Only once did I try to express my anguish over leaving Cat to a third person. She was a college acquaintance I got along fairly well with because she also liked to read. Also, she had recently lost her dog. Probably that is why I found that I could talk to Naghma about my grief and guilt. We were sitting on the Jehangir steps after our chai at Samovar when she told me about her desolation at losing Haiku, her pom. I remember we were sitting there talking for a long while when my grief for Cat spilled out. I told her how I had left her behind. I had made a mistake. No one can understand or share another's grief--we have our own ways of dealing with it. Her way was not my way.
She was sympathetic, heard me through, and then told me, “Don’t worry, you will gradually get over it.” How could I tell her that I did not want to get over it? She would never understand. She was already thinking of buying another dog to replace Haiku. I wanted to feel the pain with the same anguish and intensity twenty years from hence. I could not, would not allow the pain to diminish. I would nurture it, live with it. I wanted to magnify it so that Cat would be with me forever, even if only in the form of an ache in my throat, emptiness in my arms, a ghostly touch on my neck, a soft weight on my stomach…
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