When I was 8, I got my first kitten. His name was Tatamy, after the small town in Pennsylvania where my mother found him. He was cute as a button, blind as a bat, and ripped to shreds by a neighborhood dog three weeks after I got him.

He was the most trusting cat in the world, had to be, because he couldn't see. He assumed life could not be inherently evil, that nature's way could not truly be living Hell.

I think about finding him in a garbage bag on the porch when I got home from school, and how it was the most devastating pain I'd felt in my life. I think about how that jewel, that bright sharp pain, has not faded. Nor was it buried beneath years of joy, but in fact the pain of every day that leaves no time to worry about what used to kill you.

I probably had not thought of Tatamy in 15 years before this morning, because I have had to focus on survival. Immediately upon hearing of my own decay, my murdered kitten springs back to life in my head. I will spend the day looping a memory of his short life.

Not quite life flashing before the eyes, but I've realized: When your frailty moves up a peg, it isn't recent agonies that come to mind, but those that have always been most severe.

I am not ready for 35 years of conjured hurt.

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