"This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?”
Written by Anna
"Today marks 8 months since my adored pussycat, Rora (Aurora), lost her precious little life in a sudden and traumatic accident. Whilst I've shared her story in many Facebook groups I belong to, I've felt unable to do so on my newsfeed, perhaps because sharing with those I know 'offline' as well as online makes what happened a reality that I don't want to accept, but Rora deserves to have her story told and so here it is.
Rora joined me as a 2 year old, a retired breeding queen and a Maine Coon. It had been my dream for over a decade to share my life with a Maine Coon, and when Rora joined me at the end of November 2019 I was simply overjoyed, and very quickly fell madly in love with her. This cute, hilarious, intelligent, beautiful mini~lion was living with me on my boat!
Rora filled my life with colour in ways I could never have imagined; she quickly adapted to boat life and thrived as a boat cat; she had several territories along our cruising pattern, would sometimes cruise on the roof with me, sit on the kitchen surface and watch out of the window or otherwise curl up on the sofa by the fire. Through her I came to make so many more boater friends than I'd had before.
One of her most beautiful qualities was that she loved to be included in any social happenings, and yet also cared to make sure others felt included; I will never forget when my 6~year~old goddaughter slept in my bed one night and her mother and I found Rora curled up by her feet keeping guardianship of this little one. Rora had friends in the very young and the very old and was also friends with my Mum's Labrador, Nala (...most of the time!).
She was also ever playful and kitten like, and she and I had all manner of funny little games we'd play which were particular to her; among her favourites were her feather wand, her catnip bird, her crinkly tunnel or a length of ribbon or wool ...or a creative combination of all of these! She'd wake me in the morning with deep enthusiastic purrs and loving (but rather painful!) licks; I would pull her close to me and bury my face in her lovely fur. I never failed to feel great joy at the end of each working day, knowing that I was returning home to my Rora.
Rora was my comfort through the long, lonely months of lockdown as well as through life's other hurts and losses. She was so proud of her boat home and yet retained the most beautiful wildness in her spirit too...she would return from wanderings off the boat with the brightest eyes and 'chat' to me as if to regale all she had seen and heard on her travels. Most of her favourite places were West, along the Grand Union Canal - Rickmansworth, Cassiobury Park, Harefield. Rora and I would also often walk together; she'd trot along after me which never failed to completely melt my heart.
She was naughty too. I remember at the end of last winter the towpath was a total quagmire. I could see my little angel returning from a wander on her GPS and I'd had my work spread out everywhere; I gathered it all up and cleared the sofa completely giving her loads of space to sit and clean her paws. Rora strutted inside and hopped straight up onto my small, neat pile of tidied papers. I only ever found these moments hilarious and just loved her even more.
On Friday 13th of August it was a warm sunny day and we'd just moored in Hackney Marshes alongside Wick Woods in East London. Having made our way through the concrete world of Central London (where Rora mostly chose not to go out or otherwise I kept her in because of being close to roads), I was so excited for her to have such expansive woodland to explore. It was our second day there and Rora had been out for no more than 20 mins when a young man knocked on my door and said he'd found a dying cat and needed help.
With my heart in my mouth I hurried out (thinking ‘dying’ was surely an exaggeration), and just 10 metres away from our boat, I found my Rora, hissing, struggling to breathe, with blood in her mouth and covered in her own urine, her collar among the leaves and lots of her fur all around her. I scooped her up, carried her back on board, phoned the vets, booked an Uber and began running down the towpath with my baby in my arms. As I reached the roadside, I knew I was losing her and I collapsed on the pavement where my fiercely and utterly adored, beloved furry baby took her last breath and died in my arms. She was just soon to turn 4 years old.
I experienced a sensation I have never known before, a sudden depth of pain and grief so filled with agony I felt as though my entire soul cracked in half. I wailed and screamed on that roadside. I was also held in that terror-filled afternoon by wonderful humans whose kindness and love will be with me forever ~ two strangers who comforted me on the pavement and phoned my friends and my Mum for me, a treasured friend, who dropped everything and joined me at the vets 15 minutes after I'd arrived myself and my most wonderful Mama Sue, who also joined me in the vets and then held the broken pieces of me together through the awful days and weeks immediately after.
Rora's injuries were consistent with a collision and her position and location when I reached her suggest she was hit by any one of the vehicles which now hurtle down the towpaths and other 'shared-use' paths appearing alarmingly quickly along the canals - bicycles, electric bicycles, electric scooters and even motorbikes. Whoever it was that collided with Rora, did not stop to check if she was ok.
The code of conduct on these paths is that pedestrians have priority and anybody on wheels should travel slowly enough that they can stop safely in case of any sudden obstruction including children, wild animals or pets. Councils and the Canal and River Trust, (being funded by Sustrans and the Department for Transport) are tarmacking shared-use paths which encourages even greater speeds and now it's also impossible to hear them coming. Other than the utterly ineffective "Stay kind, Slow down" campaign by CRT, there is no responsibility being taken to manage these hazards while opening the paths up - any electric or motorised vehicles for example, are not allowed on the paths by law, but nothing is done to check or regulate this.
"Shared-use" paths simply don't work. Like in so many other areas of life, the most powerful and careless are ruling the space and lip service is being paid to protecting the vulnerable.
I would also like to share about my experiences of grief since Rora's fatal injury. The grief for an animal companion is a disenfranchised grief, along with other devastating losses such as miscarriage, still births or suicides, deaths through overdoses and the ending of relationships, meaning it is typically either not recognised as serious and / or is viewed as shameful and something one should move on from or not discuss.
My grief through losing Rora has been the worst pain I have known in my forty years. During the first 48 hours I wanted to die; I was convinced that it was my fault she had died to the extent that I believed I had killed her, and I could see no way that I could continue while carrying that burden and without Rora. I then slipped into a trance, a state of shock and frequent crying and sometimes whole days in bed which lasted about two months. I was unable to return to work for the first 3 weeks of the new school year and I have PTSD. The sound or sight of any vehicle, but bikes and scooters especially, triggers distressing flashbacks from particularly traumatic moments on Friday 13th August. Sometimes the re-experiencing also just happens for no obvious reason. And sometimes I purposefully revisit each moment of her terrible suffering in a hopeless bid to remove it from her, to undo it all, to will the course of events to change.
I've found myself swinging between overwhelming fear of death and listening obsessively to accounts of near death experiences in my hope that I might be reunited with Rora again one day. I also feel fundamentally changed in myself and sometimes as though I'm having an alien experience, unsure who I am supposed to be without Rora. I feel I will be walking with this cloud of grief for a good amount of time yet.
I also suffered significant physical discomfort. In the first few weeks especially, I struggled to eat, had frequent headaches and also painful aches running up and down my limbs, almost as if I was getting flu or a fever. I took Ibuprofen most days to ease these aches.
I am blessed, in spite of my pain however, to have incredible love in my life, helping me to navigate this darkness ~ the wisdom and kindness I find in my family and friends has brought immense comfort and has saved me from venturing into far greater mental anguish. I also have a truly wonderful pet bereavement counsellor who has helped me cope and make sense of my dark emotions with safety, compassion and understanding.
My post is written and shared to honour my beautiful soulmate, best friend and unbelievably cute, yet wise, wild and courageous little Rora whose life and loss has changed me forever, and who should never have had to suffer as she did and lose her life so young. It is also for anybody who has suffered the devastating and too often invalidated grief of losing an animal friend, or indeed who has experienced other forms of disenfranchised grief. And it is for all animals, the most innocent sentient beings on our planet, so many of whom suffer terrible abuses at human hands.
Thank you if you have read my story and I hope you enjoy the photos of many of Rora's happiest times.
To my Rora (Wuff wuff, Wuffycat, Cat of my heart), I love you my furry angel and I miss you baby cat with every fibre of my being and my whole heart and soul, and I will love you forever. You were the most perfect pussycat in every way. You lit up my entire life. Thank you honey-pie for loving me back and for embracing our boat life together wholeheartedly. We were supposed to enjoy so many more adventures together and I often imagined caring for you in your later years.
I'm also sorry my baby, so so very sorry for my part in your suffering, in deciding to let you out somewhere that turned out to be fatally dangerous for you. I was supposed to keep you safe from harm and protect you. I didn't manage to. You...the most precious thing in the world to me. I'm so sorry baby cat. Can you ever forgive me? Is it even fair of me to ask?
I pray that one day in some unknown other world far from here, that I might be lucky enough to share an encounter with you again. Until then baby cat, please know that my home is always your home too little one and you are welcome to visit any time you wish, and please know that you are so, so loved by so many.
Love from, your human Mama.Xxxxxxxxxxxxx"
"This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?” ~ Jeanette Winterson
My songs for Rora
