Eight Months

It has been some time since my last post. The semester is half done, and as I expected, my hectic schedule hasn’t allowed for the kind of pensive reflection that dominated the summer. At times, I felt like I was healing or perhaps “moving on,” though I’ve always disliked that phrase for some reason. It reminds me that Bella’s life is now a fixed point, and the passage of time carries me further away.

But I’m still hurting, and the rare free time over the recent fall break allowed my grief to resurface. We’re also fast approaching the anniversary of the return of her cancer, and I know that the next few months will be difficult.

Writing here simply hasn’t been as cathartic as I had hoped, but I see it as a way of keeping part of her alive. I’ve planned to create a main page detailing her cancer to help those who face the daunting task of marshalling their animal companions through cancer, but I’ve been concerned that such a page would overshadow her life.

As a compromise, I plan to write a series of entries on the blog about our experiences, from the first occurrence in the summer of 2020 to the recurrence and illness last fall and this past winter. I won’t offer much in the way of advice as I’m not a vet or oncologist, but I can describe what we observed, how we approached Bella’s cancer, and what we learned along the way. Bella’s death was tragically unavoidable, but this might not be the case with your cat or dog, and if our experiences can help you respond a little more quickly, then perhaps we can salvage a shred of hope from the long darkness cast by Bella’s death.