WHO DIES AND NOT PERISHES IS ETERNAL

 TeeTee's Final Lesson

TeeTee's last lesson, my Zen teacher, was how to die with dignity. No crying or wailing, no displays of pain. On her last day, she got up with difficulty and vomited a white, transparent liquid near the door leading to the garden. I cleaned it up as always. 

Then I gently lifted her and placed her in front of the garden where she used to lay down, to sleep among the flowers. 

She took two steps, just two steps, and fell sideways. There she remained motionless. In her gaze was the entire universe. She was whole. Again, I lifted her and placed her among the flowering plants in the garden in front of my study. She remained still, looking down. She always found a shady spot where she could breathe slowly with her eyes closed. According to the time of day and the sun's position, she would change places. A common spot was under the rosebush with pale roses. 

I gave her some pasta she'd been enjoying lately. She smelled it, but didn't eat it. She also didn't drink water, which she usually did. I left her standing among the low flowers. Bianca placed the water and her flavored cream pasta, which didn't require chewing, very close to her. It was around noon, and Blanca and I had to leave. When we got back, I would check on her to see if she was okay or needed anything. 

When we returned, our neighbor, from her garden, told us she wanted to tell us something. I asked if she wanted to tell me that she had seen Tee Tee in her garden. (The day before, Tee Tee had fallen, or climbed down, from our fence, and I had asked her husband to bring her to me.) Her answer surprised me. "Tee Tee isn't coming back." Then she added, "Cats disappear when they're going to die and don't let themselves be found.” 

Bianca and I had discussed whether we should take her to the vet to have her put down, even though we knew the instructions: to stay by her side and pet her so the process wouldn't be traumatic. We didn't want to do it; it was horrible to have to kill her so she wouldn't suffer. The last few months were agonizing for us, as her decline was remarkable. From six kilos, she weighed barely two; she was skin and bones. We couldn't find any way to get her to eat. At night, she would come to sleep on my bed, but she could no longer jump, so I would help her, and she would slowly settle onto my legs, gradually coming to rest on my stomach or chest. She longed for physical contact. The night before, she tried to tell me something; her voice was a thread, a hoarse whisper, making it impossible to understand her words. She was saying goodbye. It was a sad moment: also a sublime moment. I told her gently that everything would be alright. That if we had to part, we would still love each other. I think she understood me, and that I had understood her. A peaceful silence enveloped us. I have no explanation. 

We had always understood each other. We had meditated together on the Chinese wooden bench in the garden. She used to jump onto my legs; we breathed in unison. With views of the lake and the mountains. 

At the end, she would skip, take a turn across the garden lawn, first under the fir tree, then under the red maple, to disappear among the lavender and its violet perfume. 

Her disappearance seemed abrupt and ruthless to me. I suffer from attachment issues; I find it difficult to detach myself from my loved ones, but that was the final lesson. Speaking of teaching, we must distinguish between "educare" and "educere." The former consists of imparting knowledge from the teacher to the student. That is, filling their head with ideas, thoughts, science, etc. It requires discipline and memory. The student is a container that the teacher fills daily."Educere," on the other hand, which also comes from Latin, has an almost opposite meaning, as it means to extract, to draw out... It is allowing the students to draw from within themselves: their inspiration, their creativity, their innovative capacity, and their wisdom. This, in opposition to... or to contrasting imposed knowledge, generates critical thinking, accepting only those ideas that, subjected to analysis, are acceptable to their conscience. Tee Tee, with her behavior or her physical contact, was more of an educere, a push to think, force me to contemplate, to meditate. Her definitive end to the relationship she had chosen. It is a supreme lesson to be pushed to the precipice, or to understand death as the final act of life in a body. To die, she knew, is not to perish. When a relationship comes to an end, there is no delaying the farewell.She had prepared herself to die with dignity. I don't think she had read the Tibetan Book of the Dead; she possessed the ancestral technique of her own species. Bianca and I prayed that she could die among the flowers in the garden. She loved nature. She was pure nature. She had to, because she wished to take her last breath in solitude. She left, she ceased to be present, she didn't allow us to witness her death. I don't know where she went. Blanca and I had thought of burying her under the blue tree.The dwarf fir. We wanted a simple human ritual. She didn't give us that task, nor the possibility. 

I imagined her: 

With feline discretion, staggering,

Like elephants, making 

her way to her last breath.

She kept her little strength with which

 she reached her final destination, 

unattainable to poor mortals.

I was told I would never see her again. 

She went into hiding where no one could find her. 

Perhaps she practiced the techniques 

of dying well with the Tibetan Buddhists. 

The basic right to life. 

Behind my tears… 

I believe. 

She hid in my heart.

 

  

Behind my tears...

I think.

She hid in my heart.

 

YOUTUBE

TEETEE

THE ZEN CAT

©Pietro Grieco

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