stuff belongs to them to train their stupid AI.

Did I mention that my books, my copyrighted books, were used to train AI without my consent? That there have been class action lawsuits about it and some authors have gotten a pittance. I never will, though. I just get to watch everyone nonchalantly use tech built on my work without my consent that makes rich men richer while my new books die in editor inboxes.

Snip, snip, another anchor gone. My art, the career I’ve been building.

How am I supposed to feel at home in a place that can make a deal with immigrants and give us the middle finger after we kept up our end?

How am I supposed to feel at home without Luna?

How am I supposed to feel at home without my art in the world?

*

I didn’t expect the existential crisis.

I didn’t expect to look back and find so many places where I lost some small pieces of myself. But I still had Luna. And I still had to do life because I still had Luna.

And now I do not have Luna. And suddenly the other pieces feel so intensely missed.

Who is Gigi without Luna becomes who is Gigi without Luna and art and her long-time goal of a European passport? With her bestie still far away and the goals she wrote at the start of the year no longer quite fitting?

*

I don’t have answers.

It’s been 14 days now.

Sometimes I’m fine, myself, playful even. Sometimes I sit in my garden and weep because a stray cat wants to sit in my lap. Sometimes I find a piece of dog bone in the bed and it guts me that she didn’t get to finish it. Sometimes I look at photos of her running on a beach or hiking in a bog and I cry because I’m so happy she was mine. Because I am so grateful for seventeen years.

Seventeen years is so much. Seventeen is not enough.

*

I suppose it’s not quite true to say I don’t have answers. I do have some. They are just small ones.

The answer: I will sit alone in my favorite cafes and think.

The answer: I am re-reading my comfort books.

The answer: I will feed stray cats.

The answer: I will take my first hiking trip without her.

The answer: I will do the thing I have done in other times of crisis: I will rest. I will treat myself as if grief is an illness to nurse myself through. I will ask “what do you need today?” and I will gift those things to myself when I can. And I will sleep. And I will let the non-essential balls drop.

This means I might not text you back, even if I love you.

It means my sleep schedule will be weird for a bit.

It means I will yet again take out every assumption I’ve built my life on, hold it tenderly, and ask the question: is this still what I want?

*

I know many of you loved her too. Thank you for being part of her life too.