Finding Creativity During Grief

It was a fairly normal Tuesday afternoon, after work. I had just finished dinner and was clearing away the kitchen, watching the clock as my Ocado order was about to arrive. It was late Summer, so the doors and windows had been flung open to air the house. All was serene as the sounds of mellow jazz played in the kitchen, until I heard a sudden horrendous screech from outside. This was soon followed by louds beeps from a car horn and the shouting of, “BREAK IT UP! BREAK IT UP!”

As I ran to my front window and looked out, I saw my Ocado driver, hanging out of his van door, yelling into my neighbours’ drive; it was then that I knew that it was him who was beeping and that screech had come from my cat.

As I then ran outside to see what had happened, little Bilbo scrambled over my neighbours’ fence and charged into the house, soon followed by a large feral cat trying to reach him.

My delivery driver had tried to break them up, but the feral was too fixed. “I have cat’s too, so I know what fights can be like,” he said, “but that looked brutal. I hope your one is alright.”

He dropped my shopping at the door and left, and I ran upstairs to check on Bilbo. It’s not the first time he’s been attacked by this cat. Its favourite thing to do is attack from behind, and bite into the tail. Which is what happened to Bilbo twice before. This time, although there was fur coming out of him everywhere, he seemed pretty unscathed. There was no blood, he wasn’t limping, he could still lift his tail (the first sign of trauma to a tail is it almost dragging on the ground), so all seemed okay. I left him to hide under the bed (his safe space), until he later came out for a cuddle before we went to bed for the night.

When I got home from work the next day, in the end, all was not okay. I guess, as his adrenaline from the fight had started to wear off, his symptoms started to take hold, and I was presented with pretty much all of the symptoms of early onset kidney failure. After getting through to my vets just before they closed, I thankfully was able to get an appointment with them for the next morning.

A Note

It has to be said, I couldn’t recommend my vets more. They are a mobile surgery, so come to your home to look after your pets to avoid the stress that animals experience going into a veterinary practice environment. When they arrive, they immediately sit on the floor, and get themselves at pet-level to greet them. They sometimes bring equipment in with them, like scales, or a medical bag, but largely, they like to keep the strange things in the home to a minimum. They listen, they make notes, they are patient, and they found my little Bilbo irresistible.

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On checking him over, they concurred with my suspicion of kidney failure, but also, by the morning, Bilbo had started to lose the motion in his back legs. He had become very stiff, and he was finding it very difficult to walk without it taking him sideways into the nearest bit of furniture, which stopped him from going completely over. He was still very much with it; he was asking for food, trying to jump on surfaces etc. but he kept looking at me very confused as to why his back legs weren’t working like they should. So, the vets took some bloods and I was given a course of pain killers for a few days, to hopefully relieve that stiffness that was potentially muscular injury from the fight. The results of the pain medication was great. It was like nothing had ever happened to him, and he was charging about all over the place like he was a kitten again (he was actually 11).

A week later though, there was still no improvement in his mobility. As the pain medication would start to wear off, his back legs would start to stiffen and he would be finding things difficult again. By this time, his bloods had been checked, and although there was no signs of infections or other problems, the test results absolutely confirmed that he was between levels 1 and 2 of kidney failure. So, with this in mind, and his heart murmur (this was between levels 3 & 4), it made his treatments going forward, a little trickier.

Persevering

As his kidney issues seemed to have normalised, and his appetite and general demeaner seemed okay, we opted for a different course of meds – ones that weren’t filtered through the kidneys as much – as his other option was a very risky procedure of an x-ray. Which his little heart might not have handled with the sedatives or anaesthetic.

Within 24 hours, and on these different meds, there was just no sign of improvement with his mobility, and now he was starting to show his pain. So, with all risks considered, a couple of days later, an x-ray was scheduled and the mobile surgery van was booked in to come to my house. Such amazing service, as I said. When the vets turned up, they gave Bilbo a pre-procedure check-up. Surprisingly though, he had made some improvements, which after a long discussion, led to us not having the x-ray after all, and to put him on some short term, higher strength meds, to try and get him over this last hurdle of pain. So that’s what we did. Again, all things were looking positive again, so after some more advice from the vets, we let this course of meds run to see if Bilbo’s pain would finally subside.

And then the time came to make one of the hardest decisions a pet owner can make.

You could almost time it to the nearest second. As soon as the final dose of pain meds wore off, Bilbo’s stiffness and pain came straight back. And this time, he almost howled in pain, as he nearly fell over in my back garden. So, I scooped him up, carried him inside, and gave him some leftover painkillers from before, even though I knew those ones didn’t work so well. Anything to stop him feeling as much pain. At this point, and with all his other risky procedural options going through my head, and with inevitable kidney failure that could be exacerbated at any given moment, I needed to consider his quality of life and whether, actually, putting him down was the best choice.

The next morning, I had to go to work. My mum came over and stayed at home with Bilbo to monitor him, and keep him company. At 10am that morning, I called the vets to have the conversation and talk through whether my suggestion was an over-reaction, or whether it should be an option that was on the table. So, we went through all his options again, none of them having a 100% guarantee that the outcome would be good. And so, with so much hesitancy that I was doing the wrong thing, but confirmation from the vets that it was probably best, putting Bilbo to sleep was booked for that afternoon.

Standing Still

For me, grief and loss were, and continues to be, a strange experience. Because, although I was grieving the loss of a loved one, I was also grieving the part of me that went with him. It’s amazing how much comfort he brought to my home – a home that now feels incredibly empty without him. Having that comfort helped me settle into my studio, with Bilbo by my side, feeling free and complete to create my pattern designs. He was my shadow, and wanted to be close at any time he could. And I was used to that.

He was very routine. I would know at any given time of day, what Bilbo would be doing. And he liked to be synced with my routine too. As he got older, he would even sleep right through the night, snuggled next to me. If he had to get up during the night, he would come straight back and resume his position. And if he wasn’t where I was used to him being, or if he couldn’t settle, then I would know something was wrong. We were in tune.

It’s amazing the habits you adopt to have these little bundles of love in your lives, too. The corners of the house in which you’d find yourself looking to reassure yourself that they’re there, where they should be. Carefully opening doors, just in case they are sitting behind them, or opening the upstairs windows just a little so they can’t fall out of them. Making space for their food, their toys, their health products, and all of their bits-and-bobs.

Trying to get back to the place of comfort, and rhythm and creativity after all that is gone, is a long old journey. It’s been well over a month since he died, and although time has gone so incredibly quickly where 6 weeks has passed, I can feel that part of me has simultaneously stood still. That stationary part of me seems to be where my creativity and inspiration has also stayed. It feels distant, and too far to reach to get back, no matter how far I stretch. But then I get moments of light through the clouds, little glimmers of ideas and plans for upcoming designs.

At first, I was getting annoyed at myself for being so useless. Telling myself I was being stupid, and pathetic, and to ‘just get over it’. But then I realised that I wouldn’t be saying those things to someone else who had experienced loss, so why am I saying those things to myself? Berating myself isn’t going to encourage me into a position of growth. So, I decided that concentrating on the simple things to help be put one foot in front of the other, to move me forward, has got to be the best idea.

I wasn’t eating that much at the time, but I made sure that what I did eat was healthy. Check. I made sure I was staying hydrated. Check. I took myself to bed whenever I felt tired, because I wanted my body to feel rested. Check. These small things were enough to think about while I struggled to go to work, until I could add more to the ‘successes’ list.

Stepping Forward

When one says ‘creativity’, it is fairly common for people to imagine established artists and creatives in their wonderful studios or businesses, surrounded by their work, or copious amounts of inspiration. But creativity can be found anywhere. And that’s what I needed to remind myself.

You don’t have to have the next big collection in the pipeline, or a years’ worth of blogs written, or a month’s worth of content scheduled to feel like you’ve been creative. You can try a new cake recipe, or fill a new page of your colouring book. Take some photos in your garden of things you like or of a landscape you see on a walk. Painting a room, or choosing some furnishings for your home, is creativity. You could even try a new cocktail recipe! The fact is, creativity can be small, and it can be simple. And so, I needed to give myself permission to take my time.

So, here we are, over 4 weeks later, and writing this was my first attempt of dipping my toe into the water of life after Bilbo. It’s taken me a while to get this far, as I worried whether it would be good enough, or speak to someone going through the same thing. But the truth is, and I told myself off for forgetting this, creativity needs to be for yourself, not for other people.

In the end, and I can say this having just gone through this experience during an already difficult year, it all comes down to vulnerability. Loss exposes a vulnerability you feel in the emotions you experience throughout grief. Vulnerability is present when you try and find the courage to move on from the memories you don’t want to forget. Vulnerability lingers in the shadows when you want to start to put yourself out there again, finding your way to an adjusted happiness. And guilt enters the room when you have a glimmer of happiness in the wake of your grief.

So, talk to yourself kindly. Give yourself time. Put one step in front of the other. Allow yourself to feel your emotions, good and bad. Do the things, and take yourself to the places that you know you love. Not necessarily to try and find happiness or to forget the bad things, but to at least find some comfort. And, if these places end up sparking some ideas or inspiration, then savour that moment. Soon the darkness lifts, I promise. But it will be in the time that you need it to. Don’t rush.