I Surrender! Options

[I miss mouses]

I miss u mouses...

Tomorrow you will have been gone for 8 months. When I first joined this site I remember reading other pet memorials. As the months went on, the memorials got shorter and shorter. With tear filled eyes I could see the light at the end of the dark tunnel. There was such a difference between the first posts and the 7, 8, 9...month posts. I often use to think it was sad too, like maybe some people really did move on. I didn't want to move on, not yet anyway. Many had new pets and were enjoying life again. I had just lost you, it seemed impossible. My baby gone....FOREVER. I couldn't breathe. I did not want to live one single day without you. Death had found us, and I was so angry. I lost my best friend. I lost my happy place. How was I to face this world without you? I continued to read those posts, and hung on every word. Pages and pages of people who lost a bond as strong as ours.

When I first went to write today I was going to write a simple, "I love you Mouses." I paused at the blank screen, and remembered what I had thought of people like me at the beginning. I was now them, but I realized something. We aren't writing so little because we love or miss you all any less. We didn't forget you. From my point of view, I have decided we write less because we have been defeated. Death won. I don't quite call it acceptance. I accepted your death a long, long, time ago. I call it surrendering. Surrendering to death. I wrote before about how exhausted I am. I am exhausted Mouses. I have cried endless tears, lost too much weight, lost too much sleep, and have been trying to save you for the last 8 months. I can't save you. I can't bring you in sooner. I can't do anything. I have said, thought, and wrote every single thing there is to say. I can't change one single thing. I lost you. I really lost you. I stand alone in a big world without you. I wish you didn't have to go, but you did. I wasn't done, but somebody else decided I was. I guess that's why it hurts so much. I didn't just lose you (which alone is awful enough). I lost my closure with you. Where is our long goodbye that I assumed we would have? Why my soul kitty? Why out of all my cats, did you have to have the sudden ending?

I love you Mouses. I miss you. I have been through all the stages of grief. I am now left with just missing you. I finally learned to be happy for you. I am glad your tummy no longer hurts. I am glad you can breathe again. I am happy your legs aren't collapsing on you anymore (you looked so confused). My kitty, my baby, I wish there was another way to ease your pain, but there wasn't. When I hug Buddy it is for you sometimes, can you feel it? You have passed the baton. Your job of emotionally supporting me is now over. Did you send him to me? Did you die to save his life? You knew I would be the person to bring him back to life. He is very happy now, he is no longer hurting. I would rather have you, but he is a wonderful substitute for you. I sometimes feel like he now shares his body with your soul. He has brought back so much of what I missed about you. He sounds like you, looks like you, and now acts like you. He hounds the pantry like you. He runs around spastically like you (and hops around like a bunny). He is food and water obsessed. He wakes me up in the morning. He sits behind me while I type (he is behind me right now...exactly where you would have been). He gives me that stare, like I am supposed to read his mind. He is a chicken like you were. Like you, he flies through the house when he hears the dishes make that sound, or when a can is opened. Best of all (like you) he follows me everywhere. I miss you by my side. When you died I felt like a part of my body was missing. I had lost my shadow. Buddy has brought it back to me.

I will never be over the loss of you. I will never forget you. You are very, very close to my heart. I love you my sweetheart, always and forever. Goodbye my Mouses. I love you. I miss my old life...I really do.

8 months closer to seeing that face...

[tanbuck]

I also began to cry as I read your post. Your thoughts on how people's posts get smaller and smaller is how I have felt about myself as well. It has been one month today that Frasier passed away and the other day I left the house in the morning without kissing his picture goodbye. How could I have gotten to that point so soon? The pain and the ache is still there but I think we get to the point where we have to stop the pain and tears from welling up inside us so that we can keep moving on(even though we'd rather stay). I have cried so many tears for Frasier and am devastated at the impact his being gone has had on me. I feared for so long about the day my first baby would go but I never thought about the aftermath. I only considered the dying process and the death itself. I wasn't prepared for what came next.
Anyway, my point was that for me, at least, the time I allow myself to devote to just grieving for him and giving in to that pain is less now because I realize that no matter how much I let myself hurt, it's not bringing him back. Twice this weekend Frasier's brother, Niles, has appeared in a room when I didn't expect him and for a 1/2 a second I thought it was Frasier. As much as I love Niles with all my heart, the disappointment when I realize he's not Frasier is so great.
My thoughts go out to you. And I know you already know this but you're not alone.
-Donna

[I miss mouses]

I also began to cry as I read your post. Your thoughts on how people's posts get smaller and smaller is how I have felt about myself as well. It has been one month today that Frasier passed away and the other day I left the house in the morning without kissing his picture goodbye. How could I have gotten to that point so soon? The pain and the ache is still there but I think we get to the point where we have to stop the pain and tears from welling up inside us so that we can keep moving on(even though we'd rather stay). I have cried so many tears for Frasier and am devastated at the impact his being gone has had on me. I feared for so long about the day my first baby would go but I never thought about the aftermath. I only considered the dying process and the death itself. I wasn't prepared for what came next.
Anyway, my point was that for me, at least, the time I allow myself to devote to just grieving for him and giving in to that pain is less now because I realize that no matter how much I let myself hurt, it's not bringing him back. Twice this weekend Frasier's brother, Niles, has appeared in a room when I didn't expect him and for a 1/2 a second I thought it was Frasier. As much as I love Niles with all my heart, the disappointment when I realize he's not Frasier is so great.
My thoughts go out to you. And I know you already know this but you're not alone.
-Donna

Donna,

I wasn't prepared for what came next either. I always feared Mouses death. I always hoped it would happen when she was 20, so I could at least fall back on that. I could have then always said, "she couldn't live forever." I wouldn't of had to dwell on all of the medical details, because she would've had to of died from something. I was unprepared for a sudden ending. I never walked around in my world and pictured her not being in it. I pictured the horror of her dying one day, I knew I would lose it when she died, but I never pictured her not being in my world. As far as I knew she was yound and healthy, I had no reason to not picture her in my current life. Mouses died about 3 weeks after the new year started. Never in my life did I think 2009 didn't include her...it didn't even come close. Such a sad time to lose someone you love. What happened to my great year that was supposed to be ahead of me?

That is why I hate the unexpected ending thing. I wish I could have walked around in my daily life knowing soon she wouldn't be in it. For at least a month even, I wish I could have gone to our regular places (grocery store, preschool, parks, Petco, etc.), and look around at them knowing Mouses soon wouldn't be a part of all of this. I wish I could have made the choice to stay home with her instead, only going out for necessary things. Instead I was living in La La Land as happy as can be, and then poof she was gone. I hate realizing that the last time I was at those places I had no idea the next time I would return, my favorite cat would be gone. I can't stand that that happened. I hate that I was just chit chatting away happily with my friends at my daughters preschool on Friday, and by Monday Mouses was gone. Returning to that school was so devastating. I keep seeing myself there so happy, clueless about what the weekend would bring.

I am glad you are able to not dwell in the sorrow as much. It really doesn't accomplish anything. It's like my grief therapist said, "you have to choose to not dwell in the sorrow." Of course that is easier said than done. I am glad you are able to make that choice. I think we are meant to walk out that door one day without kissing their picture. Until now, I just kept fighting against all of the natural healthy protective mechanisms we all have. The guilt that comes with being happy again, just pulls us back into sorrowland. Life moves on...it just feels so sad to move on. It is like I just said to jasonsmom, we are left with 2 choices. We can go through the rest of our life happy, or depressed, either way they are not coming back. I surrendered. I am pushing away the sadness. I just wish I didn't have to feel so unsettled. I'm not really sad or happy, I just feel weird now.

Forever sharing your pain. Chris (Mouses mommy)