KODA

Today marks the day upon which my beloved childhood pet Mazel passed away. Tonight is the night a year ago that I stayed with her as she died. Tonight is a night of ghosts, of memories, of reaching back to a time that feels so close and yet so far away. I remember sitting with her, that sleepless night, resting on the floor to try to be nearer to her. I remember stroking her body outsite my room, trying to calm her breathing. It’s ironic but fitting that because of company tonight I shall be sleeping in the living room, the room in which she died.

Tonight I’m just feeling melancholic and reflective. I couldn’t stay sad long after I realized I wasn’t mourning for her as much as I was for me. Often when I think of her I feel a boost of love, of motivation. Reconciling her death pushed me to reach out, to imagine higher goals in my life, to try to reach out and connect with people. While I didn’t have the heart to photograph her on her decline, after her death, I felt drawn to photography: to be able to document and capture a bit of the things that I loved. This medium and it’s meaning has grown in different directions on me over the past year, but the process of dealing with her loss was what inspired me to get started.

There was something in Mazel that I could see while staring into her eyes… she knew me and I knew her so well that if asked I would say she was a conscious, sentient being. I want to believe that she understood what was happening to her, and that she knew what she did for me. Mazel was my teacher. She was brought into my life by my parents to teach me to love another creature, to teach the life lessons that come in the experience of living with a cat. It is hard for me to imagine the depth of the ways her presence in my life has shaped me, and my future.