I’ve been thinking a lot about gratitude and depression.
A friend of mine recently said, “Well, you can’t be depressed if you’re truly grateful.” Which is of course, nonsense, balderdash or more specifically, bullshit. Of course, you can feel both at the same time. In fact, I think to deny your feelings of depression or sadness, makes gratitude more performative than meaningful.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot as two weeks ago, David and I had to put our 17-year-old cat, Noble, to sleep. He wasn’t eating, suffered from kidney disease, was ravenously thirsty, and in his final days, stopped jumping on the kitchen counter, and was unsteady on his feet.
We feel “lucky” that we know and like a mobile vet who came to our house. We didn’t have to inflict the trauma of driving to the vet on Noble.
I won’t go into the details, suffice to say I held him as he passed whispering repeatedly how much we loved him. In his last moments, I was desperate to have him know, to feel in his bones, just how much he was adored.
In the days afterward, I was and still am, awash with grief. I still can’t talk about it.
All the while I thought about whether my gratitude for the time I had with him, my gratitude for him just being the most social, curious, adventurous cat, could somehow pull me out of my grief.
I don’t think it can.
Dr. Joel Wong, one of the experts I interviewed for our newest documentary, I Thank, Therefore I Am, talked about toxic gratitude, which is when you pressure yourself to be grateful, especially in times of stress.
And that’s not a good thing.
So, I’m going to let my grief walk hand in hand with my gratitude. Replaying all the great moments we’ve had with him, whether it was his aerodynamic super feats of flying on to bookshelves, counters, or wardrobes; the welcome he gave to each and every visitor; his morning wake up yowls, like clockwork; his seeming understanding of kisses, and his relentlessly tender nature.
And I am so grateful that I was blessed to know and love him.
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