My Pawley Pause
It’s been quiet around here lately, and I feel like I owe y’all an honest word about why. On September 3rd, I lost my sweet kitty-cat Pawley. She was eighteen years old, and she’s been with me through everything — raising kids, moving houses, long nights, and long seasons. That morning, it was just me, Otis, and her in the house. Jeff had already said his goodbyes and left for work, though it was hard for him to walk out the door knowing she wouldn’t be there when he came home. The last two weeks of her life was both a privilege to be with her and a slow heartbreak for us all. After he left, the house settled into silence, and the process of her leaving began. She was right where she loved to be — her blanket, her corner of the couch, with me curled beside her. That’s where she finally let go.
My sweet girl, Pawley
I’ve had pets pass before, but I’ve never walked one all the way to the end like that — through the days and the slowing down, until there was no more breath. It marked me in a way I can’t quite explain. The grief has been heavy, and so has the guilt. I had set myself a deadline to finish my book that Sunday. But when Pawley started declining, I couldn’t bring myself to step away from her. I told myself no book was worth leaving her side. And I know that’s true — but I still wrestle with the disappointment of missing this deadline I had set for myself. I had promised I’d meet it when this opportunity came along — and underneath that, there’s the weight of another promise I’ve carried for twenty years: that I’d finally write the book I’ve always known was in me.
I keep seeing her out of the corner of my eye, hearing her little padded feet down the hallway. I still feel the sensation of her long tail curl against my cheek before I’m full awake in the morning. Even Otis feels the absence. She was his best friend. The house is different now — it doesn’t sound the same, and it definitely doesn’t feel the same.
If Mutt and Jeff was a picture. Partners in crime until the very end. Very best friends.
In the middle of all that, I’ve been throwing myself into a new jewelry business. Not because writing isn’t my first love — it always has been, always will be — but because grief doesn’t leave much room for words sometimes. Jewelry has given me a way to step out of reality for a little while, to play again, to remember what it felt like to stand on my grandmother’s dining room table and pretend the chandelier crystals were diamonds to hang from my ears.
I’m grateful and humbled by everyone walking this road with me through The Truth and Tallow. These weeks of quiet haven’t meant I’ve stepped away — I haven’t. This place matters to me more than I can say. I may need to write from the heart for a while before I return to the women, but that’s its own kind of therapy, and maybe even the way back into the ribcage series. Grief, expectations, and the weight I put on myself have slowed me — but the words will return. Thank y’all for sitting with me in it all.
