...the holidays and the memories that come with them...

Anyone who has ever had a cat during the holidays knows that they affect "how you do things" this time of year. Ribbon on gifts? Oh, certainly NOT before the last minute when you're actually handing the gift to the person! Tinsel on the tree? Not unless you want the biggest gift of all to go to your veterinarian! Explaining little tiny puncture marks at the corner of every gift bag? Necessary. [= I miss Teatea this time of year. She was a string-obsessed fool that would dig dental floss out of garbage cans (gross), pull strings out of towels (hang-em high, folks!) and when she was wee, she would eat my hair while I was sleeping....strange noise to be woken (is that a word?) up by, but i eventually got that one solved somehow.... This year I was pulling stuff (what I call xmas garnish) out a bag of ribbon to be reused/recycled and on the corner of the ziploc bag were all those wee puncture marks....the sign of teatea. It made me very sad, but made her instantly "present" in my thoughts, and that made me smile. She trained us well for the new kittens (especially because Squeebert has a penchant for string-like things), so every day that i miss her, i also thank her... she still fills my heart everyday with love and companionship...what more can one ask for?

..........

....still wearing her collar as a bracelet every day......still thinking of her, but probably more smiling than tears....i reckon this stage is exactly why they invented the phrase "bittersweet memories".....

more land mines....this one is a month long...

oh, all you creative people out there with ageing furry family members, beware the "create your own calendar" landmine...... In December of last year, I made a calendar on Snapfish (better than Shutterfly...I did both one year to compare) of my own photos so that I could have my own pictures at work...and even BETTER, have a new one every month! Well, as you loyal readers know, I had to euthanize Teatea on February 1st of this year..... I have a photo of her at my desk that I see every day, and because I know it's there, I'm prepared for the visual reminder that she's not with me (physically) any longer..... BUT back to the calendar. You know where this is going, don't you...yep. The month of October is a photo of Teatea sleeping with a toy mouse. It is literally a land mine that triggers tears every time I look up and have forgotten it's there. Husband says cover it up. Can't. Guilt and homage to her unconditional love would never let me do that. Take it down? Never. So once every so many days I have to close my office door and let the tears flow....good thing I don't have a cubicle......

my first thoughts in the morning.....

Even with teatea being gone for over 6 months now, the other morning I woke up thinking of her....it was a startling thought to begin the day with, and even though we now have two furballs living with us (see www(d0t)fuzzyjoy(d0t)blogspot (dot) com) it didn't soften the blow.....and i'm surprisingly kind of glad that even though we have the 2 new weans that they haven't "taken the place" or "filled the hole in my heart" left by teatea. They keep us busy, sure, but the missing is still there. As the kittens (4 months and 5 months now) rip around the house, shredding, biting and generally misaligning everything they come in contact with, I miss my quiet old lady in a very different way. When someone runs across our heads at 3am ....4 times in a row to wake us up, i miss my quiet old opinionated teatea even more!!! So here's to you and your elderly years, teatea....they are appreciated as much now as they were when you were here. xxxxxx

...6 months later...did i actually make it through this long???

...last weekend i realized that it had been 6 months to the day that I had to put Teatea down. Funny how i can't remember someone's name I just met, but yet i can create an internal clock that reminds me of a painful half-anniversary and not even know that I did. bad brain. ]= When the realization hit me, I found myself blank-staring at the wall in my room, sitting on the bed where we had her put down. Then the tears came. I never stop them from coming...they seem to honor her and how very important she is/was to me in the course of our everyday life together....so the tears came. Then i realized i didn't have any kleenex....all i had was this single ply seventh generation toilet paper that disintegrates on contact with water, which eventually became hilarious as I picked shreds of tear-soaked toilet paper from all over my face and the bed around me. So I laughed and cried until the headache came (from crying) and laid down and took a nap....what else was there to do? sigh....such a rough and melancholy journey we're forced to go on when we love and lose like we do. I still have some of her hair that I cut from the back of her neck before the creamatorium came to pick up her body.....I put it in a ziplock bag and stuffed it into my jewelry box....and haven't worn a piece of jewelry from that drawer in 6 months. I can't get myself to look. But I know it's there....and I'm glad it is. I'm also glad that I had Teatea creamated. She hated outdoors and only knew the world that we were in together, so that's where she'll stay forever. I don't exactly know how you can get your pets ashes mixed in with your own when you die, but that's my plan. If I'm lucky, by the time that time comes, I'll need one heck of a big urn for me and all my well-loved critters..... sigh. i miss Teatea. And I'm sure she knows it. (By the by, I asked her to send the next one that needed us =^..^= and she has.....she is hell on wheels and only 4 months old. See www.fuzzyjoy.blogspot.com to watch how well we cope with a kitten who's going for partial global domination by the end of this year. I think I'm going to have to resort to clicker training on this one....sigh....thanks Teatea...we did ask for it though, didn't we?! [=

misses....and lots of them.

I can't believe that teatea has been gone for so long. In the quiet moments when I sit and remember her face on the bed it feels to painful to have been as long as it has been. Memories don't fade, but life does go on, and i miss the comfort my weird old cat brought me. I miss how she would hear my crying and come up to see exactly where my face needed touching with a paw. I even miss her nasty old lady breath. I hope she knows....wherever she is.

time might stop the bleeding, but it won't heal the hole in my heart....

...it's been exactly 4 months that teatea hasn't been around in the physical sense.  Of course, she's in my thoughts, my laughter, my tears and everthing else (even in my work, as her photo is on my desk and sometimes is the only thing that makes me smile there...it's a miserable place currently) but my innies still ache when i think about her.  I still wear her collar every day, and it's show it's wear, but I can't decide to stop wearing it to save it or to keep wearing it because it brings me comfort....  I don't burn a candle every night anymore (mostly cuz we're having to run fans all the time because it's so hot here) but i do leave the music on for her every day.... so many little memories stay with me....she used to love canned peas and I'd roll them across the floor and she'd chase them like little edible bugs.... how she used to drag that "rabbit fur mouse on a long spring attached to a round carpeted circle of wood" thing around the house with the wood thing between her back legs so that she walked like a drunk, meowing the whole time with that silly hairy mouse in her mouth.... how she was mortified of helium balloons (it was the only time she EVER passed on leaving teethmarks on ribbon, trust me!) ....so many things that are missed.  I have a foster cat currently, and although he's a sweet old man (7 and a recent front leg amputee),  I can tell he won't be with me for the rest of my days....I reckon there'll have to be a little of teatea in the next one.....i sure hope so.  

...time passes, but memories stay...

...it's been awhile since I've posted, as life has been busy. Teatea is never far from the front of my thoughts, and always in my heart. The kittens in the back room are now 8 weeks old and full of WAY too much energy (well, compared to a 18+ year old cat anyways!) and I love them all dearly for their personality, joy de vivre and hilarity...but none has the power to help me completely numb the pain of losing my best furry friend.

Teatea's most memorable (and at time mortifying) traits was her ability to scare the bejeezus out of just about anyone. One time she chased a construction worker out of my home (we were adding a wee bathroom onto our small one bedroom home)...he had to hide behind a laundry basket and wave it by his feet to get out unscathed. It happened again with a home repair guy....this one used his tool bag to escape. The funniest (and possibly scariest) was when I was minding my own business doing sit ups (yes this was a long time ago) on my floor....Teatea was about 15 or so and I think she had a sanity break, because all of a sudden she was on my face ~grabbing my head with her front claws, biting my face and rabbit kicking under my chin...with great intent. One minute I was doing situps, the next minute my face was being attacked my very own cat. Who even knows what was going through her mind at that time. I know what was going through mine though!! "WHAT THE??!!!!" [= I still miss her...despite the regular blood draws. She still makes me smile...... =^..^=

rainy day and loving thoughts....

....i had a good cry last night about teatea.....someone I know asked me how she got her name and I explained that she was constantly stealing tea out of mugs left unattended....the only sign that she had been there was little "unexplained" puddles of tea around the mug....i miss her.

thursday blues....

...today I found myself thinking of teatea at work during one of the trivial disputes between self-pontificating managers....and let myself go back to the moments when we put her down....and in a fit of self- punishment, allowed me to glimpse what she may have experienced during some of her last moments....somehow I yanked myself away from that abyss of despair and made myself go back to more pleasant memories....like the day I threw her onto my ex-husband's face....no, really, it was an accident....but a hilarious one at that.

teatea was a scrapper with other cats.  they were NOT acceptable in her home.  I was living with my sister, who decided that she would get a cat as well, and we had them on a rotation schedule....teatea out at night, foosil (her cat) out during the day.  Well, teatea was out and out came foosil.  Brawl.  teatea was quick and sharp, so I broke it up by grabbing her scruff and kind of flinging her off of foosil (not the brightest or quickest of cats)....well, i never dreamed of envisioning her trajectory pattern during the launch....but quickly realized the shortcomings of my plan when over my right shoulder I hear this "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!"  I turned around to see my previously napping husband laying on the sofa with a very very angry cat on his face....during the launch and trajectory teatea had managed to right herself to land claws down....right on my husband's head.  He was not pleased.  I could not stop laughing.  This is not the reason he is an exhusband.  I found out later that he deserved it more than just a bit.   [=   

...new misses every day...

we've started to let the foster cat out of the room to roam the kitchen and living room to give her a break from the kittens....i have mixed emotions about doing this, because for 19 years I've only seen one furry face looking back at me in those rooms....but it's the fair thing to do.  teatea is still never far from my heart and mind...i know she lives in my soul.  Earlier I was thinking about how this foster cat Oona is just about the same size at Teatea was...on the petite side, but not slight.  Teatea loved laundry baskets, biting on nail files, my nutrogena microderm abrasion thingy for a massage, and "helping" when you were wrapping gifts....she used to leave her little teethmarks all over the ribbon....one year i just gave out the packages that way at xmas and everyone laughed their heads off.....

...she is missed...

...wondering...and missing, despite it all...

...i was sitting in with the foster 7 tonight and missing the familiarity of teatea.  All this new life creeping all over, looking as cute as the dickens (the dickens MUST have been VERY cute) and my thoughts returned to my familiar friend...and that's exactly what I found myself missing....her familiarity.  I knew everything about her and she knew everything about me.   I knew her talking, body language, habits, the sounds of her purring and even her smell (which admittedly wasn't all that great in the end!) ...and even with the 6 new little lives and the excitement of a new cat in the home, I find myself wishing for that familiarity that I won't have for awhile......I reckon you really can't hurry love......

...the candle still burns....

...although the spare room is filled with fuzzy little balls of wonder (foster kittens), the candle still burns in my bedroom for teatea....and will for quite some time.  I'm still wearing her collar as a bracelet and am already dreading the day when the leather gives way and I can't wear it any longer....her 2 favorite toys are still in the cat bed that we replaced after her death, because we couldn't stand to see the foot of the bed empty of her "kittycave" (sadly she had an accident in hers, so we couldn't keep it)...and the pet stairs still lead up to the bed, where she is welcome any time her new life finds her in the neighborhood.  I miss her.  It makes my heart ache how much I miss her.  I can't let myself think that I'll never see her again...I couldn't bear the pain of that....so I refuse the thought every time it tries to enter my head, choosing instead to know that somehow she is near me always....because that's where she always chose to be.  The thought of her being gone makes my heart hurt to the point of immobilizing me....but the memory of her and the knowing she's very very near makes me smile.....

2 weeks of silence, but not of forgetting....

my silence of 2 weeks isn't because of forgetting teatea....not by a longshot.  Life just suddenly got very very busy.  I picked up the foster cat and 6 kits (that were 3 days old when we got them) about 2 weeks ago, and most of my spare time is taken up by making sure they have everything they need, including fresh bedding, lots of handling, lots of attention for the mom (named Oona) .....and then there was the dreaded time change that sucks the life out of me every year!!  How did it get here so early?!   I've lost about an hour and a half sleep every night for the last 2 weeks, and STILL haven't had time to remember to post here....but teatea is never far from my heart and mind.  The cats are a welcome distraction....I would HIGHLY recommend anyone that has lost one of their furry friends to think about fostering.  It's a way to get that furry love back in your life while still honoring the one you loved and lost, by giving a cat who has had a "rough start" a safe home til their time for a permanent home comes.  I'm not thinking of adopting any of these little critters currently, but if teatea "appears" in any one of them, they might be mine.  If she doesn't, I shall go on fostering for the cats/kittens until that "one" does appear.  It's not my time frame, it's teatea's.  I'll post a few of the photos of the litter here, because they are a part of the process of healing from my loss.  

I am also walking for the the Humane Society that I'm fostering for..... currently i am about $300 shy of my fundraising goal, but I hope to make it by walk day.  It's in honor of teatea and all other pets of my sponsors that are still painfully missed.  Wish me luck.

...today, a change.....

Teatea has been gone for one month today.....such an empty feeling in my home and in my heart still.  I think everyone that has (or has had) an elderly cat really tries to "relish" every moment we're given as the furry family member comes toward the end of it's life....trying to appreciate every time they say hello to you (no matter how busy or late for work you are) and attempting to remember everything....the pitch of their purr, the way they smell (although sometimes that isn't too pleasant!) the way they communicate their changing needs to you.  Well, here I am just one month in to the loss of teatea, and I worry that I'm forgetting things that I was meaning to honor for the rest of my life.  I reckon that I forgot that I'm in the process of getting old too!!   [=  

It wasn't on purpose that a change is coming exactly one month after teatea's death.  It was just that "timing" that happens in life.  My husband and I really miss having a furry being in the house (teatea was an "only cat" indoors, by her rules).  I know that I'm nowhere near ready for a permanent resident to be chosen, so I have decided to "foster" cats in need in the meantime.  One cat, perhaps a couple of kittens, depending on what the needs of the humane society were.  I called and they said they had a 1 year old female that was about to give birth and would I be interested in taking the cat and her kittens after she had them and they all checked out to be healthy....sure.  A 1 year old first time mom would probably have....what....about 3 or 4 kittens.  Wrong.  She had 6 healthy kittens.   Six.  So today I am heading down to the shelter to pick up 7 cats....why does it feel like I should be heading to St. Ives instead????   (more later...) 

.....teatea's little idiosyncrasies..... [=

memories!!

dang, there are so many after 19 years....one of the silliest thing that teatea used to do (and I have no idea how it started) was that if you licked your thumb, she would drop her head so that you could rub it on the outside of the tope of her ear.... and would actually wait for you to do the other one.  Shared grooming, go figure.  

....memory.....video....how lucky i am to have it!

teatea loved to use her paw to ask for attention....

...a loooooong week with less cathair than i'm used to.

...i've been sick all week with upper resperatory and sinus cooties.   Although I haven't been posting here, my thoughts (especially since there's been more time than usual sleeping) have not been far from teatea.  The bedroom was her domain.  She slept in a "kitty cave" on the corner of the bottom of the bed and for about the last year of her life, that's usually where you'd find her.  It's been lonely, waking up in the middle of the night feeling ill and not having a set of whiskers unexpectedly hit you in the face, causing the immediate itchies.  Teatea was a good one for joining in illness misery....very happy to plop down a quietly lay with you until you fell back to sleep.  So it's been a long week, but I reckon things are progressing.  After 3 cancelled orders, we finally got a new cat bed for the bottom of the bed....it now holds teatea's prized posessions....and will 'til the first foster cat comes along.  Then I'm not sure how we'll adapt that.  The foster folks have been in touch and in some ways I'm ready  and in some ways I'm miles off ~ but I reckon that's exactly why I'm fostering....to figure out where I am and to make sure I respect that.  I sure hope I can handle it.

I don't remember if I told you that we finally have teatea's ashes in the frame overlooking the bed...I decided on the above photo of her, because it tells just who she was.....to us anyhow.  [= the photo still makes me smile when i look at it.  She set her rules about boundaries and what she would and wouldn't tolerate, and never strayed from them her entire life.  Gotta love that kind of gumption from someone who was a foot tall.  I still miss her very very much.  

memory!

one of the weirdest thing that teatea ever did (and she did quite a few) was steal straws. (wha??) Yep.  If someone came in the house with a drink from a fast food place and then they left the room, leaving their cup unmanned, they would return to a drink with no straw.....and they'd always find teatea playing with the plastic straw on the kitchen floor, or carting it off to the bedroom....lord only knows what she found appealing about plastic straws...she'd even pull them out of a cup that was placed in the garbage bin....silly silly cat.  

2 weeks....and i finally have a dream.

...today is the 2 week mark since teatea left our physical world, and last night i had a dream about her.  I was at the vet with my mother, and we had just put teatea down.  I was sitting on the floor and they had put teatea's body on a shallow shelf at about shoulder height to me.  I was talking to my mother and suddenly teatea (with glazed, drugged eyes) pulled herself from the shelf and slid into my lap.  I said to my mother "see? I told you.  They can put her down but somehow she will always find a way to come back to me. "  And for just those few seconds before I woke up, teatea was in my arms again, showing how much she loved me, even after she was "put down".  The dream was a gift.  I know she's with me.  I know she loves me as much as she ever has.  And I know she'll never leave me.  

Happy Birthday to Teatea.....19 today.

Today, valentine's day, is teatea's birthday.  For real.  It sounds like one of those fakey birthday dates that folks give to pets, but it was truly hers.   And I miss her.  My dh and I have moved Valentine's day to tomorrow, because I know that today will bring many thoughts and tears.  We'll hang the windchime that he bought for her on the purple tree outside the bedroom window...and will plant a purple leafed tree in her honor (it's a forest pansy redbud tree).  Luckily my candles arrived in the mail yesterday, so the Woodwick candle burns every night for her in the bedroom (and smells GORGEOUS vanilla as well) to keep her room lit even when we're not in there.  

....memory....

last night I was lying in bed and remembered how teatea used to LOVE eating canned peas.  Whenever I opened a can of peas, she would sit like a meerkat and beg til I asked her "wanna pea??" She'd mew and then chase it as it rolled across the kitchen floor.  Silly thing for a cat to like.  She also had an obsession with uncooked spaghetti noodles.  We never GAVE these to her (didn't want her throat to be injured), but lord help us if we accidentally dropped one on the floor when making spaghetti....couldn't get the dang thing back from her!  

...another day without my silly old woman....

I've progressed to wearing grey and black as opposed to just black....i miss the white cat hairs on my clothing.  My lint brushes lay idle all over the house, and it makes me sad.  I did find one of teatea's hairs in my mouth the other morning, and my thoughts went from grief to nuisance in about .05 seconds.  Eyew.   So life DOES go on after all.  It doesn't feel like it should.  It feels like it should at least pause so that my aching heart can catch up with what the rest of my body does during the day, but perhaps it's that distance that allows me to function at work.  My gorgeous vanilla woodwick candle will probably burn it's last tonight....the others are due to arrive tomorrow, so that the light in the bedroom at night for teatea can burn til I'm sure she can find her way back here on her own.  I miss her.   

wednesday in the machine

....today i came to a couple realizations....the first is that I'm really not ready to put teatea's ashes in the frame/ash container thingy yet.  I can't seem to get myself to go and get a print of the photo for the frame....I have no interest in it.  Perhaps because of the finality, perhaps because I'm so blue that I'm dumbfoundedly lazy.  Not sure which. Could be either.  Either way, I've decided that Saturday will the be day that her ashes will be put into the frame/box thingy....and that I pick out a tree to plant on the property in her honor. (not like she cared about trees, but birds will come to it, so it'll suffice.)  It would have been her 19th birthday.  So perhaps my procrastination has been for a reason....perhaps not.  I'm obviously in a wednesday mood.   

The other realization that I've had is that although teatea is gone, maybe now is the time to start talking with a rescue organization about fostering a cat/kittens in the not so distant future.  It's a way to give back.  It's a way for my dh to decide if he'd prefer to own a cat or get a kitten....and it's a way for me to have another cat in the home (which both of us miss) without making the commitment to owning one.  Might we fall in love? Perhaps.  I'm not counting on it.  Instead I'm expecting to be a bit cooler to any other cat that comes in to "take teatea's place"....which of course, these won't be doing.  They'll just be getting a helping hand for a bit til they find their "real" homes.  I fear it'll feel like "cheating" on teatea (which is ridiculous, as she came nose to nose with the outdoor cats on many occasions....hissing like the old gas bag that she was!) but there's only one way to find out...and one way to do good in the process.   I'm skeerd, but it's the right thing to do.  I think.  

I miss teatea terribly.  I cried on the drive home tonight, finding it very very hard to believe that I will never see her again.  The longest we were separated in almost 19 years was 3 weeks....and it scares me to think that I'm only at the 10 day mark.  My heart aches now, like a worn out muscle that needs a rest.  But no rest will come, cuz I've lost a part of me.  Perhaps Saturday will bring some change. 

Tuesday, bluesday, better wear some shoes-day...

...today somebody typed this on the "geriatric cat" board that I belong to....it was truly heartwarming, and gave my soul hope to heal a bit:

"Long ago, I realized that just as there are no "right" choices when a
cat is dying, there are also no "wrong" choices. You make the best
choices you can at the moments you have to make them. Don't compound
your grief by second-guessing yourself."

....and so I shall try.

...rainy day and monday.....

well, i suppose it is true that everything attempts to drive your life back to "normal" after a loss....but it just doesn't feel the same, no matter how much routine and other problems attempt to sway it back to it's previous path.  Today was one of those strange holidays that we get off at my work and it was my absolute favorite sort of day....cold and rain squalls, wind and general moodiness from the atmosphere.  An odd occurrance in southern california.  I woke up about 6 or 7 times last night (the first night without xanax) and had weird dreams, but not the one I dread, so I was relieved and tired this morning.  I attempted to study for my exam, but the rain and wind took down our internet, and so perhaps giving me a bit of time to unwind and think of teatea on a blustery day.  I attempted to take a nap this afternoon, but sleep didn't come.  Teatea was NOTORIOUS for IMMEDIATELY joining me and my outstretched arm as soon as my butt hit the bed for an afternoon nap on the weekends.  I could try to sneak into bed ( and I SHOULD have been able to ~ we have one of those tempurpedic beds that I"m supposed to be able to jump up and down on without spilling a glass of red wine for gawd sakes!) but it never worked.  I'd feel the little footy-prints and then get a nose in the eye or a tiny lick on my lips...then she's flop down and rest her head right on my arm and lean her head on mine.  Today was the first time there were no footy-prints, no nose in the eye.....just me waiting.  

Although my sobbing is getting to be less frequent, the quiet tears are more often. I'm saving them for private times, where my husband doesn't have to be dragged into my grief.  The shock of the empty water and food bowl isn't as gut wrenching anymore.  It's a bit more expected.  I've pulled some photos together to scan into the computer for something....lord only knows what.  Perhaps to post here as I remember small things before I lose them to my horrible memory.   It was nice showing them to my dh, as he only knew teatea for the last 4 years of her life.  "She had so much more hair!"  The most active he remembers her being is reaching out for a quick swipe at him as she lay belly-up in the hallway or anywhere on the carpet where we walked by with frequency....clever girl.

I'm still waiting for it all to feel "done", but I am coming to the conclusion that it never will be.  Teatea will live on in me and a HUGE part of my life....the unconditional love she gave helped me through 19 years of tough times...many were times when no one else was there.  How can I ever thank her enough for that? 

....memory and more....

i am still surprised at the strength of my grief when it hits out of the blue.  Her little fuzzy mouse toy with REALLY BAD HAIR (due to years of teatea licking the rabbit fur that it's made of) threw me into a sobbing fit that was only rescued by my husband's small bladder (he had to go potty, so he came into the bedroom).  The house seems empty without a furry little being inside, and just when i need her the most to bring solace, she is gone.  I think the word I'm looking for is sucks.  it flat out sucks.  And there's nothing i can do to make it better except go forward.  Which I shall for her...and for me. 

....memory!!   I was rooting around through photo albums attempting to find a suitable pic for the front of the frame on her ashes box (which of course I failed at) and I found this photo....as ornery as teatea was, for some reason she was rather amenable to having things placed on her head.  The nurse hat was in honor of the ill boyfriend (that has been carefully cut out of the photo) that was laying in bed with teatea....I thought she might want a job to do that day, so she became nurse teatea....

...hitting the one week mark....

well, here i am, one week after teatea's death.  Do you think it's harsh that I say death or dead as opposed to "passed" or "put to sleep"?  For me, well, i have a problem saying words that don't honor the severity of the situation.  I work primarily with folks of other cultures/races and I hear many different words to describe the death of a loved one.  They passed.  They passed on.  They passed away.  They have gone home.  They left this world.  Perhaps this has to do with the religious beliefs of the family that has suffered the loss.  But to me, to sugar coat it or hide it behind softer words does not honor the horrible feeling of grief that comes with the loss.  Teatea's body is dead.  Teatea's spirit? Oh who knows.  I still cry and ponder that one.  Most of the time I figure she's got to be around here somewhere.  This was the only place she knew...we were the only people she loved.  Doesn't that make this a logical spot? You would think....but I've had no "signs".  Others have told me that they've seen their dead loved ones (human or animal) out the corner of their eye, or heard them, or felt their touch....I haven't had any of that yet.  Doesn't mean she's not around though...she could stay mad at someone for quite some time.  When I used to come home from vacation, she would ignore me for several days before she'd come around.  Never stayed mad at my husband though, that was always interesting (and humorous).  So we will see.  I could use a gentle visit from her to ease my mind.

I've had candles burning whenever I've been home since her death.  I don't know why ~ she didn't have a preference for wisker-singeing candles.  [=  Problem is that I've discovered a fabulous new candle and they're bloody expensive!  But for now, I will capitulate to my mourning need and purchase fabulous candles cuz they bring a wee bit of peace to my soul.  Woodwick candles.  Look'em up.  They're gorgeously scented and the crackling wick is hyp-mo-tizing.   Sorry.... short attention span. Anyways, I'm still wearing teatea's collar as a bracelet and I'm barely aware of it most of the time.  Is that good or bad? I dunno.  I haven't been able to concentrate enough to study (for an exam I have to take at the end of February) or even to watch a movie, but it's getting a bit better, as I've caught myself laughing at a few things.  My doctor gave me a prescription for Ambien to help me sleep, but I'm afraid to try it, cuz it kept a friend of mine up all night, and I can't imagine a worse torture right now than being stuck awake with my own thoughts.  So I've been visiting my husband's xanax at bedtime....but tonight I'll try the ambien.  Need to stop stealing his meds.  Oh! Last night I slept with the light off for the first time.  Baby steps....

I think I've written about how angry I am at my family's lack of response to what I'm going through....my friends have been kind, but my family has been sorely absent from recognizing what I'm going through.  My friend Wheezie sent me a cookie bouquet and I've gotten cards and well-wishing phone calls from many friends.  My family, on the other hand, must have great big issues with grief, because I haven't gotten so much as a card from them.  Grief displaced as anger?  Nope.  I'm just flat out pissed that they couldn't take the time to recognize the loss of one of my primary relationships, even if they didn't like teatea (she had a very mean streak). 

I still haven't found a photo for the box for teatea's ashes.  Why doesn't it seem more important??  Perhaps I don't want to just remember her in "just one way".   I have funny photos of her, I have beautiful photos, I have personality-filled ones.....which to use?  I'll post it here when I figure it out.  

Oh, and remind me to tell you about the wind chime tree....

....home.....

...it seems so "final", now that teatea's ashes are home.  When i picked up the box at the pet mortuary, I was a bit creeped out by the array of little coffins and gravestones in the lobby....I told them who i was and they asked me if I was here to pick up teatea.  "No, I'm here to pick up her ashes though."  I wished desperately that i was there to pick up teatea, but I know that part of her has never left me since we had her put down last Sunday.  They gave me a little white cardboard box about the size of a recipe card box.  That was it.  I picked it up and it was so very very very light.  I was really taken aback by that.  She was a small kitty....at 7 weeks when i got her she weighed 3/4 lb, and she never was over 10 lbs....but the box is soooooo light.  I guess it's a gentle reminder of how wee she really was....and that 18+ years is long life for a feline friend.  I drove home thinking that is was the ONLY time that I'd driven with her in the car where she didn't sing the yowling kitty song the whole way.  [=  In 1994 teatea accompanied my ex-husband and I on a cross country drive.  He was in the military and we drove from Georgia to back to San Diego, where we were once again to live.  The thought of sticking her on a plane by herself again (which we did when we moved to Georgia) was not acceptable, so in the car she went, exploring new hotel rooms every night, hiding from 18 wheeler trucks in her crate (we actually used a metal dog crate so she could see us when she wanted to and hide under a blanket from the trucks when she wanted to).  I don't think it was her favorite time in her life, but it sure was an adventure!  She used to sing that kitty song in the house as she got older....and then she suddenly stopped about the same time she stopped eating.  It was just another sign that things were changing for her....now what I'd give to hear her yowl....sigh...

Oh, anyways, back to the homecoming.  I brought the little box into the house and immediately couldn't figure out what the heck to do with it....  dh had unpacked the little container/frame that I'd purchased in July of 2006 (thinking she was going then!), but I didn't have a photo to put in it.  I could not get myself to let my dh put her ashes in the container without a photo of her on the front...because then she couldn't see out of it and it would just be dark and scary and permanent.  Ok, I know how irrational that sounds.  But that's how I feel, so I'm honoring it as true for me, and that's that.  So I placed the little box on the bed where her kittycave used to be (new one hasn't arrived yet) and wrapped a blanket around it....and sat and cried and cried.  How could that be all that was left of my best friend????  How could she just be gone???  And the tears flowed.  Dh came in with tears and hugs....and when bedtime came, we moved her up on the dresser overlooking the bed (I don't think either one of us wanted to be the one to kick the box off the bed, so we moved it), put the frame/container in front of the box and I put a silk scarf over the box to "keep her warm" up there.....and that's where she is right now...well, that's where her ashes are.  I wish i knew where she was.  I know where  I WANT her to be, I can take guesses at where she'd like to be, but i still don't know.  Dh put the stairs to the bed again tonight, just in case she needed them in her new life to come say hello.... we're getting quite good at honoring our irrational thoughts to take care of ourselves!! [=  

Now, I have to find a photo for that frame.  Do i choose young teatea or older teatea? Do i choose one where she's staring right into the camera or doing one of her favorite things?   That's my task for this afternoon.  I'm dreading it, but i know it needs to be done.

A quick note on grieving with husband (sounds like a painting title).....he's starting to lose his patience with me cuz I'm not moving as fast through the grieving process as he is and it hurts him to watch me be where I am.... dh only knew teatea for 4 years, so this isn't surprising, but it makes it very very difficult.  When he loses his patience with me, it makes me feel even lonelier than i do, and that makes it harder on me....cuz i feel teatea's loss more.  We've spoken about it, and he understands. I wanted to throw that in cuz i'm sure others have the same thing going on, and if I'm going to type my true experience, that is certainly a part of it..... more later..... (oh, photo of teatea laying on dh's shoulder and napping...a highly regarded spot for napping.)

....bringing the ashes home....

....today i will be bringing teatea's ashes home. I'm not a big fan of having "cremains" around the house...one of my best friends when I was growing up was 1/2 Japanese and her mother (who was an immigrant to this country and married to a frenchman...yes, they met during a war of some sort) had her parents cremains set up in a shrine of some sort in their bedroom and she used to have some sort of ritual (incense? candles?) that she used to go through...and as a non-Japanese 'tweenager, it quite frankly freaked meowwt. But since teatea was scared of the outdoors (whenever we tried to take her outside, she'd dig claws into our shoulders and try to run back in...just too big for her, I reckon.), burial on my wee place was out of the question (it is legal here.) The only place she ever wanted to be was with my husband and I, inside our wee home in the country. So now I have ashes. It is a strange thought, but like many other things in this process, my response has surprised me. The ashes are teatea's exoskeleton. If I'm picking cat hair off of my clothes and not wanting to put it in the trash bin, it's fairly obvious that these ashes are treasured because they belonged to her.

The box/urn/container. About 5 years ago, teatea had a bout with anorexea that took us to the emergency vet over thanksgiving weekend (NONE of my animals do anything between 8-5 monday thru friday. It's ALWAYS after hours or on weekends. And they say critters can't tell time....) and I thought her days were numbered then. I gathered my resources and even got online to pick a box/urn/container, because I figured I'd be too upset when the time came to take care of it. That thing has been hiding up in a closet for 5 years, gathering dust....I was obviously very lucky. What I wouldn't give for an extra 5 healthy years now. Sigh...anyhow, I hid that box from teatea, just incase she had gone out during the day while I was at work and taken a reading class....[= But today it will be taken out to use. I knew the day would come, but suddenly it's here. It's a simple wooden box with a frame in the front, so that the photo will look like a simple picture sitting there, but her ashes will be behind that photo. We'll keep it on the dresser, overlooking the bed, because that was her favorite place to be. And who knows....maybe freed souls look for a gentle place to rest every so often, and she will be called back to her own ashes seeking familiarity (kind of like in the movie Iron Giant!)...and there we will be, in that room, loving her the same as when she was here.

....i remember... (pt. 1)

....today i remember the times when she'd find an unsuspecting barefoot human (yes, usually me) and steal a lick of a toe, which NEVER failed to make me jump and laugh her name out loud.....

i wear black on the outside....

so i've found myself wearing black to work the last 2 days....don't know how long it will continue on for, but it seems so appropriate...mostly in a personal way, as I always wondered why I, as a person who preferred to wear black (19 years ago), ended up with an apricot and white colored cat! [= teatea's hair is still everywhere as little reminders (more like emotional land mines), but I'm glad it's there. I miss her dreadfully. A friend of mind said something that rang true to me today.....cats live in the moment. They don't dwell on the past or worry about the future. This brought me comfort when thinking about the actual moments where she left this world in her physical form. She's not dwelling on the past...nor is she worried about her future....she just "is". And that makes me smile, even amongst the tears.

first day back at work....first day without her being waiting to greet me afterwards....

...lots of folks have said "the best thing in the world for you is to go back to work. It'll get your mind off of it."  well, that's true...for brief moments.  But the awkward tears and the drop of a hat are a little hard to explain to co-workers, especially for those who have never learned how to make a pet become a true family member (and i don't mean by dressing them up in clothes and treating them like people).  These are the "oh for god sakes, just get over it. It was a CAT" people....so I told only one person at work today....one I knew would understand.  She helped ease my workday by staying and talking about her experiences with death and pets for about 45 minutes..... which i truly appreciated.  There are photos of teatea at work....little reminders...even down to a bit of fluffy cat hair I found stuck on my shirt.  I cried as I took it outside to blow away in the breeze ~ I couldn't get myself to put it in the garbage bin.  Every bit of teatea means so much now that she's not physically with me.  Husband (who is out of work currently) told me that he left the music on in the bedroom for her today....that brought such comfort.  I wore her collar today for the first time (as a bracelet, of course) and when my heart began to ache, I would touch it on my wrist and know that somehow we are connected still.  

I was "ok" at work....the grief was like a lowgrade fever that slowed me down, but the work was a minor distraction.  I'm not going to win any awards for "employee of the year" with my performance, that's for sure.  The hard part was getting in my car to drive home.  I have a long history of grieving while I drive, which as far as I'm concerned is sometimes as bad as drinking and driving....get to sobbing too hard and you can't see anything.  But driving is my down time, and so the grief comes.  The second wave hit as I walked in the door at home after work.....and her furry face wasn't there to greet me, or be woken up by my big moonhead peeking into her kitty cave.  I keep a candle lit in the bedroom at night for her...and yes, for me.  It's a "WoodWick" candle that sounds like a wee fireplace when it burns, and i know the sound would have fascinated her. Little tiny pops and crackles (for those of you who currently have a cat, you might want to keep an eye on them if they're still young enough to get into trouble around these candles!) are hyp-mo-tizing and comforting at the same time.  

I've had the usual thoughts again today....did she truly know how much she was loved here?  Am I going to be able to make it through this?  Do i ever WANT to get over this? And of course, the usual amount of energy to push the negative thoughts to the side as much as I can.  I don't want her memory to fade.  I'm hoping that as I process all these feelings in this blog that eventually I'll be able to get to the part where I start saving memories here....ones that have made me a part of her and her a part of me.  That's the goal.  For now, there's just pain, grief, fear, anguish, and knowing that I did what I had to do.  I could only be this strong for her.

24 hours into the grief....

I am making attempts (although feeble) to not think about those last moments so that I don't torture myself into having nightmares I don't deserve....the human condition somehow leads us down that road, doesn't it?  I am tortured by questions that I cannot answer:  Does she know I love her even though I let a stranger in the house to "hurt" her?  Did she know everything was done in kindness and that it wasn't an act of betrayal in her weakened state? Is she safe? Does she REALLY know how much I love her? Last night I was afraid to go to sleep because I feared nightmares.  Sunday I surprised myself because I thought the "body" would creep me out....instead it gave me comfort to have the extra half hour before the cremeatorium came to pick it up.  I was also surprised that I wanted to clean most everying out  while I was in my "numb" stage....so that the emotional "land mines" that I accidentally ran into would be fewer between.  Gone are the IV fluids, bag of KD food, antibiotics, blankets, kitty cave (that she had an accident in), litterbox.... What I did keep were her prized possessions: 2 beloved toys, all my photos (including the home screen on my cell phone), her empty water and food bowls, a blanket on the bottom of the bed, and her collar ~ which I'll be making into a bracelet so that even though she's physically gone, I have a solid reminder with me always.  My dh was really struggling with the kitty cave not being at the bottom of the bed, so we have ordered a new one....it sounds odd, but now having one there was TOO empty...and I think both us agree that her wee soul may need a place to rest as it does it's think across the universe, and that a familiar stopping ground might be very welcomed.  [= 

I am not doubting my decision.  I saw no "look" from her.  She was too stubborn and proud for that.   19 years of living with her had put enough of my soul into her and her soul into me to know when that time had come.  Sadly, it came.  

I am just over 24 hours into the grieving process and am left helpless by the thought that this has only begun.  I believe another cat will come along, but now I need time to get my memories, feelings and connection with my friend in order....she may no longer be in my life in the physical sense, but she's there strong as ever in a different way....and that's what I need to nurture and make stronger now.  And I will ask her to help me find the next furry one that needs us.  Who knows what's possible.....

...the time has come and now she's physically gone from our lives...

.....i don't think i've ever been more brave and more scared and more mortified.  The home vet called today and said she could come over at 1pm.  I said yes.  I don't know how i managed to get those words out of my mouth, but i did.  i spent last night up with teatea helping her get to her litter box and water bowl....she's been drinking more, but I could still only get about a half teaspoon of babyfood into her.  No, i didn't use a syringe....this all MUST be on her terms as much as possible.  It was soooooo horrible watching a proud, stubborn cat like teatea have to be helped to the litterbox....and i know it was humiliating for her.  For just shy of 19 years I've shared so much with her that we pretty much know each other like we ARE each other.  She's not happy.  She's also very VERY pissed off that her body is quitting on her.  Her breathing isn't great...she has to pause after drinking and sometimes gasp from her mouth once to get serious airflow.  Her road to kidney failure is apparent and has been for some time.  She has started to have some sort of problem swallowing and makes a "squelching" noise when she does swallow.  And the loss of the use of most of her hind end....well, the others were ongoing and affected quality of life, but not like this.  This is unacceptable to cat that is independent and opinionated.  In my heart I believe this was why she stopped eating 4 days ago.  She could feel it coming on.....

Anyhow, perhaps in the future I'll be able to write more about the moments of actually putting her down, but I can't right now.  It tears at my heart and soul too much.  For now, I will just say that even though I never got "that look" that everyone speaks of (she was far too pissed off to waste any time with an "i give in" look [=  ) that I know it was time.  I never wanted her to leave me.  But that wasn't an option.  She didn't want to live like that....I didn't want to watch my proud best friend decline into more pain and more frustration.... so I helped her in the only way I knew how...by freeing her from this hideous struggle that came at the end of her life.  

Someone on one of the boards I belong to send me a piece of writing about letting your pet leave by giving them the "gift" of freedom from their suffering.... I'll post it here because I'd never seen it before, and it helped when I read it.

The Greatest Gift

I always knew this time would come,

From the very instant our eyes first met.

How I loved you then! How I lvoe you now!

I made a promise then, and I will keep that promise now...

You will not suffer from a pain that will not heal;

You will not know the loss of a life remembered, now gone.

It is for me alone to make this decision,

The price for the bright joy and pure laughter

You brought me during the time we shared.

I am the only one who can decide when it is time.

When my hope dies, and my fear rides high,

Just when I need you most, I must let you go.

It is for you alone to tell me when you are ready

For without your guidance, I will not know

When to lay my grief, my guilt, my anger

My sorrow and my selfish heart aside

and give you this last gift, this greatest gift.

You eyes will speak to mine and I will know.

The pain of this moment is excruciating.  

Tears stream down my face in a river of sorrow. 

And my heart drowns in a pool of grief.

For you have spoken and I have listened, 

and unlike other decisions I have made

This one brings no relief...no comfort...no peace.

For if there's one thing you've taught me

If there's only one thing I've learned....

Unconditional love has a condition after all,

I must be willing to let you go, when you speak to me

I must be willing to help you go, if you cannot go alone

And I must accept my pain so you can be free of yours.

Go easily now, go quickly now,

Do not linger here, it is time for you to leave.

Go find your strength, go find your youth

Go find the ones who have gone before you

You are free to leave me now, free to let your spirit soar

Rest easy now, your pain will soon be gone.

I pray I will find comfort in my memories...

in the dark and lonely days ahead.

I cannot say I will not miss you, I cannot say I will not cry.

For only my tears can heal my broken heart.

But I promise you this; as long as I live, 

You will live, alive in my mind, forever in my heart.

So I give you this last gift, all I have left to give,

And this will be my greatest gift...sending you away.

It is the measure of my unconditional love....

For only the greatest love can say

"Goodbye, go find the bridge, we'll meet again,

Loving you has been the greatest gift of all."

By Karla Bertram

11/23/96

...the day i have always dreaded has arrived....

.....one thing about the internet is that is sure is a good place to pour your feelings out...I am going to have to put my best friend down on Monday and I don't know what to do with all the emotions that I've dreaded since she turned 14 (for some reason that was the cut-off date for elderly to OLD cat for me)..she will be just shy of her 19th birthday on valentine's day.  The most difficult part is that her mind is clear and bright....but her arthritis has finally gotten to the point where one of her hind legs doesn't work and the other is weakened so much that she can't walk further than 4 or 5 steps. She stopped eating about 4 days ago, but is still drinking and with help, getting to the litterbox. We've been giving subQ fluids for the last 3 days and she's gotten a bit brighter, but that still won't change her hind end.....her decline over the last 3 days has been so quick that it's been heartwrenching.  I just had a home vet come yesterday and she stated that the cat was "not ready to be put down quite yet" based on heart, gums, palpating and pee test.  And now, becaus ethe home vet doesn't work on Sunday, it has to wait til Monday morning....(office vet not an option.)  My cat is still crawling out of her bed whenever she hears my dh and I come into the room, which breaks my heart and makes me so proud of her at the same time.  I can't believe the time is here.  Perhaps I'd find it easier if she was visually in pain....or if she was obviously senile and not knowing who we were, but perhaps that's where the blessing lies....it will be tougher for us but perhaps an easier ending for her.