David McElroy

As I left dinner Saturday, it was about an hour before sunset. There had been a brief rainstorm, but there was a sudden break in the clouds — and the sunlight danced over the glistening world around me.

In the wet sparkle of water and light, the colors were vivid and everything was beautiful, like a triumphant scene from a movie. The world around me felt gorgeous and perfect. In those moments, I was in love with this life on Earth.

And then my attention shifted to some rude and uncouth people near me. I looked over in the car seat next to me and saw the mail from the IRS which arrived Friday, demanding that I pay another $300. And I thought of walking into the house right after opening the letter — and finding Molly dead.

In that moment, life felt unhappy and solitary. It felt miserable.

As I drove toward home, I found myself trying to resolve the extremes which I had just felt. Is this world a lonely and miserable place that’s our personal hell? Or is it a beautiful and amazing place of ecstasy that’s a personal paradise.

And in a blinding flash, I realized that it’s both — and I realized it can’t be paradise unless we’ve also experienced it as a hell.

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My little Molly has fallen asleep for the very last time.

On a cold October night in 2008, I started a “rescue mission” for two feral kittens. I had seen them around my house with an adult cat who I believed to be their mother. Then the mother cat disappeared. The two kittens huddled on my porch. And then it got cold one night.

I never intended to keep the two kittens, but those two turned into a total of six from their little family who came into my life. The kittens — who I eventually named Molly and Bessie — were too feral to be adopted by people who wanted sweet and loving cats. So I had no choice but to keep them. Over the past 13 years, I’ve struggled to save them and make their lives safe and comfortable.

That long rescue mission finally came to an end today. And even though I worked hard to give them all they needed, I somehow feel as though I failed them.

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I feel the beating of my heart in a terrible way tonight.

This hasn’t happened for awhile. I don’t remember when the madness last showed up. But the physical beating of my heart seems loud. It’s as though something powerful were contained within the walls of my heart — thrashing around, trying to break out, ready to explode.

For weeks now — maybe months — I’ve been so firm. So logical. So focused. And then this insane compulsion suddenly returned in a form that threatens to overwhelm me. Again.

It’s not a heart attack. At least not the physical kind. It’s something different. An inner attack which is emotional rather than physical. But in some ways it seems even more dangerous than a heart attack.

I can’t possibly still have love for her. That wouldn’t make any sense. She doesn’t love me. And it’s been years. It shouldn’t matter. And yet this obsession — this need, this hunger, this longing — returns against my will and leaves me feeling powerless to stop the overwhelming tides which rush over me.

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