CONTENT WARNING: This is a rough post, but I need to write it for me. The tl;dr of it is that we lost a pet.

The title of this post comes from a quote that I got out of Wandavision. Maybe not the first time anyone ever said it, but it was definitely the first time I heard it.

“What is grief, if not love persevering?”

I’ve been thinking a lot on it because our family got hit with a tragedy for us a few weeks ago. I’ve been continuing to struggle with it despite it being over and done.

We lost our cat, Binx, when he got hit by a car.

I’ve had pets die, get lost, run away, etc. I’ve never had a pet that got hit by a car that I also go to try to save. It’s an experience I don’t think I ever want again. I had some intense post-traumatic stress even after the whole thing, and I can still find myself back in that position easily if I let my mind get away from me.

I held my sweet cat in my arms while we drove as fast we could to the emergency vet downtown and I ran in like a parent desparately hoping that he might be okay. I’m sure I looked liked like a crazy person when I ran in there, but the folks couldn’t have been more amazing. You would think I was running into the emergency room with a person in my arms. I don’t know if I expected that but I was certainly grateful for it.

Binx fought hard for about a day as we got updates from the doctor on how things were going. He was relatively positive about how things were looking and said as long as he didn’t take any major downturns we could potentially end up bringing him home. We stayed worried, crossed our fingers, prayed, and hoped we could bring him back. We pretty much knew he was going to lose an eye but we joked that we’d just have the Dread Pirate Binx and he’d be okay. We did eventually get the call that it would be better if we let him go as he was taking a downturn.

I don’t really think of myself as a “pet person.” I’ve often talked about how I don’t really form strong bonds with animals. I’ve been able to move on from most of them without any major issues, and I’ve often said that if it came down to super expensive surgery, “it’s just a cat.” Boy that turned out to be anything but the truth. I loved that little guy dearly. I haven’t ugly cried that many times since I became an adult, but I was a mess dealing with this. Some of it because of the trauma of carrying my cat to the hospital, and some because my amazing wife said, “you did everything right, and everything you could do.” That was really what put me over the edge. Forgiveness is the most powerful force in the universe. It wasn’t even my fault. It wasn’t my car. Somehow I still blamed myself for him being outside. In the end, it was just bad timing and we never would have done anything differently.

I miss that little guy. I still love him and think about him all the time.

If I learned anything from the experience, it’s that love sneaks up on you sometimes. I didn’t even know I cared about him that much until he was gone. The second, and arguably equally important, thing I learned was that pet insurance is amazing. I was able to tell the doctors to do whatever they needed to do to help him, and I didn’t have to think about it. Insurance covered it and we got 80% back. They were also incredibly sweet to us in the aftermath. This isn’t an ad, but Lemonade is legit as a pet insurance. We only had it because Binx had eaten Nerf darts as a kitten and had to have some invasive stomach stuff done. We didn’t want to have to pay for that again if he were to eat another dart.

Thank God he ate those Nerf darts. Rest well, Binx.