It’s been a rough couple weeks. We had to put one of my cats down. Rajha. I had her for 15 years. She was my baby. Maddy’s my baby too, but Maddy’s my baby in a moody teenager way. Like when she snuggles with you it feels really special because most of the time she just ignores me. Rajha was the opposite. I wanted space from her sometimes. A lot of the time.

She was glued to my side, legs, head, arms…whatever appendage of mine she could be touching. She liked to lick. She liked to be held. She liked to cause trouble. She was my lap cat. She started to suffer though with Lymphoma. So we had to make the decision.

There have been a few silver linings of this pandemic. The one I will be most grateful for is being home with Raj the last months of her life. She was diagnosed the last week of face to face sessions for me. The following week started our stay at home orders. She passed last weekend. So for three months we got to give her unlimited time and attention.

It’s been such a blessing to be with her so much. It also made our decision at the end come much easier because we had seen the decline, and we saw when she started to suffer.

It wasn’t fun telling my sons that she died. They quickly put her “up in the sky” with Poppy, Binx (My mom’s cat who died), and “That lady who’s not your mom but like your mom…” (My Nana their great grandma). Later that night Jackson sobbed “She’s really gone,” and it was possibly the most heart breaking moment we’ve experienced so far as parents.

Around the same time we were told the daycare we’ve been on a waitlist for has openings. Due to the pandemic many children are not going back to their previously preschool or daycare. So we made another tough decision to have them start going back to preschool in July to a new school. Ultimately we think it will be best but another transition for them and for us.

Meanwhile I attended my first post-COVID funeral. I had to make black masks because I couldn’t go to a funeral in my Harry Potter mask. Masks for all occasions are going to be a thing I think. There was no singing. It was a huge church so there was space to social distance. We all wore masks. It was surreal. And hot. And sad.

There is so much anxiety around changes and the pandemic has forced transitions into many of our lives. The BLM movement is taking hold and it has given me such hope to hear all my young clients talking about it and engaging with it and going to protests and marches. Patient’s of mine of all ethnicities and demographics are talking about change and talking about privilege and they are all young. So young. I am proud of them all because I don’t think I was talking about this at age 15.

They ask me hard questions. They talk to me when they can’t talk to their parents who may be more conservative or racist. I had already been thinking and reading and doing and all these young people have made me question more. Think harder. Read more. Do more. Be better. It’s another silver lining.

There were hard days for me in the last few weeks. I grieve my cat. I grieve “normal”. But I am incredibly grateful for these last months with Rajha. I am grateful for all the telehealth sessions I did with her on my lap. I am grateful that she got to virtually meet so many of my young clients who have given me such hope for our future. I am grateful at a time of movement for social justice I am not limited to my own thoughts and beliefs. That I am pushed and prodded by my clients in so many ways.

I had one client tell me they hate #45 and they hate that they know people who support him. I responded that I am incredibly grateful for #45. He allowed me to clean out my friend list on FB easily. He allows me to know who is an actual ally to the Queer community and to me as a person because any one who supports him is not my ally and certainly not my friend. He is so decisive and so hateful that to support him allows me to check those people straight out of my life and to not always wonder if people are actually supporters of the Queer community or are just too polite to say otherwise in front of me.

He’s not polite and neither are his supporters. And I like it. I’m direct. I like to know where people stand. I can still be friends with people who are pro-life and I can still be friends with people are religious or have different beliefs. But I cannot be friends with people who support him because he supports white supremacy. He supports trans-phobia and he condones violence against minorities. His administration is so homophobic that to support them is to explicitly be against my people.

So yes. I am grateful for this moment in time because it takes the guesswork out of everything for me.

But I digress. These past weeks have felt heavy with grief. They have felt heavy with adulting in so many ways. But the one silver lining of Rajha’s death was Maddy sleeping on my pillow that night and snuggling against my head. She has never done that. In the 15.5 years that I’ve had her.

If you look for silver linings they are all around us. These are chaotic and scary times full of change. But change is needed in our dysfunctional America. Change is coming and if my young clients are any indication…change is already here.

Rest in Peace Rajha. 06/20/2020.