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.