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KITTENS & LIFE SUPPORT
- Nicole Strafaci
- Jul 2
- 4 min read
The last several months have been a wild combination of extremes—heaven and hell, joy and devastation, tears of sadness and tears of happiness. There have been profoundly poetic moments alongside the sweetest, most playful, lighthearted ones.
As a kind of follow-up to my last blog post, I feel a very real calling to step more fully into my personal power and embrace every part of myself, no matter how tender or unhinged. Every part belongs. Every part has something to teach me.
Just look at my daily drawings (two are included below), or visit my Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ nicolestrafaci/. They have become a kind of surrealist map of my inner life. Since early May, you'll notice recurring imagery of tubes, hoses, and connective forms. These tubular shapes often extend from mouths, suggesting mechanical ventilators or IV lines. Then, in early June, I welcomed two adorable kittens into my home, and my drawings suddenly transformed into all things feline, with the occasional haunting hose still weaving its way through the pages.
On May 4, I visited an ex-boyfriend in the ICU. We had ended our relationship only two months earlier but had remained in touch. He passed away on May 10 at the age of 49 after his family made the heartbreaking decision to remove life support because of irreversible brain damage. He had suffered a traumatic head injury after falling during his very first marathon, just before reaching the finish line.
I share these details not to invite sympathy, but because the experience became a profound teacher. It helped me let go, and it helped me grow.
My kittens—a brother and sister named Mustachio and Tabitha—could not have arrived at a more meaningful time. As one life ended, new life entered mine with an overwhelming sense of unconditional love.
Throughout those weeks, my work with TRE and my training in Internal Alchemy became invaluable companions. I knew I needed to make that trip to the hospital while I still could. It was never really a decision; it felt like a deep inner knowing.
I was able to sit with him, speak to him, and say everything that wanted to be spoken. What unfolded became a quiet, private blessing ceremony. I gently dabbed the Delaware River water he had once collected and gifted to me onto his temples, face, and hands. With my fingertips, I felt as though I connected with the essence of him. I also believe that, on some level, he heard me.
The river where we had both lived was deeply significant to his spiritual journey, just as it has been to mine. He collected river water with every new moon and kept it beside his bed so that, in his words, the river was always with him while he slept.
This was one of the most profound experiences of my life—not simply because of our history together, but because I discovered I was capable of remaining deeply present. I could fully appreciate how precious life truly is and how impossibly thin the veil between life and death can be.
Perhaps what I love most about the personal work I have done is witnessing it appear in real life. It wasn't just something I practiced on a yoga mat or in a workshop. It was there beside a hospital bed as I held space for someone whose life had deeply touched my own. Through my tears, I hope I made his passing just a little more peaceful and more connected—for both of us.
Looking back, the tubes that kept appearing in my drawings now feel symbolic. In the hospital, they literally sustained life long enough for loved ones to say goodbye. In my artwork, they became links—reminders that we are all connected, and that our lives are quite literally carried by breath and heartbeat.
My kittens have become pure embodiments of love. It feels strangely fitting that my former boyfriend had shortened his surname to "Kat" on social media because it was easier for people to pronounce. We had even talked about visiting an animal shelter together because he was considering getting a cat himself.
You truly never know how life—or death—will unfold.
What I do know is that the work I have done has been an extraordinary guide through this chapter of my life. And the work continues. It is never finished.
As long as we walk this earth, we are invited to maintain, deepen, and evolve our spirit. That, to me, is one of life's greatest gifts.
This is my second time raising sibling cats, and once again I can see my inner work reflected back to me in real time. With a more regulated and balanced nervous system, I laugh more easily, love more freely, and show up as a calmer, more patient nurturer. I have worked hard to create the inner space to be present, even amid uncertainty.
I continue to uncover deeper layers of myself so that this evolution can express itself in every experience— whether ordinary or extraordinary, sweet or frightening, devastating or joyful.
Perhaps that is what embodiment really is: allowing every experience to shape us without closing our hearts, trusting that even in life's greatest extremes, love continues to find its way in.
What a lovely, real sharing this is.