In retrospect, it’s almost creepy that I spent the day after Gus left the last time feeling as if I was mourning him.
I shared custody of him with my ex-wife, and he’d spend anywhere between a month and six weeks to two months with me, and then the same with her, and it was this unusual but comfortable rhythm for everyone involved. We’d communicate about what was happening with him if anything unusual happened, but otherwise, it was just what we did: he’d be with me for awhile, and then he’d be gone for awhile. Except that, the last time he went away, I found myself weighed down by his absence to a degree that just felt more heavy, more inescapable, than ever before.
I couldn’t explain it at the time, but I was very upset by it; I even said to a couple of people that it felt as if I was getting a preview of what it was going to be like when he was dead, because I was just so aware that he wasn’t there. It felt as if his ghost was haunting me, but even saying that now feels melodramatic; saying it at a time when he was still alive felt even more so.
There was nothing happening at the time that should have left me thinking about his mortality other than his age; he didn’t seem sick in the slightest, and was in fact still running around and jumping up for attention and through excitement when he was with me the last time I saw him. Nonetheless, the day after he left, it felt like he was dead and I was saying goodbye. Little did I know that, a couple weeks later, I’d get a text that he was suddenly sick in a way that felt bad, or that two weeks later again, he’d be gone.