2009....it was yesterday....

I am so very glad that I created this blog.  No, I still can't get myself to go back and read my first posts here....but I know they have helped.  The posts have not only helped me get through those desperately lonely and sad times, but whenever my friends and fellow feline lovers go through the loss of a pet I have referred them to these posts and it has made them....in their words "feel more normal" about what they've been feeling.  And that makes me feel good.

It's been almost 3 years since Teatea left my physical world and become whole in my soul.  She is with me every moment.  I wear her collar every day and it still make me happy.  It reminds me she is with me always and for that I am grateful.  The day I had to let Teatea leave her physical body I cut some of her hair and put it in my jewelry box.  That drawer hasn't been opened yet.  I'm not ready.  I don't know if I ever will be, and I don't know what I'll do with it....but it's there. She was my furry soulmate for almost 19 years, and I don't expect to know all the answers in the 3 years she's been missing from my physical world.

I still cry. Sometimes the missing is so strong that it's the only way I can express it.  Oh, I have other kittens that I love with all my heart (you can see them here), but Teatea was different.  She was my one and only for just shy of 19 years.  From my 29th year all the way to my 48th year, she was by my side, sleeping with me, waiting for me at the door when I came home.  Do I feel I failed her in any way? Of course.  I think all good pet owners feel that they have failed their pet in some way or another....should have known something, should have spent more time, should have..... and "should haves" are what we torture ourselves with, until we realize we did the best we could with the knowledge we had and who we were at the time.  Maybe hindsight brings clarity, but it doesn't change the fact that we did the best we knew how to do at that time....and that's all we can ask ourselves for.

I will probably write posts for this blog til the day it's my turn to leave my physical body.... I imagine it won't be with the regularity that others write for their blogs.  But since Teatea never leaves my soul, there will always be something to share, even if it's only on the anniversary of her birth (February 14th....and thats no fib.  She was born at my sister's house, so we know it's the truth! )  Valentine's Day will always include a special celebration for me...forever.

...a smile....

....right this very minute, i can feel her in my heart.... love.

...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?! [=

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.