Why Such Awful Pain Now? Options

[Furry's mum]

It has been 7 weeks today since my darling cat Furry had to be pts. I felt that I was beginning to cope a bit better. Have been back to work for a week & have been able to function, just.
Today was the first time that I didn't "observe" the time of her death, by looking at photo's or sitting by her grave & talking to her.
Later my OH, without my knowledge, decided to light candles around her grave, & then took me into the garden to see.
This made me feel like I did the day she died- terrrible grief & unstoppable tears, I still can't stop crying. I feel like I killed her - too much medication? or not enough? I can only think of those last painful minutes of her life.
Why have I got to this stage again, when I was beginning to think about the happy times we shared? She was only 12.
Please help me to understand why I feel this way now.
Judith

[parker]

Judith,
You feel this way because it has only been 7 WEEKS!!! Cut yourself some slack. Today is the one year anniversary of my boy's death and I have been crying all day long. I cried all day long yesterday.....before that it was about 6 days but generally it follows no pattern. I still break down uncontrollably at odd times and have a feeling I will for the rest of my life. My boy was only 13, but at the same time.....13 great years. They are such wonderful friends and without them there will always be a hole. I have said many times my life will never be the same again and I am just adjusting to my new normal. Now, that is not to say that your new normal includes crying all day everyday, but you know what.....some days it might. That is okay, we need it to grow and reconcile the pain. I don't know if you have commemorated her in any way yet, but just today I was able to write his memorial and do his shadow box, I watched a couple of videos and looked at pictures......I cried all day but now I feel freer. I reassured myself that his life was great and things have to change. I haven't reconciled the finality of it yet and don't know if I ever will.....but you deal with it in your time not anyone else's. My prayers are with you and I will make sure to let Parker know to make sure he doesn't chase Furry up there.

Parker's Mom

[Precious' mom]

Judith,
12 years is a long time!! Take all the time you need to grieve. I'm still doing that and it's been five weeks since Precious left me. Even with the addition of Patches to the family I still look at his wooden urn and feel some sadness but try replacing it with good thoughts, happy ones from all the times of Precious' life. Think of all of those memories!! That should be comforting in their warm glow of happiness.
God sent Precious to me and now He sent Patches. I feel blessed!!
Lisa

[Shortrish]

Judith, - I know how you feel. It's been 8 weeks since we lost Scooter, only 6 years old. I thought I was doing better too, but at the most unforseeable times, I just start crying. It's normal to move back and forth with our emotions. It is draining though. Somtimes, I can look at the album with Scooter's picture in it and laugh at the silly things he did, other times, I just sob. Just let your feelings flow is all I can advise.
We have adopted a new furbaby named Marcel(as many of you may have read). He has found a place in our home and hearts as well with our 3 other cats. I felt guilty at first, adopting him, but there have been many blessings also. He has helped us to laugh, and he cuddles with me when I cry.
It has not been so long since your loss, so, expect your emotions to go back and forth. Healing takes it's own course, but we will always love and remember those precious animals that we were blessed to love and care for.

Scooter's Mom

[Krissyo]

Judith, I know how you feel. It was only three weeks ago yesterday since I had to have Dugan put to sleep after 17 wonderful years. I have cried everyday and somedays don't feel like I am making any headway. Yesterday, after reading alot of postings about new fur babies, my husband and I went to the shelter to look around and I thought I was doing pretty good as I only cried once. It felt good to see all the cats and put my fingers thru the bars and scratch them. There wasn't anyone there to let us hold any of them and that probably was for the best for now anyway. When I got home I was pretty proud of myself for being able to go to the shelter. I kind of felt that maybe I had turned a corner or something.

Today is Sunday and it has brought fresh grief all over again and I feel really sad all over again. I keep thinking that someday I will want to make new memories but with the way I feel today, that seems really far away.

Does anyone feel a memorial helps. I have tried twice but can't bring myself to do it yet.

Dugan's Mom

[Precious' mom]

Memorials and blessings DO help, more than you know! (I've posted on a previous thread about this.) It will give you the closure you need and take a huge weight off your heart and soul. I know my baby (Precious) is safe and most likely with my mum and a lot of relatives and animals that have gone before. I listen to the Beatles' In My Life and smile now instead of blub (I played that at Precious').
If it's any consolation, the late Freddie Mercury of Queen (a man I still admire) loved cats and had several, some of which stayed at his side at the time he died of AIDS in November 1991. (That shows how much they loved him too!) He even wrote a song called Delilah after one of them and it's a cute song and showed how much he loved his babies. (He used to have elaborate burials for his pets on his property and gave them funerals and wakes both, he was so devoted to them. (There was an article in Cat Fancy magazine last year about his cats.)
I'm saying that everyone places their babies on very high pedestals and wants the best for them even after they're physically gone. Please honour your baby soon and know I will be praying for you both!!
Lisa

[pamurchu]

[quote=Furry's mum,Sep 10 2006, 03:30 PM]It has been 7 weeks today since my darling cat Furry had to be pts. I felt that I was beginning to cope a bit better. Have been back to work for a week & have been able to function, just.
Today was the first time that I didn't "observe" the time of her death, by looking at photo's or sitting by her grave & talking to her.
Later my OH, without my knowledge, decided to light candles around her grave, & then took me into the garden to see.
This made me feel like I did the day she died- terrrible grief & unstoppable tears, I still can't stop crying. I feel like I killed her - too much medication? or not enough? I can only think of those last painful minutes of her life.
Why have I got to this stage again, when I was beginning to think about the happy times we shared? She was only 12.
Please help me to understand why I feel this way now.
Judith

[Furry's mum]

Thank you all so much for your kind words & support & prayers. Reading them has made me cry again!
We have Furry's grave in the garden, with the roses we planted, a wind chime & a dream catcher. I always shake the wind chime as I go past to let her know I'm close to her. I have yet to get a headstone - that is something I want to be really special.
Our new adoptee - Bella, is a great comfort to me, as she sleeps beside me & likes to sit on my lap. Furry didn't like to sit on my lap, until after she was really ill in February this year. After that she would always come downstairs & have a half hour cuddle before I went to work. She would be sitting on the window seat waiting for me to come back, & when she heard my car I could see her through the window, getting up & crying Hello mum.
I will just try & get through each day, & be glad that we had 12 years together. She was so close to death when she first collapsed in October 2004, that I know I had all that extra time as a bonus.
What is a shadow box? I haven't heard of this in in the U.K ?
Thanks, Judith
P.S. This is one of the last photo's I took of her in June - she loved catmint!

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[Furkidlets' Mom]

Furry's Mum,

I'm so sorry about your Furry, and the pain you're still in. But Parker's Mom has it all right, to my mind - she really knows her grief stuff and I couldn't have said it better myself. I'm only at Day 19 myself, with our Nissa's loss, but when we lost Sabin, I despaired of arriving at any "new normal" for years, not weeks or months. There is no 'getting over' a major loss, just learning to cope with it, and it's learning about coping skills, plus education in what's involved in grief, that eventually helps. Me, I haven't even gotten out of the shocky stage yet, though had a glimpse for a few hours yesterday of the excrutiating pain I'll still go through.

I, too, did a shadow-box for Sabin, about a year or longer after he'd passed. It's like a picture-frame, but deeper, in which you can put treasured items, pics, etc., which are often pinned or glued to the clothed or felted backing. Some, like ours, can be continually opened from the front; others are closed from the back and aren't meant to be easily reopened. We had ours custom-made because they weren't yet commonly available, and also had a matching one made for the eventual passing of our girl........so now it's ready and waiting in a closet, but I'm not, to fill it with Nissa-memories.

A friend of mine also gave me a ceramic angel-cat with wings, to set outside on our boy's gravesite, which I painted black but left the wings white. I hope to also find one for our girl at some point and will have to paint it grey. I will also be eventually transferring our catnip plant outdoors, beside the 2 eventual graves ( Nissa's not yet buried there ). I also did a memorial planting for Sabin, with 'black' perennials( which, to my dismay, have NEVER bloomed! ), some tall ornamental grasses ( cuz we used to play hide-and-seek in the tall grass across from our house ), and some white perennials, too, for the white tip on the end of his tail. For Nissa, I'll have to plant silvery plants. I also sent a tribute and picture for Sabin to our local pet loss support group's newsletter and sent a larger tribute to a few select people....the newspapers wouldn't print it for anything less than a couple hundred dollars, so we made individual, coloured copies instead. My husband also got me a large, silver locket, in which I placed some of Sabin's fur ( plus a wee bit of his white tail-tip fur ), and I've now filled the other side with Nissa's fur as well. I also plan on having a Life Celebration for Nissa to invite only a few people who understand to, but this probably won't be all set until next Spring, as I can't even THINK about such things yet.

All these kinds of things help us commemorate and honour all our babies' loving worth, plus help us express our many emotions about their lives and our losses, so can play an important role in grief-work. You don't have to do anything though until you feel ready, on your own timetable. And whatever you do or don't do is completely individual, too. No matter how long or short the sharing of our lives together were....the love is what truly mattered. Prayers and blessings be with you at only 7 weeks....

Furkidlets' Mom

[Furry's mum]

Dear Furkidlit's mom,
Thank you so much for your reply - like you I have now got a locket, of gold. I have a picture of Furry on one side & a "lock " of her fur on the other. I will wear it always I hope.
I suppose I already have a shadow box of sorts - an area of pictures of Furry, her fur,(I kept all of the fur we brushed out of her over the years), & the diary I kept of how she was for the last 21 months since she collapsed.
I can't say more, the tears are flowing too hard for me to see
Thank you so much
Love Judith

[Furkidlets' Mom]

Furry's Mum,

Like you, I also was keeping all of Nissa's fur for the last 6.5 years - not that there's terribly much, as she just didn't shed too much....plus most of any 'shavings' from the vet's. It doesn't smell like her, though, as that special scent came from her skin, not her fur. But I learned my lesson when her brother, Sabin, died and I hardly had any of his kept, as he was only 13 and I expected him to be around for many more years. There are certain places where you can get things made out of your furbaby's fur, but they usually need hair at least an inch long and to have been stored in a paper bag, so I don't think Nissa's fur would qualify.....<sigh>.....

I also have a 'diary' of sorts - it's Nissa's spreadsheet that we made up for all my note-taking for her homeopathic doc, plus a daily leger as well...but it's way too painful to even consider looking at now cuz it's what I used to track her progress or lack thereof, from each remedy, supplement, herb, glandular, drug, etc. that we used over the years. I did have to look at her final days, though, this week, as both mine and my husband's memories are shot ( another usual grief symptom ) and I HAD to check certain things out to try and allay any guilt I've been carrying.....it was helpful that way, and makes me see, in black and white, that it most likely was her real time, with nothing more I could do to change that.........but I still can't even begin to believe it's all really over.....all those many years of loving and of her BEING my life.......just over. I'm still just stunned by the enormity of this idea that doesn't seem possible. Sorry to go off on my own stuff here.....it just happens and I seem powerless to stop it.

[Furry's mum]

Dear Furkidlit's mom,
Like you I've been reading the diary I kept & it makes me realise that she had lots of good days, until that last day. I can't remember what I said to her near the end, & my husband didn't stay with her so I can't ask him.
But I still worry that because I gave her extra medication, about 2 hours before she died, that I killed her.
Like you, I still can't believe she has gone forever. I think when you've been nursing a poorly cat for so long then the hole they leave is even greater. I knew Furry was very ill, but somehow I thought she would carry on for a few more years, despite the vet telling me that she wouldn't see this summer, at least she saw some of it & enjoyed the garden. I was hoping that she would be here when I retired from work (hopefully in 5 years) & I would be able to spend so much more time with her.
How I regret all those hours I couldn't be with her - at work, or just going out places. But then I read the diary & realise that I didn't leave her when I was home. I read about parties that I didn't go to because I would never leave her after 9p.m. as she had to have her medication.
It was her choice to go off to bed in the evening & it wouldn't have been fair of me to try & stop her. When I was out at work my husband was at home & she slept most of the time.
All of this is the logical part, but when the grief overwhelms me then I can't think logically, only think LIFE IS SO UNFAIR - WHY FURRY?
Judith

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