Faith, Hope and Love

We had to put our cat down on Thanksgiving. We noticed her limping on her front leg around mid morning which was odd because only days before we had brought her to the vet because she was limping on her back leg. We were unsure as to what to do but after it became clear that she was not herself we took her in only to find out that what she was experiencing was a blood clot. The vet withheld her diagnosis until she was able to conduct a few tests and x-rays. When she brought us back into the room to discuss the results, we knew it was bad but it came as a shock that the vet had found two tumors in Chyna's lungs. The prognosis was bleak; to continue her life would only mean more pain. It was a heart wrenching decision but Chyna was already gone. She was in agony and the only humane thing to do was to look her in the eyes and stroke her as she was put to sleep.

I could barely hold it together. I was sobbing uncontrollably, my chest heaving up and down as a folded myself into the corner of the small "dying room" they placed us in for the procedure. Jess was upset but reassured Chyna that we loved her as she stroked her gently. When I could stand, I hovered around her, reaching out every now and again to run my thumb along the top of her head as I had done countless times before yet she did not respond by purring rather she stared, wide-eyed back at us from within the blanket that was wrapped around her.

Among Jessica's many reassurances of love and longing, she told Chyna that she would see her in Heaven several times. My initial reaction was not one of cynicism or disbelief but one of hope and with that response, I began to reflect on the difference between hope and faith. I concluded that faith is having the belief that such and such is true without the ability to definitively prove it while hope is the desire for such and such to be true without the ability to believe it.

I hope there is a Heaven where all sorrow and suffering will be replaced with joy but I stop short of believing it exists. I want nothing more than to be reassured that my mother and even my cat are consciously frolicking in paradise; it is hard to think of them in any other way because they still exist in my mind; therefore part of me rationalizes that they must exist somewhere. But it is a unassailable placebo, selfishly constructed for my own continued delusion rather than for their ultimate destiny. At least, that is my cynical assessment but perhaps hope is a step towards faith rather than a crutch for you before you can put your faith in something, you must be able to imagine it.