Oxytocin

We take for granted the life forms around us, whether two-legged, four-legged, or in plant form. During cancer treatments, the most significant anchor and constant in my nightmare is LuLu, a premature, calico cat mystically graced with a blue and amber eye.

Our ritual is a daily bath: pale green water with floral aromas from lavender and eucalyptus Epsom salts, cyprus essence oil, topped off with creamy Burt’s Bees Milk Bath. The water is an elixir to lift our spirits and soften the ailments of our bodies. The air is moist and thick, deepened by low lights and glowing candles. As if LuLu were a newborn, I cuddle-carry her into the bathroom and gingerly place her on a soft flannel pillow in front of the closed door. I kneel down next to her pillow and “make velvet” with my paws.  LuLu responds with an engine of purrs. I kiss her and tell her how much I love her, disrobe and then balance myself into the bath as if performing water ballet.

I hear LuLu again.

“Meeeeoooowwwwww, meeeeooowwwwww, mmmmmmoooowwww,”

Ancient reverberations of her deep guttural cries echo through the bathroom. I respond with deep resonant sounds to match and buffer her fear.

“It’s okay little girl.  Everything is okay. You are safe. You are fine. Relax, LuLu.”

We go back and forth until her hormones shift from adrenaline to oxytocin. She begins to relax and playfully rub her back on the soft mat, legs splay in the air, reflecting trust and chill.

I peer out of the sacred liquid to scratch her head, belly, and back with my long nails. I continue to profess my love. Once my arms and hands begin to tingle⁠—neuropathy, a lovely side effect from chemo⁠—I pull back and proceed to dip my body deeper under the scented water. As I disappear from view, LuLu perches on her hind legs, peering over the tub like an old lady peeking over her spectacles. The strong scents permeating from the tub assault her sensitive nose. LuLu squints and recoils for a split second, but then she recovers and adjusts, proceeding to gaze into the water with rapidly moving nostrils.

As we play, I dip, cry, release, and give thanks to my sanctuary. When my aches and pains subside, I emerge from the tub, draped in towels, moving deliberate and slowly to not frighten LuLu with my overwhelming stature. I slip to my knees and stretch out the tight spots with a few yoga poses of downward and upward facing dog, attempting to dissipate my burning and heat-saturated bones.

Exhausted and red-faced, I collapse next to LuLu’s pillow. Nose to nose, I feel an overwhelming intimacy and connection between us. Her faint breath blows across my mouth like a tender summer breeze. I’m drowning in the diagnosis, treatments, and surgeries, so I react by sobbing like a baby, then a teenager, then an adult, and finally, an old woman. As my tears mature, LuLu’s purrs become deafening. We are in simpatico, a perfectly orchestrated symphony in unison. The conductor, our joined hearts. My hand rests gently around her deformed front paws as she stretches the length of her underbelly along my forearm and presses her hind paw against my bicep, folded in each other’s arms like a mother and child resting in an embrace. She doesn’t try to “fix” me. She isn’t experiencing anything as “wrong.”

She holds the space for what is.

Once I exhaust my tears, I kiss her paw lightly, look into her eyes, and thank her. She crunches her eyes closed, then open, closed, then open. LuLu’s way of saying,

“But of course.”