Hush

This, it begins with recognition, this comes, then repressed. But not tonight. Perhaps it was because my baby had cried because another cat went missing. Just left, just gave birth and left her children. Left my baby crying. My baby cried again when months before then she cried because her cat went missing. Just gone and I found out during my first goddaughter's seventh birthday...
...........The cat was my birthday gift to my baby, another baby for her, a brother to my own baby.
Baby.......I still call her baby even when she's married and a mother to a daughter who's seven.
Seven...It was seven in the morning when I opened the door to its bell. The guard had said, "Ma'am, there is a black and white cat that fell."
I knew it was Thirdy.
He's dead, the cold in me said.
I began calling his name, baby...Thirdy...baby...Calling and looking...Screaming my sister's name, "Gnomie! Gnomie! Gnomie!" and just "Thirdy! Thirdy! Thirdy!" Knocking on her door as I rushed out of the door, covering my white sleeping dress with a sweater, escorted by the guard to the elevator, holding the sweater closed around me, it was cold that October morning.
By the pool, there he was.
Still alive.
I began crying.
My baby was thrashing, claws and teeth out.
He's fighting death, the cold in me said.
The guards and the bystanders said, "Don't touch him. He'll bite you."
My baby was clawing air, clawing for air, fighting, choking out blood.
Close your eyes or else you will not forget this, the cold in me said.
My eyes stayed open and I knelt beside him, placed my right palm on his stomach, tears swallowed by calm, "Hush, Mommy's here...Hush, I'm here..."
He quieted, still breathing, alive.
I snapped to one guard, "Go back up and tell them we're going to the vet."
I snapped to another guard, "Get a cab."
In my head, I was thinking about carrying him and rushing to the car and just drive him to the nearest animal clinic...
......The way I took all my sick dogs then.
It is hopeless, the cold in me said.
A bystander said, "Look, he's pissing blood..."
And I saw, blood flowing out of him.
Crushed organs, internal bleeding, fatal, just seconds now, the cold in me said.
I stroked, kept on stroking, soothing, saying, "Hush baby...Mommy's here...It's okay...Don't be scared...Mommy's here...You're not alone..."
In the background, someone said, "I think he saw a bird, ran after it..."
You will kill all the birds you will see, the cold in me said.
I watched his chest rise and fall, rise and fall, waited.
My baby's eyes were open and his chest became still.
I exhaled, stroked his nose bridge, towards his forehead, towards the eyes---
He exhaled once more.
There it was: hope.
Then he was still once more.
I was wiping the blood from his mouth, his white fur with my fingers.
What was that sound that came out of me--- I tasted it.
Quickly swallowed when I saw Gnomie with his hamper, the blanket he would often sleep on...
........Father and Mother used that blanket to warm us when we had fevers as children.
Gnomie began crying, cradled his body,placed him inside his hamper, walked to the elevator, held the hamper and him close to her body, shielding him, facing the elevator wall.
She said, "Thirdy...Thirdy...What have you done..."
In the kitchen, I left her crying with him while she cleaned him up.
In the kitchen, I saw my brother cry for him while stroking him.
And like always, the children we were and the adults we are----never left alone by grief--- we resolved to be dry-eyed and go through the motions of survival...
.....How many times have we gone through this living....
I took a shower, and when I closed my eyes against the water, all I could see was his clawing air, the blood.
I have kept my eyes open since then.
I had dressed for work and sat him with him before I left, just feeling his fur, crying, "What have you done...What have you done..."
I woke that day, with him beside me, watching me, and I had smiled and spoke to him.
I had gone to the kitchen with him, following me, then I turned around to go to my room to prepare what I had to wear...Then I turned to the sound of the door bell.
I had wished that I could just stay at home and be with him. Be with him to dig a hole and bury him.
But there were lives that day depending on me. Nine, to be exact. Nine whose hopes I had forged and nurtured. And that day, I had to be there in the end of my time with them. To be that toll holding their futures and all the lives depending on them.
I had to be calm and what I tasted I swallowed and kept silent.
..........Until the other night, when Magpie had said, "I thought that it was Gnomie who found Thirdy."
I said,"No, I did. I was with him. Why do you think I don't want to go near the pool, or any pool."
But the water always heals, and on the last day of February I had joined his ghost in the water----my baby that I would see in the corner of my eye, hear in the night, his claws and blood in my dreams--- and swam in cold waters.
I have kept my silence about that morning in October...
......Until the other night, when I sent a message to my baby and said, "Don't cry anymore...It is just like that sometimes...I am still here..."
......Until the other afternoon, when I had listened and felt the tears of numbers being crushed by the pressure from the world---- a wife and mother only now beginning her life as a woman--- a single mother who feels as if her words are here, she pointed to her throat and choked out how she felt--- a young man who had to leave home because home could not accept that he's gay, thought about killing himself----their futures all on me.
......Until tonight, exhausted and feeling the loneliness of the world, unlocked by a favorite sister's offer, "...You can quit work if you want. I'll support you.. You write..."
This recognition, and the tears come which I had tried to tap away with fingers:
Hush, love, my loves, you are not alone, I am still here.