Dodo’s Pumpkin

It’s leaf-catching season.

The breezes have picked up. The humidity’s dropped. It’s like the air can breathe again. The leaves have dried enough that when the wind hits them, that unmistakeable rustling sound travels through the trees. The reds are on fire. The oranges are ablaze, too. The yellows almost glow.

This is Dodo’s season.

For 15 years, she’d watch the leaves blowing in the wind. She’d hitch her laser focus to a single falling leaf and watch it twist and turn until it touched the ground, then switch her gaze to another, and another, and another.

The leaves on the windowsill frustrated her. So close. So teasingly near, yet unattainable.

But don’t worry — there were plenty of leaves waiting for her on the balcony.

Dodo would kick off every leaf-catching season by bringing us her first prize — always an oak leaf, thanks to the large oak tree outside our building. She’d carry it by its “tail,” bursting in through the cat door Joe cut into our screen slider.

She was always so proud. So triumphant. “Here, humans. A gift.”

The leafy Fall dance absolutely thrilled her. And I loved watching her watch it play out.

Last year, we were so grateful that she’d made it to another leaf-catching season. We weren’t sure she would, given that her health had deteriorated so much in the preceding months. But she made it, and she gifted us with several catches throughout the Fall.

This year…

This year.

We said goodbye to Dodo on August 28. For the first few nights, I expected to see her curled up next to my pillow — her favorite place to sleep. The void left by her absence was palpable. It still is. Some nights, I feel like she’s lying there, I can practically sense her, and I end up stroking the sheet instead of her little body.

The morning we said goodbye, she lay on the couch sleeping while I went about the house, crying, cleaning up the things she wouldn’t need anymore — her food dish, her water bowl, her little “snack station” beside the bed that I’d set up that Summer so she didn’t have to travel too far from her preferred sleeping spot for sustenance.

That’s the thing you can’t prepare for when it comes to death: the finality of it. The frigid certainty that they are never coming back to this plane of existence. They are never going to sit in that spot or eat that food or look into your eyes ever again, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it. You have to sit there in that knowledge while the world continues on, wondering why the rest of it didn’t stop when they did.

Another thing that took me by surprise: the sobbing. I took Dodo’s passing as an opportunity to practice really feeling my feelings, in the moment, without apology or distraction. And boy, have I. I’d never actually sobbed over the loss of a loved one until Dodo died. I’ve cried plenty for her in front of other people, but I’ve only sobbed in private — there’s still a part of me that doesn’t want to lose that much control in the presence of others — but my goodness, have I sobbed for that tiny cat.

About two weeks after her passing, I was doing okay. I was congratulating myself for getting through the day without crying when the vet called to say that the plaster paw print they’d taken of her was ready for pickup.

Hello again, sobbing. I didn’t really miss you, but since you’re here, let’s do this.

Over the weeks, I’ve stumbled across remnants of her presence. I spotted a piece of her kibble under my work desk when I shifted it to its non-hummingbird-watching orientation. When I was looking for more of Bird’s canned food, I stumbled upon the cans of Hormel diced ham we’d bought for Dodo because it was one of the only things she would eat toward the end.

With the increased chill in the air, I pulled out my fleece jacket and wore it to an early-morning visit to the doctor. Sitting there in the waiting room, I noticed that it had countless cat hairs all over it. Another one of those bittersweet moments where I could feel my heart simultaneously swelling and being ripped out — Dodo was still with me, but not really.

In addition to being Dodo’s season, Fall is also the time for pumpkin-picking. We usually try to go to a pumpkin patch and last year even found one where the pumpkins were actually growing on site — we had to cut them off of the vines to take them home. We paid dearly for that experience — literally. After waiting in the long line to pay, we saw that they were charging us $1 a pound for our very large pumpkins. Our total came to more than $60. Later that day, we saw pumpkins at the grocery store — two for $10.

This year, we headed to Catoctin Mountain Orchard. They have a large selection of traditional orange carving pumpkins, as well as numerous other pumpkin and gourd varieties to choose from. On certain days and at certain times of year, they also offer apple picking and flower picking.

In the Fall, they’re renowned for their fresh-made apple cider donuts. On the weekends, the line to get into the small country market wraps around the corner of the building — that’s why I was so glad we took advantage of Joe being home on a weekday and went on a Monday afternoon! No line, hardly any people — my kind of shopping experience.

We always get four pumpkins: one for Joe, one for me, and one for each of the cats. This year, I was on the lookout for a white pumpkin for Dodo, to represent her angelic crossing over. However, the only white pumpkins they had were miniature, tabletop-sized ones, so it wouldn’t match the rest of the pumpkins we were getting.

We found a perfect one for her, but … it was orange.

And then I remembered that we had white paint at home.

Decision made. Pumpkins purchased.

Back at home, we set up our white acrylic paint and a few paintbrushes. I placed Dodo’s pumpkin on top of a flipped-over dip bowl, so that we’d be able to paint the bottom portion of the pumpkin.

We decided that we’d think about Dodo while we painted; take a moment to feel her presence again, to remember how important she was to the family. How she was family.

Joe painted first. When it was my turn, I really leaned into the experience. Each stroke of the brush was a stroke of her beautiful fur. Each stipple of paint was a “boop” on her tiny nose.

Hi, baby girl.

God, I miss her so much.

Her pumpkin is beautiful and fits perfectly into the pumpkin-family collective, just like she did. There has been a hole in our lives and our hearts since she died; we’re each growing a bit to fill in the hole she left behind.

Bird was very anxious in the first month or so after she lost her sister, especially when we’d leave, even for just a couple of hours. But she’s also blossoming — showing more of her personality, embracing more cuddle time, playing more, talking more. A part of me feels guilty that we were so preoccupied with Dodo’s health issues for years and years, we took Bird for granted. I have more compassion for parents who feel like they’ve inadvertently neglected one of their children, or who’ve wished they could split themselves in two to be able to give each child 100% of themselves.

Bird is positively basking in our attention now, and I am doing my best to make up for lost time. I’m glad we still have her, and am so grateful to have this time with her.

Maybe this is one of the few upsides to death; it helps you see the things you couldn’t see when your loved one was here. It helps you appreciate not only what you had, but what remains.