Emptiness

Now that Mark has gone and Sonny isn't here to toy around with it feels increasingly lonely here. I fully expect to come out of my room and see him standing in the corridor, or asleep on one of the living room chairs but the fact is, he isn't going to be there.

Yesterday we brought him home from the vet wrapped in the same blue blankey we wrapped Kallie in when she died. Sonny used to sleep on that blanket-I wonder now if it didn't remind him of her. We held him at home for six very loving hours and I think we all needed that. Some people might think its morbid to have a dead animal in their home for that long but for us its comforting to see them. He died alone in a vet's office without his family-we owed him those final hours before cremation. He deserved to be held and loved, kissed and cuddled instead of laying on a table, picked up by the cremation place where, even if they treated him nicely, he is simply to them someone else's pet, another number for their books. 

But to us, he was our darling angel, he deserved so much more.

we have him everything we could give him even in those last few hours.

But it doesn't seem like its enough.

I wish he was still here. I thought we had years left together and I don't understand why he had to go so early. I understand now that he's gone and I know now he's okay but the fact is still a bit of shock our boy has gone to heaven.  I know I"ll cry a dozen more times before my heart begins to heal. I can't get my mind off my boy now, thinking about him, loving him, hoping he's okay and that he's happy. I hope he knows we don't blame him and that we're so sorry he died without being in our arms. We never would have left him if we had had any ounce of a feeling he was going to go to heaven that night. We all would have been with him, holding him, reassuring him that he didn't need to be frightened.

But life doesn't work that way, does it Sonny boy?

Baby, I hope you know how much my heart burns to hold you and share smooshies with you just one more time. I hope you know my soul and yours are forever linked.  It hasn't fully hit that you're gone-I go through moments where I can accept you aren't coming back to me but then there are moments like right now where I sit behind a computer screen with tears coming down my cheeks because the idea of life without you is so foreign.  I never thought a day would go by that life would go on without you.

I want you to know I will be okay. And that mom and dad will be okay too-you don't need to worry about them now, I'll make sure they're okay. if someday we get another cat, I want you to know that we aren't replacing you. We could never replace you and your beautiful personality. But to honor you maybe one day we'll take in another kitten that someone has abandoned as you were, and give them the same wonderful life you had with us for almost five years.

I just hate that you aren't here. I'm so sorry we couldn't save you. one of the urns we looked at yesterday said it all. "if love could have saved you, you would have lived forever" and its so true. Sonny, if love determined how long someone would live, you'd be living until the end of time. But life doesn't work that way. But I know you're okay, and you aren't scared anymore. I know you're with Kallie and that she'll keep an eye on you-begrudgingly maybe but she will.

I guess this is the guilt and pain part of grieving. It's unbelievably painful. there's moments where I almost feel okay (maybe because I'm fooling myself with the idea that Sonny is still here,) and there's moments where I want to curl up and die. But I got the message you sent me buddy, and you're right. You're still with me, I know you don't want me to cry. But it's hard not to when I can't physically hold you anymore.

I guess, baby boy, I'll have to hold you with my heart instead.

And the sun stopped shining...

Last night I lost my last kitty furbaby. My sunshine. My Sonny. Who would have thought that treatment for a UTI would lead to him dying under anesthetic? I'm still in shock-I've cried a dozen times but the pain hasn't gotten any better-just worse, bigger, like how big the void in my heart, life and soul is right now at this moment.  Looking back now my last post seems terribly optimistic- more optimistic then I could possibly hope to feel right now at this moment in time. Right now, I feel sick. I'm fully ready to go to the bathroom and throw up like my stomach is threatening to do.

I don't know why people put themselves through loving animals, it hurts so badly in the end that all I really feel like doing is rolling over in bed and pretending the world doesn't exist. In bed-in sleep, I can pretend my sweet boy is still alive and he's waiting for me to get up and play a game of tag or hide and seek. He's waiting for me to turn the faucet on in the bathroom too so he can drink that. He's waiting for me to get a shower so he can curl up into the sink and lick my fingers when I'm done.

But that'd be lying to myself, wouldn't it?


I can hide all I like but the truth is my baby, Sonny. My Nermie, Nermal, sputnik, spazz, nummy, isn't coming home to me.  He's gone home-I know God in his glory will take him and let me have him once again when I've moved on to the next life. He's with my pop, my twin, Kallie, Paddy, Mackey, and all my other furbabies now. He never has to worry about getting sick, or dying, or me and Mark holding him down so we can brush out his fur. He gets to eat, sleep, play and torture Kallie all day.

Or at least I can tell myself that repeatedly, not that it makes it any better. I still feel like I"m going to walk into the living room and see him laying on the floor, or sitting in the bathtub.

First stage ? Outside of my superficial bable of knowing he's gone? 

Denial.

Months After

So it's been awhile since I"ve posted anything. Maybe writing got a little hard for awhile. What I find uncanny, looking back anyway, is my acknowledgement of Paddy's life comign to a close. Only a few short months after, my little Colonel died in my arms. It was surreal-and I have to admit i was shocked and horrified. I would have been asleep most nights around midnight but I'd been on the phone with my boyfriend when I looked over and saw my girl gasping for air and stumbling around her cage. I remember screaming for my mom with Mark on the phone and then managing to get my girl into my hands but it was too late. Moments later she was gone-just like my Kallie.

Some birthday gift for Mark.

She's with kallie now, they're buried near one another with Mark's two cats so at least none of them are alone. I dealt with her death so much differently then Kallie's-but I think it was because of the sudden shock of Paddy going which allowed me to grieve right then and there.

I still miss them both terribly. But if there is one thing I"ve learned from all this is that life goes on and my love for them continues too. I can move on and have more animals but it doesn't change the love I shared with Paddy and Kallie (and other pets long since gone). They know my love for them is never ending, and to honor them it's best to love other critters who might otherwise find themselves without homes and more importantly, without anyone to love them.  I think, if I did that, I'd be dishonoring the animals I've loved so much and not honoring them even if it hurts to move on.

Honoring them is much more important.