Clean Clothes and Cat Scratches

Even when loss is sudden and almost total, it can continue gradually.

May 2022

What glitter is to the world of crafting, cat hair is to the pet owner. A laundry cycle and a lint roller can only do so much. Once it’s there, it’s there, and almost no amount of doing will rid you of it entirely. Additionally, human hair, especially when long and spiraled, can have significant staying power.

I had packed a week’s worth of clothes for the work trip I began the day before the fire. When I washed them for the second time I noticed that the amount of residual hair had been markedly reduced. How sad it was, I thought, to be sad at the fact that my clothes were finally going to be free of cat and lady hair for the first time in the better part of a decade.

In the brief time since losing them both, I have learned of similar but far more sentimental and horrific instances that others have endured surrounding the loss of a loved one. From a personalized, half-destroyed coffee mug, to god forbid the handprints of a deceased child on a sliding glass door. Bringing yourself to finally remove or cleanse away the remnants of a loved one who has passed is just one more painful, toe-stubbing step in the long walk through grief.

Though by no means nearly as traumatic, the gradual loss of cat hair on my black t-shirts and the Kara hairs that had a proclivity for attaching themselves to my socks or hiding in long sleeves, has been insidious and causes additional rounds of heart-hollowing with each tumble dry.

A few days after the loss, I took a photo of the last small, healing cat scratch on my hand from a recent wrestling session with Lela. Knowing it was the last one and would be gone in a week or so. The clothes that survived with me are now completely free of any stray, short white and grey hairs or long, corkscrewing dark ones. And it sucks. That whole cleanliness being next to godliness thing can be highly inaccurate depending on the circumstances.