dwelling on loss 11.1 > 46

[diydef]

A few days ago a cat I was caring for since several years ago passed away. The reason for his death has not been established but I have reasons to think it might have been (also or maybe even mostly) due to my negligence of his supposedly deteriorating state of health. I do not think I have a problem with accepting loss of close ones, more than that I rather dwell on alternative scenarios of “what would have happened if” or what could I have done differently to prevent the loss or rather appreciate the one lost more since I often feel I received more than I gave. I know that these two are generally connected and that endless dwelling on “what ifs” can have a destructive effect. My approach to issues like this is that I try to acknowledge certain mistakes in order to enhance future situations/relations. And so in this vein I asked Yi how much was the cat’s passing away my fault. I know that this is a pointless thing to analyze but I want this topic to occupy my as an element of mourning and was not really sure what else would I want to know about the situation. I did not in any way expect a soothing answer which I also stated in the question. The answer was 11.1 > 46 . I do not really get where this is supposed to take me.

 

[my_key]

Loss and the act of mourning is a very personal thing and it might be that you are the only one who can make real sense of this question and answer for you. Stay with the question and the process, let things flow and create what you need to from this situation.

Good Luck

 

[hilary]

I'm sorry for your loss.

If I understand correctly, you cared for this cat for many years while he was in poor health. So while you can logically ask how much you are responsible for his death, you could every bit as logically ask how much you are responsible for those (extra?) years of life he enjoyed with you.

About 11.1...

'Pulling up thatch grass, roots entangled,
With more of its kind.
Setting out to bring order, good fortune.'

...it doesn't speak directly about responsibility for a bad outcome. It talks about how everything is connected, so that any positive intervention is going to be a good thing. If you are wondering whether you're responsible because of something specific you neglected, this could be saying, 'No: everything was connected, so the good you did in one area did good everywhere.'

 

[diydef]

Thank you for your insights. It was a street cat I adopted many years ago and was his supporter against many odds and to an extent also the reluctance of some people but fact is that he has also been through difficult health issues partly because of me. (I thought) I managed to safely pull him through prolonged illness and he was a most important companion for me. For the last months I felt the need to devote more time and attention to him which due to different reasons did not happen as I kept pushing it into the future - e.g. did not go for a vet check up in months. Even though I was not advised to do so by the doctors it would be a reasonable thing to do and I was also planning to. At the same time as all other responsibilities taking care of others is sometimes a tiresome task and I would at times (also mostly recently) think about what will life be when he is gone. Not that I would in any capacity wish for that to happen but I saw life logistics becoming easier in the case of his transmigration. My take on the 11.1 was similar to hilary's interpretation but in 46 I saw slight suggestions to treat the issue more self-centeredly (i.e. as something that happened to me, an experience) instead of concentrating on the suffering experienced by my friend and my share of responsibility for it happening (which was the main point of the question). That left me a bit baffled since I do not feel comfortable with my many oversights and prolonged negligence (nevermind death or no death involved).

 

[Liselle]

First of all, bless you for taking care of him. As Hilary said, what would his life have been like if you hadn't been there? (Probable answer: worse, and shorter.)

Could 11.1 maybe also describe what was wrong? I wonder if 11.1 could sound like cancer, maybe? As an answer to your question, maybe it could go something like this:

Q: "How much was this my fault?"
A: "Not a lot, since the cancer was spreading step-by-step, and its existence would sweep away all other considerations."

I tend to think major things like cancer treatment and so forth are perhaps just different with cats and dogs than with people. People understand what's going on when various horrible things are being done to them (chemotherapy, radiation, etc.), but we can't explain it to animals. So even for people who would have the money (which isn't most people), there's still the consideration of putting them through it.


Am also wondering if maybe you're caught up in a negative "flow" when maybe a little more "step-by-step" would be better? This is hard to put into words...something like, your sadness is giving rise to guilt and it's all behaving like a wide-open water faucet that you don't know how to turn off. 46 as "how to relate to this" might recommend just taking one step at a time without too much attention to how tall the mountain is? Or something.