Colonial trauma: Grieving urban systems of harms while being crushed by societal collapse

Mayari was a female stray orange tabby cat who endured a decade of Metro Manila’s catastrophic stray crisis before succumbing to kidney failure last week.

I met her several months ago, a bag of bones with one good eye, one remaining tooth, severe chronic kidney disease and a grumpy old lady “get-off-my-lawn” personality. My household took her in and gave her safety, security, veterinary care, and the possibility of health, which she achieved after several months in spite of her failing kidneys.

A few days ago we went forward with euthanasia after her kidneys crashed — my first euthanasia procedure in three years of independent and responsible cat-centric stray care here in NCR South.

I received her memorial pawprint from the burial service this morning, and, while struggling with my own understanding of my grief, reflected on a conversation from a meeting earlier in the morning regarding the experience of colonial trauma versus the intellectual or academic understanding of it.

Though the vast majority of stray kittens in the Philippines do not reach adulthood, and though those who do rarely reach five years old, Mayari had experienced and witnessed so much violence and trauma as a stray cat in my neighbourhood for…