Missing, Now Gone, letting go of hope Options

[Mink&WillowsMom]

I started this topic on the Missing and Lost thread, but now that I have come to believe my precious Twitchit is dead, I am moving my story over here. When I still had hope, I couldn't bear to read the stories with sad endings -- I needed to see the "he came home!" ones.

I found this website a year ago after losing my precious baby Mink kitty to a car.
(A soul-rending loss I'm still not over.)
Three months ago my dad died, and I inherited his wonderful cat Twitchit (see avatar photo). We've adored each other for all of his six years, and I was sooo looking forward to having him in my home. The transition from his house (across the street) to mine was going slowly but smoothly. He's been able to roam at will with his cat-door, and my plan was to get him used to a new cat door at my house, then work toward locking him in at night. (I have three other kitties, one of whom has outdoor privileges when I'm home, and the two youngest -- adopted after Mink's death -- have never been outside.) Twitchit likes all three of my kids, and they like him back.

I let him back out Saturday evening, 6/30, and haven't seen him since. Very odd. Neutered, he didn't tend to roam, and has never stayed away more than a couple nights. Now that six days have gone by, I've been losing hope rapidly.

At first, I heard Dad in my head saying, "it's okay, he's fine."
Then it changed to, "he's fine, he's with me."
I didn't want to believe it as a truth, but it rang deeply in me.

Following a link I found here, I ended up hiring an Animal Communicator psychic. I'm not religious, and I've been trained as an empiricist, but I also know there's far more to the mystic side of things if we just still ourselves and listen. Experiences since Mink's death, and around my father's death have opened me up to trusting my intuitive, instinctual side, and recognizing souls have paths far beyond this physical pit-stop we call a lifespan.

Anyway, the Animal Communicator had quite tried to discourage me from purchasing her service after looking at the sketched map I sent her. There are so many woods, she was concerned that if the message was "I see trees and brush" it would be next to useless. But I hired her anyway.

If you wish to see specifically what she told me, go to the Missing & Lost section, and find my post there today, under the "72 hours gone, starting to freak out" posting. But the upshot is that he was killed by a predator animal. I've been knowing this in my heart of hearts, and now there's nothing else rational left to cling to. I desperately hope I'm wrong, and Hilary said she hopes she's wrong, but Twitch would be home by now if we were. Miracles can happen, and I will gladly celebrate if he returns.

So here I am mourning my third major death in a year. Right now, as I write this, I am numb. Then the grief rears up and slams me again. I've been in various stages of grief for the last 12 months and 25 days, first over Mink, then Dad, now Twitch. I am a strong woman, and make appointments with my therapist when I need to (I suspect I'll be calling her shortly), but how many deaths is a person supposed to be hit with in a year? I said goodbye to elderly kitties in 2002 and 2003, and adopted two beautiful healthy baby boys. When Mink was killed he was only 3 years old.

Right now I'm starting to fear that this run of deaths is never going to end. I'm generally an optimist, but Willow still goes outside (I go back and forth on this, but revoking his outdoor privileges after four years seems cruel, yet maybe I need to do this), and my nephew is being deployed to Iraq soon. I'm starting to feel jinxed?
Kimberly

[Mink&WillowsMom]

One thing that concerns me is that once again, Willow has lost a buddy. Willow was Mink's brother. When Mink died, both Will and I grieved deeply. I adopted two kittens in Mink's absence, and in retrospect, likely adopted too soon. One of the new kittens dotes on Will, to the point of not giving him a moment's peace. Willow slowly allowed the kitten to cuddle with him, and would groom the kitten.

But now Will's going through a phase of growling, hissing, and once even urinated in frustration (he was cornered by the kitten at the time). It's been percolating all spring.

The respite for Will is when he gets to go outside, and get away from Rohan's smothering attention. Willow and Mink were best buddies outdoors, and I know he missed having somebody to pal around with outside. This winter and spring, he clearly enjoyed it when Twitch came over. Tail high, nose to nose, meandering around the garden. Now Will has lost his outdoor buddy again.

It's quite likely some of Will's upset is prompted by my emotional turmoil. But it's more than that. Even just now, he was growling, and I picked him up and he continued to growl. He's a very scaredy cat, and anything novel alarms him. It's almost like he's autistic: if he comes in the room and I've dropped a pair jeans on the floor, he notices the change and approaches it as if it's a snake ready to bite him.

With yet another companion loss, I'm really starting to worry about him. I've always had magic in soothing my cats, but he's starting to become more and more weird and freaked out and grumpy and inconsolable. Since he was getting along with the kitten better a few months back, I don't know if some of it is related to Rohan getting bigger, or me losing my dad ----so what's Twitchit's death going to do to him???
Kimberconcerned