Just got back home. I’m still a wreck.
I didn’t want to bury Bug in the backyard of a rental property that we’re not even going to be living in a year from now, and we didn’t want to dispose of her like she was garbage or something. I don’t even know how to explain it, it’s just…I wanted something better than that for her.
We made arrangements for her to be cremated and took her in late this morning. We’re picking her ashes up tomorrow afternoon. When we buy a home of our own in a few years, that property will be her final resting place. I still have her favorite printer, the one she used to nap on all the time when she was little. I’m going to be burying her urn on top of it, so she’ll be napping on her favorite printer forever.
I’d like to take the opportunity to thank everyone for their support. It means a lot to us that you guys care, and it’s a big help to me emotionally knowing that you guys are there, and we don’t feel so alone.
The financial support you guys provided in the hopes of saving her was enough for us to give her a dignified and proper farewell, and I’m extremely grateful for that. I would have been even more of an absolute wreck if we’d had to dispose of her or leave her behind on some rental property, but you guys made it possible for her final resting place to be a far more appropriate one.
I’ll be working on a memorial page for her later today. I think it’ll help me work through this, and it’ll give me a chance to share a little of the happiness and joy that Bug brought into my life.
I really appreciate all the comments from you guys in the previous post. I can’t overstate that enough. Thank you.
Update: Her memorial page is now up here.
I’m really sorry for your loss Chris 🙁
Loosing a friend is not nice at all.
Oh man, I’m so sorry for your loss. I lost both of my ferrets to different illnesses within a few weeks of each other at the end 2010/early 2011. Their ashes are in sealed wooden boxes on top of the shelves where I keep my hobby tools. I know what you must have been going through wanting to give Bug a proper resting place.
Damn, I’m tearing up just writing this comment. Chris, just remember this. She’s gone, but not forgotten.
Sorry for your loss.
My first month of deployment, my wife called me up to say our 15 yr old master mouser, and giant tom cat Elfie passed away. He was found by my youngest daughter, on a school morning, and I was waaaay far awaaay.
Besides being so tough he was declawed twice!( birth defect-he had 8 toes a foot and the 2nd declawing was to remove the claws between ALL of his toes!)
with his “mitten hands” he literaly palmed mice….bats and even a rat. A very large cat, he was also not intimidated by dogs….I’m going to miss my lap warmer.
Sorry to hear Bug passed on, I know I would be completely wrecked if our Dog Daisy the destroyer of dropships left us.
Pets can be really annoying but they know how to pull your heart strings
Hang in there Chris.
If you need somebody to talk to, let me know. Talking helps.
Thanks, guys. It means a lot to me and I appreciate it.
I’ve completed her memorial page. That helped too.
Sorry for your loss. I’ve been through it, and I know doing some sort of memorial does indeed help you work through it. For both my cats, it was a session down at the local paint your own ceramics store, where I painted a little cat statue in each of their likenesses. Gone, but not forgotten, their little statues now sand guard over their little urns.
Sorry to read about your loss Mel. Sorry I missed the appeal, things have been mad busy here the last few days. I’ll see if I can pick something up in her memory next week when payday comes around.
Thanks, both of you. I appreciate it. 🙂
Wow. Just found this. Been busy and travelling. I’m sorry sorry to learn of this. I don’t care what anyone says, animals are family members too and we grow incredibly close to them (and they to us in their way), and when they die we feel their loss keenly. I am sorry for this.
It’s always hard losing someone we love and I am sorry for your loss. She sounds like a remarkable cat and will keep you in my thoughts and prayers.
Hot4Darmat: Thank you, and I agree. My wife’s cat Junior and I had what could be best described as an “uneasy truce” in the beginning, because he viewed me as competition for Mrs E–it was like in exchange for letting him sleep in the bedroom with us and tithing him his imperial share of pepperoni, sesame chicken, and ice cream, he would grudgingly tolerate my presence and not poop/spray on my stuff too much. After a few years, he thawed considerably and would actually nap on top of me every once in a while. When he passed, I was astonished at how hard it hit me. He wasn’t “my” cat, but he was a family member to me, and I had gotten quite attached to him over the years.
With Bug, a part of how hard it hit me had to do with the feeling of her being taken away too early, like losing a teenaged or young adult relative. She was so active and youthful that it seemed like she’d hit 18, 19 years old and still be a spry old lady. I just wasn’t ready at all for her to leave so early, and it hit me all the harder for that.
Kyle Bentley: She was, and thank you.
It’s so much harder when they’re young. Biscuit was only six. My only comfort in this is that she and Steve were crazy for each other–for months, she waited for him at the usual time he came home from work and she was just heartbroken when he never came. I believe with all my heart they’re together now and nothing will ever hurt them again. But it’s like they say, it isn’t the days in our lives that matters–it’s the life in our days.
Yeah. I like that saying.
I’m better today than I was the other day, but the place still feels kinda weird and empty without Bug, especially with Mrs E at work. I kept catching myself looking around for Bug, and the fact that she wasn’t coming into the office for her daily recommended allowance of scritchies anymore is kind of hard to adjust to.
You just have to give yourself however long it takes. There’s no book of best practices for loss. The best advice anyone ever gave me is that you have to give yourself permission to laugh. You see, the best thing left to us is the memories of the good times we had. It’s alright to laugh at the funny things that happened. The more that happens, the more we remember the good times, the easier it gets to carry the ones we’ve loved and lost with us in our hearts as we move on.
That’s a beautiful memorial page, by the way.
I just logged in and read this. Usually I just lurk these days, but I just had to say that I’m so sorry for your loss.
When I married N, she had a cat named Gandalf. She’d had him for years – a pretty gray cat (a Russian Blue). The week that Fellowship came out, he got sick, and the day of its release (my birthday, even), he died. It was awful.
It took a few years for N to get over it, but for Valentine’s day one year I got Natanya a new cat collar, signaling it was time for a new cat. She let it sit for months, then one day just up and said, “I’m going to SPCA to look for a cat” – and lo and behold, there was a pretty gray cat, another Russian Blue, very similar to Gandalf. We brought him home, named him Olorin (the Dwarven name for Gandalf), and he’s been with us ever since. He never really replaced Gandalf, he was just a new family member.
(Funny story – our daughter, then maybe 4, walked by Olorin one day can casually remarked, “Hi Olorin. Gandalf dead.” – and then just kept walking. Kids are a kick.)
Hang in there. Another wonderful cat awaits you sometime in the future, when you’re ready.
Becky: Thanks. Doing the memorial page was cathartic, and reading it more so. I’m not quite able to laugh out loud or anything like that yet, but I can manage a smile and a chuckle. That weird, empty feeling is still there, though…the closest I can describe it is…as if my life were a chocolate bar, and somebody snapped off a square while my back was turned.
Robby: On your birthday? Oh, man. Your daughter anecdote is very funny, though. I still remember the time you told her not to eat NdFeB magnets a few years ago and she was like “Daddy, they’re hard and taste bad”. That one had me in stitches too.
I’m finally past the “randomly triggered wailing and blubbering” stage, and it’s like I’m mostly trying to deal with the emptiness and depression now. Well, that actually sounds more dramatic than it really is…I mean, like, I’m not camped out on the sofa in my bathrobe thinking about sticking my head in the oven or anything even remotely close, but there’s a sort of unpleasant undercurrent to my daily routine where I’m trying to get used to Bug’s…not her death, but…well, her lack of presence.
There’s sadness that comes with it, yeah, but more than that, I just miss having her around. It’s kind of like I never realized just how much of an impact she had on my daily routine and how much time we actually spent together until now.
When I quit smoking, I had this sort of “Well, I don’t really have a reason to take a break anymore, so why the hell am I walking out of the office now?” feeling for a fairly long time, or like somebody went and moved around all of my office furniture and I keep looking in the wrong drawers for my stapler or whatever. It feels a lot like that. I think it’ll take me a while to get used to it.
Part of me realizes you’re right about eventually being ready for another cat, but there’s also another part of me that’s kind of staring at you right now like you just said that the moon has a delicious banana cream filling. I mean, the thought of being that attached to another pet is a concept that still seems incredible and hard to believe right now, even though I know it’s true.
Thanks for the condolences. I appreciate it. 🙂