Blackout_ Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget - Sarah Hepola

THIS IS THE PLACE
A few months before my cat died, he started sleeping in the closet. I would search the house for him
and find those green eyes staring back at me from the corner, underneath the jackets and behind the
boots. I knew exactly why he’d chosen that spot, the far-back place where harm couldn’t reach. One
night, I pulled my duvet off the bed and lay down beside him to let him know I would stay at his side.
About a minute into this routine, he bolted downstairs and hid behind the sofa. What part of “I want to
be alone” did I not understand?
I was overwrought about my cat dying. I knew this would be the scariest loss I’d experienced
since I gave up drinking. I worried about the incoming grief: when I would lose him, how it might
rearrange my heart. But here’s the problem with worry—it doesn’t actually do anything.
A cancerous mass was growing on the side of his face. He looked like a squirrel hiding nuts in one
cheek. I measured the growth with my fingers each morning. From a nut to a lime to a baseball. I
would meet his eyes before we went to sleep. You have to tell me when it’s time , I would say,
knowing full well he could not.
One afternoon, I kissed his nose, and only half of his little face squinted. That’s odd. I ran one
hand over his eyes, and his left eye refused to close. It had turned glassy. I called Jennifer at her vet
clinic, and her soft voice told me what I already knew. The next morning, she came to my house in her
blue scrubs and sat cross-legged on the floor of my bedroom and let me hold Bubba as she inserted
the IV into his tiny orange paw.
“This will be fast,” she said. “Are you ready?” And I was not, but I was as ready as I was going to
be.
She pushed the plunger on the first syringe, and he made a purr like an engine coming to a stop.
His body slumped in my arms. I don’t remember the second syringe. What I remember is opening my
eyes, and Jennifer leaning over him with a stethoscope, and the way she met my gaze to tell me he
was gone. His body was warm against my face.
My mind couldn’t keep pace with the change. I carried Bubba to Jennifer’s car and lay him
gingerly in the front passenger seat. As I walked back into my carriage house, tears dripping off my
chin, what I expected to find, more than anything, was him at the top of the stairs to help me through
this ordeal.
The pain of his loss was enormous, but I never once thought: Drinking would make this better.
You know what this horrible day calls for? Booze. I finally understood alcohol was not a cure for
pain; it was merely a postponement.
I don’t know when it happened, but I stopped longing for the drink. I’m not saying I never miss
drinking, because I do on occasion, but the craving and the clawing is gone. Happy hour comes and
goes, and I don’t notice. A foamy pint no longer beckons to me like a crooked finger. Bar signs lit up
with blinking neon look exactly like what they are: beautiful distractions.
This shift seemed impossible at one time. The woman hiding in the closet knew her life was over,
and she was on some artificial lung now. I wish I could have known how much easier it would be on