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KeriTiasMom

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21 Apr 2007
Hi my name is Keri and I came here several times some months ago after I lost my chihuahua Tia who was my best friend since childhood. I've had some difficulty getting used to life w/out her and I'm still not entirely used to it (I still cry sometimes at night from missing her lying beside me or thinking of missing her during the day). Anyway, that's not what this thread is about.

I have been feeding a stray cat, my family calls her the "neighborhood cat" because everyone in the neighborhood feeds her and pets her, and she has thrived under my care and my family's. We kept her in our garage at night during the cold winter with a bed w/a heating pad under it and such. Anyway, she has recently had 4 beautiful kittens in our garage as an ultimate sign of loyalty..haha..and now I'm desperate to find them good homes.
I've taken care of these kittens since the very first hours of their lives. They are now 3 weeks old and bright-eyed, playful, and full of life little fluffballs. I desperately wish I could keep them because I treat my pets like my family members but I know that I can't...I'm between jobs right now and the apartments I plan on moving into within the next few months don't allow pets. The thought of giving these kittens away to just anybody and not knowing if they will be mistreated or neglected tears my heart apart.

This is why I'm here. I know the people here really care about their pets and that is why they would take the time to come grieve as a group over their respective losses. I know some of you are not ready for new pets and some of you already have enough pets...but I thought it was worth a try. If I can't find good homes for the kittens in the next couple of weeks my parents are going to give them away at a neighborhood-organized garage sale or take them to the vet's office to have the vet give them away. This may be fine but I will worry about what kinds of homes they are going to...I already had a very terrible, too terrible to mention in fact, experience with some kittens I was taking care of and neighborhood kids.

I can't travel far to meet you if you'd like one or multiple of these kittens but I can go as far as Shreveport, LA, Dallas, TX, or Little Rock, AR, as each are situated relatively near where I live. I will be posting pictures of the kittens on here for y'all to look at if I get any interested replies.

As far as my wishes for these kittens...They have lived their entire short lives so far in my garage and are very much at home indoors. They are learning to scratch on a scratching pole right now. Their mother is very healthy and lovely and is taking extremely good and careful care of them. Each of the 4 kittens appears to be very healthy and playful. Within a week I will be preparing a small litter box to start trying to train them to be housebroken. My wish is that these kittens will go to good homes that will keep them as purely indoor cats. The outdoors are a dangerous place for even a wise and street smart cat and these kittens are entirely accustomed to the indoors. I also wish for them to have homes where they will be well taken care of...loved as the adorable little babies they are, fed and given water as they need, played with, taken to the vet when necessary, and kept safe from harm.

If anyone is interested please email me at bjorkdoll2003@yahoo.com. From there we can discuss more about it. If I get any interest about the subject I will, as I said before, post pictures up here of each of the kittens along with a brief description of their individual personalities. I really truly hope y'all will consider taking one of them because I really believe that the ppl here are truly animal lovers and will take good care of my little adopted babies. Thank you for taking the time to read this. --Keri
21 Nov 2006
Disclaimer: If you do not believe in the afterlife/paranormal phenomenon/other unexplained things like these, perhaps you wouldn't want to read this...(or you might think what I'm saying is crazy). If you do believe, or are otherwise open-minded, however, please continue...

Some ppl think that if a person experiences a great tragedy and/or experiences a lot of grief, he/she will be more receptive to paranormal phenomenon or more sensitive to some things that are typically outside of the realm of human understanding (psychic phenomenon, seeing ghosts..that sort of thing). Do you agree?
I experienced a great tragedy when I was a child and I feel like it made me a lot more sensitive to any sort of spiritual phenomenon that might be going on around me (such as noticing the presences of ghosts in some of the houses I've lived in). I was always a bit intuitive by nature and had experienced some premonitions in my dreams (I mentioned this in a previous post) before I had really experienced the death of a loved one but after my first real loss I seemed to become more sensitive.

Losing my dog Tia was probably the 2nd really meaningful loss of a loved one in my lifetime and I feel like I have become bombarded by some of these unexplained
phenomenon since then (either that or I'm losing my mind...which I guess is always a possibility too happy.gif ). A couple of days before Tia's death I was in my office at work and a big gust of wind swirled some leaves around in front of the window and threw something against the glass. When I stood up to look outside to see what hit the window I saw a cricket wriggling on its back on the ground. It looked like it was suffering and I had the urge to run outside and put it out of its misery..but then I had this heart-wrenching feeling, this fleeting thought...what if the cricket, whose life I was considering ending, was desperately clinging to life...what if, if it could have spoken to me, it would have said "please, don't kill me. though I am suffering I want to hold on to this last moment that I have on earth..don't take that away from me." Yes, it was quite a melodramatic thing to think about an injured cricket but it struck me that way. Then Tia died a few days later (she died in her sleep the night before we were supposed to go to the vet, that next morning, and make the decision to put her to sleep). I immediately thought of that cricket. If Tia hadnt taken the decision out of my hands, what would I have done?

These last few weeks (almost 2 months after Tia's death) I have dreamt of Tia nearly every night. Perhaps this is wishful thinking but I really feel as if she is coming to me in my dreams to be with me in whatever way she can. I feel like she still wants to be by my side but this is in the only medium through which she can reach me. Is that weird? To dream of a loved one so frequently is not typical for me...I usually dream of strangers, to tell the truth (that sounds strange too but I really do...I often dream of ppl I've never met).
The last couple of weeks I've had a few startling, perhaps paranormal, experiences. Last week I went into my closet to retrieve a jacket and once I stepped all the way inside I heard a voice very clearly say "Keri, Keri...are you there?" almost as one would respond on the phone to a dropped call. I was so startled I nearly jumped out of my skin and ran out into my room. I was the only person awake in my house and the tv wasn't on (nor was the phone off the hook). Later, that weekend, I was in the movie theater watching a scary movie (lol....how's that for atmosphere) when I heard the same voice near my ear saying "Keri, Keri...it's me." Now this one I tried to write off as my ears mangling some sounds I heard in the theater but still...after the other voice with a similar msg...I was pretty scared. I had a weird thought...what if it was Tia trying to tell me she was there..but she had a human voice...how could that happen? Perhaps it was another deceased family member...I joked with my mom that it was my deceased grandmother (on my father's side) and the end of the sentence, the part I was missing/couldn't hear, was "Keri, Keri...are you here?.... can you PLEASE take this bratty dog back? She's driving me crazy." hahaha

Last night I walked past the dining room (which has a big picture window with a rounded arched window over the top that doesn't have blinds or a curtain over it) on my way to the kitchen for a late-night snack. As I always do, I glanced upwards at the uncovered arched window to get a glimpse of the night sky. In this split second that I glanced upwards as I walked through the room I saw a brilliant large white orb shoot across the sky. Don't get me wrong...I don't think it was a UFO. I believe it was a really large shooting star. But the fact that it happened to fly across the sky at the moment I looked up...it startled me quite badly. It had the feeling of a premonition to it although I couldn't say what the premonition was. All I know is that I had a cold chill run all the way from the top of my head down my back after I saw it.

So what do you think? does loss make a person more receptive to these sorts of things? I know there's already been a thread about signs from departed pets but I'm wondering if you think losing your pet has made you more open to unexplained phenomenon....And for those who have received signs from their pets...are these the first experiences of this kind that you've had? If so, perhaps this would indeed indicate that the traumatic loss of that pet made you more open to the spirit world. Ah, but this all sounds so New Age-y..smile.gif Trust me, I'm not really a New Age type of person wink.gif ...just curious about the world around me (as it is indeed more than what science explains it to be).
20 Oct 2006
Sorry if this poem is a bit long. I wrote it less than a week after my childhood friend and pet Tia died. I had returned to my job as a one-on-one writing tutor at a local university and I had no students that day so I was sitting alone for really the first time since Tia died (at home I was always around some family member or another) and I was really depressed having all that quiet alone time to think about my loss. So I wrote this...

The earthy musky scent
of fur, scuffed paw pads
soft but worn like old leather
wet nose against my hands
your warm body lay lengthwise by mine
we breathed in unison
I turned, you turned
your tiny feet touched my back
Deep brown-black eyes
so full of love
opened each morning to see me first
Sometimes you remained in bed
unwilling to give up sleep so soon
I remember both our childhoods
first cradling your tiny body
trembling, so full of hope
I vowed my life for yours
we were connected
long childhood summers we ran
Fall we scattered careful piles of leaves
Winter snow never concerned you much
Spring rain was an inconvenience
you required my head to get wet first
I didn't mind, I never did.
In storms my first thought was your safety
we huddled together under chair cushions
Every return home was a parade
you ran great floppy circles
in joyful exhuberance, your ears flew in the wind
Sometimes you pawed the air
reared up on your hind legs
like a wild horse
Every time I left I dreaded leaving you behind
every vacation you filled my thoughts
your greatest joy was to be at my side
this was my joy as well
for being near you I felt the warm contentedness
of a mother holding her child to her chest.
Since everything living must want to leave, someday,
I dare not begrudge you your choice to go
But sometimes I wish I could have followed you.
This life without your constant presence
seems devoid of color, blank
not a canvas, which suggests possibilites,
but a black page, upon which no color can leave a mark
I'll forever miss your warm smell
the smell of childhood
and the easy sleep that came
from the lullaby of your breath beside me.
7 Oct 2006
Today I've been in a sort of softly melancholic mood...not deeply depressed...not happy. just a sort of in-between state...not numb...just a gentle sadness as if the loss of my Tia is finally becoming a permanent part of my life in my mind. In this mood I felt drawn towards certain songs, songs with certain "feel"s to them. Music has always been an integral part of my life...highlighting my happy times and punctuating my sad ones. These songs I will share here with y'all supported me today and I feel they say out loud (in words and music) how I feel about my loss. I'll include the lyrics to one of the songs. The other is in nationality (these are both from my favorite musician, Hyde, who is nationality).

Do you find any songs in particular seem to jump out at you as meaningful...that they seem to speak to you personally about your lost loved one(s) or about your feelings about that loved one? Let's share

When I feel sad but grateful to my Tia I listen to this song, "Shallow Sleep," by Hyde. This is the piano version with English lyrics. It's sad but the lyrics are so meaningful to someone who lost a loved one. Please give it a listen.
This is the link to the song and below are the lyrics:
Link to "Shallow Sleep (English, piano version)"
"Shallow Sleep" (lyrics and music by Hyde)

I just saw you
Beyond the course of time
A room that we once shared
But my memory's a haze
Forgetting what was said

I gently held out my hand
And in that perfect moment
You disappeared - I lost you over again

In a shallow sleep I dreamt I was seeing you
Just how I remembered
Brimming with tenderness
And somewhere in the calm
A feeling that nothing had ever changed
Your presence close beside me till I wake

I just saw you
A moment far too brief
Before the daylight came
But my heart is beating fast
Perhaps we'll meet again

In a shallow sleep I dreamt I was seeing you
Just how I remembered
Brimming with tenderness
And somewhere in the calm
A feeling that nothing had ever changed
Your presence close beside me till I wake

I see you - until I wake from shallow sleep

An artist without a brush
Can't paint upon the canvas
Without you here - there is no colour
A colourless landscape

In a shallow sleep I dreamt I was seeing you
Just how I remembered
Brimming with tenderness
And somewhere in the calm
A feeling that nothing had ever changed
Your presence close beside me till I wake

I see you - shallow sleep

This song, called "Season's Call," is another one by Hyde. This one is more upbeat and reminds me of the few times (perhaps the manic upside of a manic depressive mood swing..haha) that in the midst of my grief I feel a sudden welling up of joy, of gra***ude for my Tia and for her presence in my life. As some of the English lyrics of this mostly nationality song state, "because you taught me how to love I feel I can do anything." This song is about a feeling, a sureness that there is a higher power by the feeling of inner joy and peace that the faith one has provides them. I also interpret it like this...When I think of Tia and how she has now passed on I don't always feel sad. When I look at it and step outside of my sad feelings I feel an inner peace and a sudden feeling of joy to think that somewhere, inside of me, she is still there and will never die. This is what I think of when I hear this song...my faith that Tia is still with me, only now, in her spiritual form, she will never leave me as her mortal form did.
Hyde "Seasons Call" video

Edit: I'll purposefully misspell this so you can see what I mean...every time I type Jpnese this changed it to "nationality"...in case you're wondering what that meant:)
1 Oct 2006
Forgive me...this is long. I cannot explain it but I need to say this. I know it's silly but I need to say it all. But please...if you have the time...read this for me.

Hi everyone my name is Keri and I'm 25 years old. Wednesday my best friend Tia, a chihuahua and my companion for 14 years, passed away to the next world. I honestly can't believe that my happiness could disappear so quickly from my life. She was old...that's what everyone keeps telling me...but she was in relatively good health until Monday. She started wheezing a lot and I didn't take her to the vet. She had been panting and wheezing a bit since her elderly times set in and I thought she was just having some allergy problems (that's what the vet told us caused her wheezing when it first started). Tuesday I cried to my mom that I didn't want to take her to the vet to get checked out cuz every time I took her to the vet since she became older I dreaded what he would tell me. My dread was so great I wanted to avoid taking her...after all, it was just allergies, right? I decided, however, to take her Wednesday.
Tuesday night Tia was on my bed napping as usual while I chatted online with friends. She jumped up to let me know she needed to go (she frequently had to go outside to pee all night long the last year or so because her old bladder wasn't as strong as it used to be....I gladly missed a solid night's rest every day of my life for this time because she was my child and I only wanted to take care of her). When I put her on the floor, however, she stiffened up and acted wobbly as if she couldn't take one step. I have a bigger outside dog that has had seizures before...I recognized the way this behavior looked. I called my boyfriend into the room and he held her and stroked her. I cried hysterically asking him what I should do and he kept saying "Keri...she's old...what can we do?"
I still live at home and I ran to wake up my parents. They thought perhaps she was stiff from arthritis but we all sat in a circle around her in my room, petting her and calling her affectionately, comforting her. Around 4 a.m. my parents said we should rest and we would take her to the vet in the morning. Everyone left me and Tia to our room where we slept every night. She cuddled against me in the bed and laid her chin on my arm. I knew, somewhere inside I knew, this was her savoring our last night together. Around 8:30 a.m. my mom woke me up so she could take Tia outside for me. Perhaps 30 seconds after she left to take Tia outside she ran back into my room...I had dozed off. In a panic she said "Keri wake up. Tia's not doing so well." She was seizing again...but this time very bad. We rushed frantically to the vet in our pajamas. As the nurse took Tia away to be checked out she looked back at me one last time. Perhaps 10 minutes later the vet took us into a separate room...I call this room the grief room...I knew what it was for...She told us Tia was bad off but perhaps not disastrously so...she had fluid in her lungs perhaps from heart failure...they would give her medicine and run some tests and call us in a few hours. At home I cried constantly. I dozed off and woke up...dozed and woke up. Finally I locked myself in the bathroom and rolled on my side on the floor in a quivering ball of agony. I prayed and I begged and I cried. The phone rang...my father knocked on the bathroom door asking me to come out. He informed me that the vet had Tia under an oxygen tent...the fluid in her lungs made it impossible for her to breathe without being under oxygen. They had given her diuretics to try to clear out the fluid but if that did not help by Thursday morning we would have to "make a very serious decision." I knew what he meant by that. I struck myself repeatedly with my fists and screamed that I would rather kill myself than take the life of my dog. Today I have black bruises all over my legs where I hit myself repeatedly to try to express my pain. It hurts to walk. All day I cried and I raged and I begged and I prayed and I writhed in pain. I turned numb...I wouldn't eat I wouldn't drink and I prayed to die. I lived. Around 4 we had called the vet to see if Tia's condition had improved. It hadn't. We knew the next morning we would have to make the most terrible decision of our lives. I planned what I would say to Tia as I held her that last time..."I love you Tia. You're my best friend always...Don't worry about missing me. We will only be apart a moment...Wait for me? I love you."
Around 8:30 that night we received a phone call from the vet. She had waited at the office with Tia all night. Tia had died peacefully after standing up and looking one last time at the world and then lying down gently and falling asleep. I know this was Tia's gift of love to me. Shortly before I had gone outside to get some air with my mom (and about 20 minutes before my dad called us to tell us to come back inside..that Tia was gone) I prayed to my cousin in Heaven to care for Tia for me until I got there. When I was about 12 years old my 7 year old cousin got hit by a train and was buried on my birthday. This is who I asked to care for my beloved Tia. The entire day since I found out about Tia's condition I had felt strangled...horrifyingly sick and short of breath...about 10 minutes before the phone call from my father my lungs cleared suddenly, my nausea passed. I know now this is the moment Tia passed on. I truly believe we were so close I was feeling what she was feeling and my release from this pain was her release as well.

Today is the 3rd day since Tia left. I feel, however, that she is still here. Though my house is empty and I wish to leave and not come back I stay...her spirit is in everything. Her fur on my bed, her smell on the air when I open the door from being out of the house. I see her brown eyes looking anxiously around the room for me when I enter the house. I hear the click of her nails on the linoleum floor of the kitchen. Today I was shopping at Target for some frames to frame pictures of her in my room. A small boy of about 4 ran from one aisle over to me. He pointed up at me and said "Mommy. She has a puppy." I looked behind me and all around me...I was the one he was pointing at. I had no dog-related items anywhere near me or on me. I think he saw Tia's spirit with me. I must believe this. Later I got into the car to go home and I smelled her breath, the excited warm doggie breath she would fill our car with when she panted happily as she got to "go" with us on our errands. My bed, however, is still cold without her familiar warm body lying beside me, always touching me with a paw or her back, needing that contact to sleep peacefully. Knowing I wasn't there when she died is killing me inside. I have cried every day and I don't see an end to my pain.
After this weekend I should be receiving her urn and ashes in the mail. I have built a memorial of sorts to my Tia in my room (her haven and mine). It's my version of a Buddhist altar. My best friends are Taiwanese and I have learned about this practice from them. Some Buddhists will set up altars to send prayers to their deceased loved ones, to do them honor in death so they know they are never forgotten. On my floor, where everything is easily within reach of a doggie's grasp, I have placed a small cabinet. Upon the surface of this cabinet is a collage of pictures of happy times....me and Tia together during Christmas, Thanksgiving, everyday family outings and happy times. Upon this collage is a pane of glass to protect it. On top of this glass are an urn full of sand into which I will place the incense I will burn to send my prayers to her up to Heaven with the smoke. Also upon the surface is one of her ceramic dog bowls into which I will place her favorite things...treats mostly, sometimes some sort of food she liked (of course I will remove this and replace it with something newer at various times). At the back, towards the wall the cabinet sets against, I have a framed picture of her on each corner and one large framed picture on the wall in the middle. Under this picture I am placing an engraved metal plate with an inscription (like a memorial stone but smaller) to her and her birth and death dates. Under this and between the two framed pictures I will place her urn...It's a beautiful urn...tiny (3 inches) and silver with a gold band around the middle and carved silver flowers on the surface of the gold. In the storage area under the surface of the cabinet I have placed all of Tia's sweaters and favorite things...her collars, her leashes, her treat jar, other pictures of her I will put up soon...the halter I would wear to carry her in (perhaps you've seen these for human babies...they fit like a backpack and the infant sits in a harness on the front or back of the mom like a baby kangaroo in a pocket). I hope with all of this I am doing her at least some honor.
I am also planting a tree in her honor in my back yard. The love and happiness and friendship she gave me (and I feel she is still giving me)...I don't know if I could ever pay it back no matter what I did. I took care of her in her childhood, her adolescence, adulthood, and finally her old age. In her last years I sacrificed much of my time and my health to care for her and make her as comfortable as possible. She was...she is my baby. Without her to take care of I feel useless and empty. My heart hurts and is numb at the same time...how can this be? And why....why have I not seen her yet? I am sensitive to these things...and though I sometimes smell her and sometimes hear her I never see her. I promised her I will not be scared if she wants to visit me. Although I currently do not wish directly for my immediate death I do not mind if it happens. I've reached a certain peaceful state about this. If I die I will see her soon, if I live I will eventually find peace (but I will always miss her...this much I know for sure). My two inside cats never paid me too much attention before...now they are sleeping on my bed. I know they sense my agony. My tears call them to my side and they sit on me like warm blankets to comfort me in my desolation. I am having trouble sleeping. When I wake up, which is often, I jolt to the realization that Tia is not beside me. Having taken her out all night every night for the last year or so I find my heart tugging at me at random times throughout the night...saying "Tia needs to go outside." One time, yesterday, I followed my heart and I walked outside, taking care to leave the door open wider so she could follow me out. I knew it was pretend. I stared at the sidewalk shivering in the cold and then fell apart in a shivering mass of tears. My boyfriend had to take me back inside. Every time I return home from being out (I leave frequently lately because being in the house is driving me mad) I briefly search for her, scanning the room with my eyes for her to run up excitedly to greet me. Then I remember...she isn't there.

Thank you if you have read this far and have heard my story. I joined here after reading everyone's posts since yesterday. Seeing that others were experiencing the same pain as I and feeling the same desperation...it comforted me. Thank you and I wish the best to all of you.
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