One Year Since

[wt1964]

When she was at her most contented, she would kneed softly in the air with one paw and look at me and kind of twist her head. It's hard to explain...

 

[tara g]

This picture of you and Lucy shows just so much connection and love.
There is never a time limit on the grief we feel. I know the loss of my 2 boys late last year will be felt for a long time, as life still doesn't seem right or complete without them in it anymore. Thank you for sharing your love and feelings for your beautiful Lucy.

 

[wt1964]

 

[biscuity]

Your photos with Lucy are precious. I know how you feel, I've been there & I'm still there. I can't say how to get over the awfulness & horror, I don't think some ever can. More a matter of learning how to live with the feelings. You have her ashes, which is lovely & I find it is some comfort to me to have the ashes of my Marmite near to me. My wife managed to find a discarded whisker from one of her cat beds. I find comfort there too & of course with photos. I know you will always love her. Try to write about her as often as you can. It can help.

 

[wt1964]

Thank you, biscuity. Right now, this certainly feels like a 'forever' kind of heartache, and I am okay with that. Twenty years from now, if I can still shed tears for her, then she will still be with me in a very real way.

Honestly, I never wanted to cremate my girls, most especially my Lucy. But it was the only way to keep us together. No house, so no back yard in which to inter them. On the other hand, I am glad I have their ashes, and when my time comes, they will stay with me. My other two girls are together in their urns on the mantle, but even a year after, I still cannot put my Lucy there. I need to still have her near. So she stays with me at my computer desk, where I spend most of my time. I work early hours, and I usually take a short afternoon nap...and I confess that when I do, I have her with me, usually tucked in my arm, which was her spot when we slept. I know how odd that sounds, but it's part of my process, and something I choose to do, weird tho it may be. It's only for an hour a day.

Having had three kitties who all lived to be respectable old ages, over the years I found a number of stray whiskers, which I also held onto. They're now in my Lucy's urn.

I am sorry you lost your Marmite.

 

[biscuity]

I love the photo of your head bump with Lucy. Marmite & I used to head bump, I would get down on my hands & knees, so that she could come up & give a me sniff & head bump. She then used to jump onto be shoulders & I would give her a little tour around the house so she could check things out that she couldn't usually reach. Such as the tops of doors. I was checking her food cupboard only yesterday & I still have a container full of her dry food in there. I can't throw it away just yet. I had her cat trees, scratch posts & baskets all around the house until only 2 years ago - when we put the house up for sale. I have them all in an outhouse.

I have Marmite's urn on a little table. It has her photo, some candles & the urn. I can easily understand how you like to have Lucy with you.

 

[wt1964]

Missing my Lucy so much. No crying jags for a couple of weeks, which usually means one is right around the corner. I think my life will never be the same.

A year ago I was doing a little "art therapy" to try to work through it a bit.

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[dustydiamond1]

Missing my Lucy so much. No crying jags for a couple of weeks, which usually means one is right around the corner. I think my life will never be the same.

A year ago I was doing a little "art therapy" to try to work through it a bit.


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You should share these lovely photos of you and your beautiful Lucy on the "Tender Moments"thread.
Your drawing is great.

 

[wt1964]

It has now been four hundred-fourteen days since I last head-bunted my baby...and tonight my heart is aching.

 

[marmoset]

and I'm crying right along with you. People can know intimacy with people but we reserve it for so very few, but with cats, they are intimate naturally if there is a true connection. The last cat I lost was named Tembo but we also called her: Missy Fancypants (for her fluffy legs that made her appear to be wearing pantaloons). She was always with us and would follow us everywhere. One day as she was closing in on 20 and losing the battle with chronic kidney failure she gave us the look. She seemed to be saying I've done all I can do for you, I love you and now it's time to let me go but please honor me by taking in another and providing a loving home for them.

So when we had her brought in for her last moments with us we were a wreck. Wreck is such a bad word to as it barely covers how we felt- we felt destroyed, eviscerated/gutted and like our heart had been removed. But we did as we believe she asked and adopted another cat the next day. We didn't view it as a replacement but as a way to honor our Tembo. We also decided to get involved in a no kill shelter as volunteers all in Tembo's name. She was the impetus behind us being active in animal welfare. So in that way her death has brought a lot of good but I still have moments where I cry for her and long for her and she's still in my dreams. I don't think it'll ever go away but now I can cry and tell myself that she left a legacy to be proud of.

 

[di and bob]

It's so hard to describe that ache, that longing, that emptiness in your soul, when we are thinking of our little ones. It's a part of us now, and when we allow ourselves to delve into that deep, black hole of misery it instantly springs forward to bring tears to our eyes and pain to our hearts. It's something that will live in us until the day we die.
Oh, to be loved and missed as deeply as we do those furry little angels. We experienced something that few do, we are all so blessed to have had them in our lives. To have known a love that will be forever intertwined with our very being.
We are left here on earth to remember, to carry on and honor that name that is our world. To go forth and bring happiness to others because that is what they brought to us, what they left for us to pass on. I can't imagine what it would have been like to have never known that kind of love, I am thankful for having my little girl in my life, for being blessed to have had her in my care and my home.
I vow to embrace what joys this world is giving me now, so I do not spend one day at the end of my life regretting what I missed because I was so wrapped up in the personal hell I created from my own grief. I learned joy and love because of her, and that is what I want to remember. The joy she embraced from living she left to me, so much more worthy to guide my life than the pain from her death.

 

[CatloverinFL]

It's so hard to describe that ache, that longing, that emptiness in your soul, when we are thinking of our little ones. It's a part of us now, and when we allow ourselves to delve into that deep, black hole of misery it instantly springs forward to bring tears to our eyes and pain to our hearts. It's something that will live in us until the day we die.
Oh, to be loved and missed as deeply as we do those furry little angels. We experienced something that few do, we are all so blessed to have had them in our lives. To have known a love that will be forever intertwined with our very being.
We are left here on earth to remember, to carry on and honor that name that is our world. To go forth and bring happiness to others because that is what they brought to us, what they left for us to pass on. I can't imagine what it would have been like to have never known that kind of love, I am thankful for having my little girl in my life, for being blessed to have had her in my care and my home.
I vow to embrace what joys this world is giving me now, so I do not spend one day at the end of my life regretting what I missed because I was so wrapped up in the personal hell I created from my own grief. I learned joy and love because of her, and that is what I want to remember. The joy she embraced from living she left to me, so much more worthy to guide my life than the pain from her death.

*Di and Bob: Thank you for your wise words, especially your last paragraph:

"I vow to embrace what joys this world is giving me now, so I do not spend one day at the end of my life regretting what I missed because I was so wrapped up in the personal hell I created from my own grief. I learned joy and love because of her, and that is what I want to remember. The joy she embraced from living she left to me, so much more worthy to guide my life than the pain from her death."

I personally really needed to hear/read that. As like many of us here, I am still hurting greatly emotionally and still grieving every day from losing my last and most dearest boy, 'D' on 4/10/18, only 3 weeks after losing my other boy, 'G'.

The shock, anger and disbelief of this horrible ordeal, have made me very angry and bitter, and I haven't been able to turn a corner. But... your words have made me also want to vow to turn my personal grief hell, anger and daily loneliness into something better, and much more hopeful, for my future. Thank you. Here's to always believing in more, HOPE, LOVE, JOY and PEACE (!)

 

[wt1964]

I wonder if it's possible that despite the fact that I knew my Lucy's time was coming, and I had her final arrangements made, that when the time actually came, that it put me in a state of shock? I really think that is part of what continues to feed my grief. I really feel every day like I am in a state of shock that she is gone, and so deeply saddened that all that is left of her ethereal self is contained in a little box. I have been stunned by the fact that I had to end the life of my little soulmate of nearly twenty years - for the right and merciful reasons, but still...

 

[Cara80]

i'm in tears reading about you and Lucy, what a beautiful bond between the two of you. I understand what you mean about being in shock, I felt that for so long and then 6 months after my Pelli cat passed on a stray kitty that looked to be about 6 months old climbed in through a window, stole my other cat's food and walked up to me and meowed, her voice reminded me of Pelli's. Somehow that got me out the depressed, shocked numb feeling. Sounds silly, but maybe Pelli reincarnated? This stray cat has since come to our house to say hello 4x now.

I hope for you, someday you get some sign or event like I did and you feel better

 

[wt1964]

She only been gone just over a year, but it's already my second birthday without her...

 

[dustydiamond1]

She only been gone just over a year, but it's already my second birthday without her...

What a beautiful girl, such a wonderful photo

 

[dustydiamond1]

i'm in tears reading about you and Lucy, what a beautiful bond between the two of you. I understand what you mean about being in shock, I felt that for so long and then 6 months after my Pelli cat passed on a stray kitty that looked to be about 6 months old climbed in through a window, stole my other cat's food and walked up to me and meowed, her voice reminded me of Pelli's. Somehow that got me out the depressed, shocked numb feeling. Sounds silly, but maybe Pelli reincarnated? This stray cat has since come to our house to say hello 4x now.

I hope for you, someday you get some sign or event like I did and you feel better

Are you going to give the dear little kitty a furever home?

 

[dustydiamond1]

I wonder if it's possible that despite the fact that I knew my Lucy's time was coming, and I had her final arrangements made, that when the time actually came, that it put me in a state of shock? I really think that is part of what continues to feed my grief. I really feel every day like I am in a state of shock that she is gone, and so deeply saddened that all that is left of her ethereal self is contained in a little box. I have been stunned by the fact that I had to end the life of my little soulmate of nearly twenty years - for the right and merciful reasons, but still...

 

[dustydiamond1]

*Di and Bob: Thank you for your wise words, especially your last paragraph:

"I vow to embrace what joys this world is giving me now, so I do not spend one day at the end of my life regretting what I missed because I was so wrapped up in the personal hell I created from my own grief. I learned joy and love because of her, and that is what I want to remember. The joy she embraced from living she left to me, so much more worthy to guide my life than the pain from her death."

I personally really needed to hear/read that. As like many of us here, I am still hurting greatly emotionally and still grieving every day from losing my last and most dearest boy, 'D' on 4/10/18, only 3 weeks after losing my other boy, 'G'.

The shock, anger and disbelief of this horrible ordeal, have made me very angry and bitter, and I haven't been able to turn a corner. But... your words have made me also want to vow to turn my personal grief hell, anger and daily loneliness into something better, and much more hopeful, for my future. Thank you. Here's to always believing in more, HOPE, LOVE, JOY and PEACE (!)

 

[dustydiamond1]

and I'm crying right along with you. People can know intimacy with people but we reserve it for so very few, but with cats, they are intimate naturally if there is a true connection. The last cat I lost was named Tembo but we also called her: Missy Fancypants (for her fluffy legs that made her appear to be wearing pantaloons). She was always with us and would follow us everywhere. One day as she was closing in on 20 and losing the battle with chronic kidney failure she gave us the look. She seemed to be saying I've done all I can do for you, I love you and now it's time to let me go but please honor me by taking in another and providing a loving home for them.

So when we had her brought in for her last moments with us we were a wreck. Wreck is such a bad word to as it barely covers how we felt- we felt destroyed, eviscerated/gutted and like our heart had been removed. But we did as we believe she asked and adopted another cat the next day. We didn't view it as a replacement but as a way to honor our Tembo. We also decided to get involved in a no kill shelter as volunteers all in Tembo's name. She was the impetus behind us being active in animal welfare. So in that way her death has brought a lot of good but I still have moments where I cry for her and long for her and she's still in my dreams. I don't think it'll ever go away but now I can cry and tell myself that she left a legacy to be proud of.