I was thinking of something else... when I was seven I ran off when we moved. After some time I told my mother I was still hoping he would come back. She told me with zero empathy that the cat was probably dead. I sat outside our apartment and cried and cried for a long time. She completely ignored me.
That was not a memory traumatic enough to forget, but it encapsulates how unfeeling my mother could be, how she would just walk away from people in distress.
I realized much later that she was also dissociative, and possibly this experience reminded her of some of the animal-related traumas she put me through and brought out an unfeeling alter. And I was probably crying for all those other animals I watched die, even if I didn't remember it. Grief is so mixed with trauma for me.
And that gets mixed up with my friend's crass blundering. I mean, even when I told her "I don't know how to live after this" she was still blaming me. What a klutz.
Kitty was grey and white and she would prance when she was happy, I'd tell her she was the prettiest kitty ever, little kitty prancing with her little white ballet shoes, she'll never prance again...
