Remembering Blues

This post is a reaction to Becca's beautiful post about her dog Cooper. My situation was completely different, though, and I almost envy her. Sigh...

Three years ago my husband took my first "baby," my cat Blues, to a friend's house because we were going to have a rough few days getting ready to pack our whole house, sell it, and move out of state.

I didn't get to say goodbye to him because I didn't know I was never going to see him again. And that, that broke my heart and still breaks it when I think of it.

I had no way of knowing that my friend's husband was going to leave the back door open and that he would escape to the streets of North Philadelphia. How could I know?

It was just so horrible, to lose my "baby" of over nine years without saying good-bye, without any closure whatsoever (did he die? Did someone simply picked him up and adopted him? what in the world happened?)

That's why I say I almost envy Becca. In the end, though, I can't say that I do. Because no matter how it happens, whether you make a most difficult decision to put your pet down or whether your pet disappears into thin air like mine, it is still a heartbreaking loss.

So I dedicate this post to the memory of beloved pets.

I don't think of Blues at all anymore, especially now that I have two very dear kitties (who aren't half as beautiful as my first "baby" was, though!), but Becca is right. He still is, and will always be, with me, part of me.

I still miss him... :(

 Wasn't he gorgeous?

And we remain kitty-less

just an update on the previous post. K overruled the boys and me in our wild and mostly irrational desire to have a kitty again. He thinks that it's not worth to have the boys' allergies and asthma get worse because of a furry friend. :( :(  :(

I'm still upset, but really numb about it all. I won't fight with my husband because of that. He's probably right. The problem is that this exact situation is what I feared and what hurt me the most after Blues disappeared -- I knew how "convenient" it was to have him gone and I knew that with the boys' allergy diagnoses, the chances of me having a cat again were slim.

Sorry, I can't write anymore, I'm crying. I don't want to talk/think about it anymore. I gotta go finish my other depressing post. What a sad night for blogging. Sorry!! :(

The Missing Limb

Note: Cat lovers, could you please answer the questions at the end? I need some help thinking through things.

I was sitting at the dinner table looking at a magazine when I had this illusion, this fleeting impression that my cat had just quickly passed by behind me. Sadly this happens more often than I'd like to happen. Like the amputated limb that keeps on hurting because the nerve endings leading to it don't know it's not there anymore, I feel the absence of my cat Blues almost physically.

and it hurts. oh, how it does.

A few days ago Dooce (Heather Armstrong) wrote this post and it reduced me to a messy aching pile of tears. My throat begins to hurt just thinking about it.

And then there was Friday night in VBS when my youngest son took me to see the drawing he had made and which was taped to the wall.

"Mommy, I come see what I drew for you!"

"Oh sweetie, a cat!"

"I had someone help me."

"Which cat is it, baby?"

"It's Blues. I miss him, mama."

I just had to hug him tight, saying "Thank you" and fighting tears.

Another sad thing is that Linton doesn't understand very well why I keep on crying about Blues. On that fateful day I cried and cried in the car after getting the news he said we needed to pray about it and he/we did. Then weeks later when he saw me crying he said, "But mommy, we prayed about it." And I had to explain that praying might not bring him back and make everything all right with me. It could only bring some consolation.

Last week Linton said that Blues was coming back and we explained to him that no, he probably wasn't. I think that stayed with him and made him draw the cat for me during VBS (I don't know what was the prompt for their drawings/sentences).

The hardest thing is that I keep on thinking about the boys' cat allergy and thinking that I won't be able to have a cat again anytime soon. We have other friends who are allergic to cats and had a hard time coming to visit us. And there's family (BIL K2) in particular who can't stand cats (he's apparently allergic).

How do you cat owners who read this blog cope with family and friends who are allergic?

Would you just not have cats because of allergies?

(I'm afraid that the boys were fine because we'd had the cat since they were born and now that they aren't being exposed to it anymore they'd have strong reactions, but I'm just hypothesizing).

All this thinking leaves me sad and, at times, angry. Why can't I have cats just because of other people? I've always loved cats, they make me happy.

One more thing to muse about while the roller-coaster ride of life continues to roar on endlessly.

Sigh.

Two Weeks... still grief stricken, I wanted closure...

I found out on Sunday when we met with our Brazilian friends in Philly, that Blues actually disappeared on 6/8, two full weeks ago. My friend actually talked to her neighbors and walked around the neighborhood looking for him. She also left the door slightly open for a few nights, in hopes that he might come back in.

I feel bad that I didn't make a flyer and went there to put it on lamp posts and stuff, but I was almost 2 hours away and I didn't want to bother my friends. I just emailed a flyer to a friend (I made one on Sunday), so maybe they will put it up. I know I should also call or have called the local animal shelters and maybe vets. I really don't think these things will help much, though, so I don't have the energy to do it (I have this weird problem with calling strangers, one of my neuroses, I guess). It's just been too long. Someone probably just took him in, since he's a gorgeous cat.

Last night I cried again for a few minutes and today I've felt upset when I saw two friend's updates & photos on facebook (a photo of M's son napping with the cat and an update by Aliki saying that her son was glad to be going home to their cat). :-(

I think the worse thing about Blues having gone missing is the lack of closure. One of the first things K said to me on the phone was "I prefer him disappearing like that than having one day to put him down," but I disagree with a vengeance. I wanted to be able to say good-bye, to know what happened to him. If he were dead, I'd bury him somewhere, you know. Closure is important. So, yeah... I'm just missing him so much right now.

When I made the flyer, I found that I'd taken tons of recent photos of him, from March to now (we bought this laptop in January, so I don't have any older photos here). I know there are probably hundreds more since 2003 when we got the digital camera and at some point I'll put them all together. That will be painful.

I'm crying writing this post and looking at the photos. I drove by a cat adoption place in town today and I felt just devastated because we won't get another kitty until we own a house again. In the meantime, whenever anyone mentions a pet I'll just cry inside a little more. Today Kelvin and I were sad because he was talking about his latest obsession (he wants us to get a Wii Fit Plus) and he mentioned that it has a feature to weight cats and dogs. He looked grief stricken and said, "Too bad we don't have a cat anymore. But I can still create an avatar for him."

A virtual pet will have to do for now, I guess.

Devastated... My kitty has gone missing

It's just too difficult to write this post. I'm at a public place and I just can't start bawling loudly and I just might. Looking at photos of him just makes it even more unbearable. I had no idea I'd be this devastated when it happened. I'm crying all the time. It's just awful.
Blues is gone and it's partly our fault. First, he doesn't have a collar and tags because I thought it would be uncomfortable for him and never got him one. Second, whenever we travel, we leave him at friends' houses. We used to leave him at a friends' apartment in New Jersey (we did that four or five times) and he was fine, then it was at another friend's row house in North Philadelphia. We left him there twice (both times for over a month) and this time too. We were aware of the risk of him escaping, but it had never happened (I mean, he'd gone out but had come back), but this time it did. He escaped last Thursday, but our friend only called us yesterday afternoon.I was driving when K called, but fortunately I had just turned to go to Target. I could barely talk on the phone with K so I hung up and just started sobbing, wailing loudly. Kelvin hugged me, dear son (he loved Blues dearly too), while Linton talked incessantly, thinking of solutions (the best one he came up with was "pray about it").

What's making me literally inconsolable is the bad timing. So "convenient" from the outside, which makes me really, really angry. You see... nine years ago we bought a house in February. Then in April we found out a kitten had been born and he joined our family in May. A tiny little thing. He was my first "son." Now, we're no longer home-owners. That part of our lives is taking an unfortunate break. It was hard to convince our landlord (and the rental company we had signed off previously too) to accept the cat. We paid a deposit. K actually wanted to give him away because the townhome is just too small (it is, he's right). And it has carpet throughout (the boys are actually allergic to cats). Now the cat will never even enter that house.

Every time we travel and Blues stays with someone, when we come back I don't feel at home until we go pick him up. He's never coming back. How am I ever going to feel at home at the new place knowing he's gone? Are we even going to get another cat because of the boys' allergy and the fact that there are no houses with hardwood floors throughout in our price range in VA? So I'm just crying on and off. Walking into the grocery store and glancing at the pet's section makes me cry again. I slept and dreamed that he came back (to our old house which we hadn't yet finished emptying even though the new owners already bought it).

So, yeah. To put things in perspective, I know, it's only a pet. I cannot imagine, it's unfathomable really, how infinite the grief must be when one loses a child like Katie Alison Granju just did. Still, the grief I feel is very real. I know other pet owners will understand.

Scratched & Bitten

I don't blog as much as I should about him because -- in the end -- I do blog very little about my "children" (and I do see him as my "child" and I'm weird in that I see my plants as my "babies" too :-). Perhaps I shouldn't even call myself a "mommy-blogger." I'm just a mother who happens to blog...

Anyway... longtime readers will know that I, ok, we have a cat and that I'm a big cat lover. I had to take Blues to get shots today (something that was, like, 3-4 years overdue, I'm ashamed to admit & I was breaking the law too, yikes) and something pretty unfortunate happened. I took him to a pet store because the reason why I hadn't gotten him vaccinated before was that we really couldn't/can't afford vet visits (he was a pampered guy in his first 3 years of life, going to the vet regularly and all, but then, again, he was my first "child" and we could afford it back then when we were both graduate student with only a tiny mortgage payment).

So, I went to the pet store and had to wait in line for over an hour. With various dogs and cats, but mainly dogs. Blues has never ever interacted with dogs, my friends, so he was very stressed out in his carrier. He hissed several times and began to get more worked up as we neared the vaccination table. So, no wonder he was absolutely freaked out when we tried to hold him to be vaccinated and then he scratched an bit me. The first time was ok, but the second was pretty serious. The veterinarian had me apply peroxide to the wounds, two of which promptly started to swell (two puncture wounds in my right arm where he bit). I got home and washed it well and applied an antibiotic spray. The problem is that now my arm is hurting quite a bit and it continues swollen. I went to a birthday party after the event and some people suggested that the bite probably hurt the muscle, which is swollen and achy. There 's no sign of infection (redness) and the wounds are fully closed. I'll call the doctor's office/nurse tomorrow just in case...

I don't even know why I'm blogging this... perhaps to commiserate a bit and get some sympathy because it's a normal human reaction to pain. The real problem looming in the background of my life right now is a bit too overwhelming and too hard and complicated to explain. Not fully unbloggable, but... well... almost so (the facts were, indeed, blogged here last week).

Last Friday the boys and I went to orientation at their new cyberschool and we enjoyed it. I'm starting a new blog about this, but I haven't posted much there (see my profile for link). Class starts tomorrow at Kelvin's old school, but cyberschool doesn't start until the 8th. As soon as the books come in we'll begin some work, though. I can't wait!

I guess that in the end I'm writing about this literal scratching and biting because I feel scratched and bitten inside too. And I hope all these wounds heal soon.

Edited to Add: I went to the doctor, got a tetanus shot and will have to take antibiotics for ten days. I'm going to take lots of yogurt and acidophilus supplement alongside that (because antibiotics also kills the good bacteria in the body)!

My Fourth Boy

Blues, our cat, was actually my first "son," the first young "boy" to come live with us. Even though he's since been deprived of his major boy attributes, he's definitely one of the four "boys" in this household as you can tell from these photos:
He also shares his "brothers' " passion for a certain blue engine :-)
I hope he likes the new house and doesn't get too upset because of the move. He's already quite excited by the empty boxes laying around, but I know he'll be a bit distressed when everything is packed and his familiar surroundings are gone. I hope his "brothers" don't get distressed as well...