March 31, 2008
Just another day
I am getting better each day. At least now when I go my favorite site with my other "family" I can post responses. I couldn't do that before so I know I'm getting "better".
Saturday night was bad as the tears just wouldn't stop. But what did I expect on the 3rd week marker of you leaving us?
You be good, Tashi and watch out for those new arrivals. Make sure the angels up there find everyone who comes!
I love you so much!!!!
Love,
Mom
March 27, 2008
Another dream
Please talk to Shasta and tell her to send a message to her Mom, Catherine. She is hurting so badly. And thank all of your fur friends up at the Bridge for "sending" all of us to Ginny's site ... it has truly saved many people.
I love you so much!!! Have a good night's sleep, sweet baby!!!
Love,
Mom
March 26, 2008
I am as sure as I can possibly be that ...
Let me back up a bit and tell a story that I have never told anyone before. Shortly after my husband of 27 years passed on, I went over to my mother-in-law's house for something ... can't remember why but I was alone. Where she lived visitors parked across the street in a lot. As I got out of the car, I looked over to her apartment building and there, on the bench they had in the grass, sat a gentleman. He had on the exact same baseball hat, royal blue sweatshirt, light blue jeans, and white sneakers that my husband used to wear all the time and was sitting the way my husband would have sat.
I, being a rational, logical human being, could not grasp the concept that it might be him paying a "visit" to me. As I started to come across the street I was still being logical and walked by him all the while telling myself that it was just "some man who happened to have on similar clothes as my husband". When I left to go home, he was gone. I told no one of this.
As time went on and I heard stories of others receiving "visits" and signs from loved ones, I came to believe that what I saw (and tried so hard to talk myself out of) was indeed my husband.
So back to today. In all the time I have worked at my job, whether I am getting a ride in the early morning or taking the bus later in the day to go to work, I have never seen any cats in the neighborhood except for the couple who always visit my yard.
I caught my ride at 6:30 am this morning and we went the same we we always do. As we were driving down the street approaching a stop light, I noticed a cat sitting in the street near the sidewalk. There was no traffic this morning, there never are any people uptown walking around at that time as nothing's open. So as we pull up to the corner to wait for the light to change I'm looking at this cat. It's just sitting there looking at me. Black and white just like my Tasha. Could have been her double. It wasn't a ghost as my friend commented on the cat. She had never seen Tasha so she wouldn't make a connection but I just looked at the cat and had to wonder.
Makes sense to me that if a loved one was going to visit from the other side, they would be in the same clothes that you knew them best in and if one of our furbabies were going to visit, it would be the same kind of furbaby that we had here in this life.
I called my husband at lunch and told him I had seen her. I had never even told him about my "visit" from my first husband so many years ago. I did today.
So I'm putting this down in Tasha's blog to remember.
I will believe that this was a visit from my beloved furbaby!!! And I am so grateful to God, my first husband, all the other furbabies at Rainbow Bridge, and "anyone" else who had a hand in making this possible.
March 25, 2008
Comparing Grief for Animal Friends to Grief for Humans
So many times, I have read a post in which someone says that they feel guilty because they grieve more intensely for their animal family members than they did for their human family members. There are several reasons why so many of us feel that way, and I would like to explain them here.
First, our animals love us and accept us under any circumstances. It doesn’t matter if we are happy, sad, angry; rich or poor; living in a mansion or a shack; in the best of health or not. They love and accept us under any conditions, and they never tell us to change. They are with us 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year. They never give us advice, and they don’t criticize us. All they ever do is love us and hope that we love them.
Another thing that adds to the intensity of our grief is that we are 100% responsible for our animal family members. Our human family members can tell the doctors where it hurts or feels wrong, but our animals can't. It's up to us to notice when something is not right, and to get them in for treatment. When we do take them in, we (and the vets) have a lot of work to do trouble shooting the symptoms most of the time, and that isn't easy when the patient can't tell us what their symptoms are. When you add to that the fact that our animals frequently aren't themselves in the stressful environment of the vet clinic, it can take longer to diagnose the condition.
As animals, one of their greatest survival instincts is to hide any signs of illness or injury so as not to appear weak. For that reason, we often don't know anything is wrong until it's too late. We feel as if we've failed them somehow, and that feeling adds to the grief. The fact is, we did not fail them. We did the best we could with the information and resources we had at the time. Our animals know that we would have done anything to help them, and they know the love we had for them.
In addition to that, when we lose a precious family member, everyone understands why we grieve, and they don't put a time limit on it. Too often, people don't understand why we grieve for our animals beyond the early days. They tell us we should "get over it" and "move on." Did you ever hear that from a family member, friend, or co-worker when you lost your parents? Probably not. Losing our animal family members is a very intimate experience that few others (outside of this forum) understand fully.
Our furries loved us no matter what. All they ask is that we accept their love and treat them with kindness. There is no reason for anyone to feel guilty for the intensity of their grief under any circumstances. Grief is different for each of us, and it's different each time we have to face it. Those of us who have lost precious family members and then have had to face the loss of an animal family member are faced with the same depth of grief, but with fewer people who understand. We feel more alone in the loss of an animal. The fact is: Love is love, loss is loss, and grief is grief. Period. Susan "Susie Squillions" Lynch ©
March 24, 2008
March 7th - One of the worst days of our lives
I'm in the bathroom getting ready (dressing, fixing my hair, etc.) and Tasha is laying on her towels in the shower (where she likes to sleep sometimes) as usual. As I finish my hair, I notice her out of the corner of my eye getting up and she sort of twists around and I thought she had caught one of her nails in the towel (note to self: we must clip her nails) but then as I watch her, wondering if I should help, she goes down on her side. I call to my husband "Roger, something's wrong with Tash ... we need to take her to the vet".
He comes in, drops down beside her and starts talking to her and crying and I'm standing there crying also. I thought she was gone but then I see her side rising and falling so I know she's breathing. I had to go ... for my ride to work and for my own salvation I have to leave as my heart continues to break and the tears continue to fall.
I call the house when I get a break at work and Roger said she was a bit confused, disorientated, but basically ok. It finally dawned on me that what she had was a seizure ... I can't get that glassy-eyed look out of my head.
On the way home, I pick up some of the "expensive" food for her and she was so glad to have that! I started researching seizures in cats on the internet and found out that while they're in one, they have no pain and don't realize that anything has happened and thought that she may have more as time goes on and I could probably handle that but she just wasn't herself throughout the evening and I told her Dad that I was calling the vet tomorrow and we would take her in. Think she heard us? Probably. She hated the carrier and probably hated the vet also.
She mewowed some during the evening and we comforted her the best we could. I fell asleep around 11 pm and when I woke the next morning (Saturday) my husband informed me that "she's gone" ... around 1:30 that morning. She had meowed and her Dad went to her. He loved her, hugged her, kissed her and told her how much we love her and then she had the 2nd seizure and never came out of it. When I got up, she was laying on her bed that was outside our door and if it wasn't for the open eyes which saw nothing, she could have been asleep. I went down to her, hugged and kissed her telling her how much I loved her while the tears flowed. I covered her up with a towel as she was soooo cold. Later during the day, we chose her final resting place and her Dad spent all day preparing it for her.
She was so loved ... went suddenly ... no warning ... my husband says "no more pets, it's too hard to lose them".
Every day, the only thing I want to do is to hold her, hug her, kiss her one more time, and never let her go. Losing a pet is one of the hardest thing any of us can ever go through.
If any of you reading this would like to visit my furbaby at her eternal Residency at the Bridge, her link is at the bottom of the page.
My thanks to Susie for her words and poems of such great love and wisdom and my heartfelt thanks to Ginny for creating Rainbow Bridge where all of us know a furbaby is not "just a dog", "just a cat", or "just anything" but a living, breathing soul for whom we grieve and mourn for ... just as we do for any human being.
From Our Furkids at Rainbow Bridge
You brought me to this beautiful place
Where I don’t have to hide my face,
Or turn away as I start to cry,
Or act as if you didn’t die.
This beautiful place called Rainbows Bridge
Where we share stories of our kids.
Where each and every person knows
That in deep sorrow, friendship grows.
We share our laughs, we share our pain,
We come back here in sun and rain.
We start to heal, we learn to grow,
And all because of the love we’ve known.
We learn to live our lives again,
To love, to welcome others in.
To let them come into our hearts,
Our homes, our souls, our deepest parts.
You live forever, your legacy grows
With each fur kid we come to know,
And treasure just as we treasured you
You knew we’d find this to be true.
You had faith in us when we felt lost.
You knew the pain was just the cost
Of loving so well, so deep, so true,
Of loving someone as perfect as you.
Thank you for your deep belief
That I would learn, and find relief
From the suffering I thought would never end,
Thank you, my Bridge Kid, my truest friend.
Susan Lynch © 2 December, 2005,
In memory of King Bing, The God Cat & Buddy Guy
In deepest gratitude to Ginny & Fifi
March 10th - Your Journey to the Bridge
My Darling Tasha!
You're at Rainbow Bridge now.
In the past when others talked about their losing a furbaby and mentioned Rainbow Bridge I thought it was all about the poem but when I posted to my friends that we had lost you, "go to Rainbow Bridge" is the response I received. So I went - since when do true friends steer you wrong?
You already know what I found there as your friends have told you all about the Rainbow Bridge site. You and I shared time for a reason.
Dad and I were there for your first seizure and Dad was with you before you had your 2nd and last one.
You called to him and he was there for you which is fitting as you two were so close (I have to admit I'm a bit jealous that you called to him and not me but that's ok).
If I was meant to be there with you at your passing, I would have.
If you were meant to go to the vet, you would have.
If it was supposed to have happened any other way, it would have.
If I could have done things differently I would have.
I don't like the fact that you're gone but I must believe that someone needs you more than we do.
Remember how much you are loved!
I haven't told Jason yet as he's at Job Corps. I'm not sure how he'll react to the news. He's grown up so much in the past months but he also loved you alot and you always spent time with him. I will have to tell him when he comes home on summer break. Not looking forward to that (but he might surprise me and handle it ok).
March 15th - One Week Marker
Well, it's been one week that you have been at Rainbow Bridge and you must have gotten to know lots of furbabies by now. There are new arrivals each day and each one tears at my heart.
I've been on the forum every day since losing you and receiving love, comfort, and support from the only people who are going through what I am and I'm also trying to help comfort other parents who have had to say "good bye" to their babies.
Your Dad didn't do so well today. I wasn't supposed to work but got called in and when I got home I found his note saying his heart was breaking. He misses you so much and he's in so much pain.
Thank you for coming to him in his dreams - he really needed that. He knew you would come. Please try to come again?
Try to help others as they approach the Bridge and remember we love you, Tashi!
March 16th - Try To Find The Smiles
Grief is a difficult road for all of us to travel. One thing that we read in the posts over and over again is how many tears flow for a long time after losing a beloved animal friend. People always ask, "When will it get better?" What worries me is that so many of us get stuck in this phase of our grief, and I believe that happens for several different reasons. It seems that people often allow themselves to get stuck there for fear of being disrespectful to the memory of the one who has gone on ahead to the Rainbow Bridge.
Now, believe me - I know that no one does this on purpose, but it does happen. It’s human nature in the beginning. Sometimes people seem to resist finding any joy in life, and they think that if they smile they are somehow not being sufficiently mindful of their losses.
It is up to each of us to see to it that we get better day by day. It won't happen all by itself -- especially if we refuse to smile. While it is true that we need to honor our grief, we do not need to become slaves to it.
If our animals had survived us, I know that not one of us would want them to live lives of misery, never finding happiness again. We would want them to remember all the fun we had together, and to smile at the memories. We would also want them to find happiness with another human until their time came to join us for eternity. They would want those things for us, too.
For everyone whose grief is new: Honor the grief. Allow the tears to come so they can begin to wash away your sorrow. Try each day to remember something funny or silly about your friend, or at least something that will bring a smile to your face. Yes, the tears will flow, but the smiles will shine through.
If at all possible, make a memorial file on your computer, a scrapbook, or a memory box where you can keep all of those glorious memories alive. It really does help a lot. We all have good days and bad days. It’s important to work toward a time when the good days outnumber the bad ones.
Whatever kind of day you are having, we’re all here for each other. We’ll do all we can to lift you up on the bad days, and on the good days, we’ll smile with you.
Squillions of Susie hugs, and prayers for your continued healing. © Susan "Susie Squillions" Lynch
March 18th - I PROMISE
I promise you’ll never forget me,
For I’ll always live in your heart.
For always and ever you and I
Are one spirit, never to part.
I promise I’ll be there forever,
Just a thought, and you’ll find me there,
It won’t matter when or wherever,
I’m with you all day, everywhere.
I promise I’ll always remember,
All the ways that you loved me so well.
Forever and always and ever
Just relax and I’ll visit a spell.
I promise you’ll know when I visit,
You’ll always know deep in your heart.
When you look at my picture, just kiss it,
And know that we never will part.
I promise I’ll know when you’re coming
To join me in Heaven above.
As soon as you’re here I’ll come running,
To your arms for a hug filled with love.
From Bingo and Buddy to Susie © 2006
March 21st - Almost two weeks
Well, here I am visiting with all the other parents of all the friends you have met at the Bridge. For those parents having a really hard time can you let your friends know to send some signs to them?
Tomorrow morning around 1 a.m. you will have been gone 2 weeks. We miss you so much, Tashi!
Dad's doing ok, I guess. He doesn't talk about it much - tries to keep busy with the computers. But he hasn't worked on a laptop since you left ... remember how you always "helped" him with them? I don't think he'll be working on one for quite a long time.
Everyone on the Forum is talking about all the fun you'll have on Sunday. All the things you furkids will be doing and even a visit from the easter bunny! Enjoy all the partying and games at the Bridge on Sunday. You've never had any type of celebration on that day so that will be an experience for you. Have fun!!! And now you can drink all the milk you want with no worries about "stomach problems".
Good night my sweet Tashi. Mommy and Daddy love you!
March 22nd - Shopping Day
My Sweet Tashi,
I went shopping today - had to pick up a few things and I wanted to get you "something" for your spot in the backyard.
I was going to get a rose bush but I decided to get something else. It's a Camellia and the picture of the flower on the tag is so pretty - much like a rose when it's completely opened up.
Now I have to get Dad to plant it and also finish mowing the yard. You know how he is - he hates to mow!
I also have your water dish and a can of your favorite tuna at our "spot" also.
Be good and know you're loved!
March 23rd ... A happy day!
Today is the happiest day I have had since you left.
I emailed Ginny (you know that stuff Mommy and Daddy do on the computer?) yesterday to see if she had received payment for your Residency. She must know how anxious I am to work on it so everyone can "see" you. She gave me the link early so I could come here and do this for you. If you can find FiFi tell her how wonderful her Mommy is for creating this wonderful site and how many people she's helping each day.
You enjoy visiting all the areas where the Easter Games are being played and I know you will be doing what you like to do best -- watching and making sure all are having a good time. You will be playing with the other kids in some of the games when you see just how much fun they are having, then you'll go back to your watching spot.
I'm going to set up your memorial/residency now and pick out a song to play each time someone comes to visit.
We love you so much baby!
UNTITLED (Gift From Above)
I'll lend you for a little time a pet of mine,
For you to love her while she lives
and mourn for when she's dead.
It may be six or seven years, or twenty-two or three,
But will you, till I call her back, take care of her for me?
She will bring her charms to gladden you and should her stay be brief,
Promise she will have her lovely memories as solace for your grief.
I cannot promise she will stay since all from earth return,
But there are lessons taught down there I wish my pets to learn.
I've looked the wide world over in my search for teachers true,
And from the throngs that crown life's lanes I have selected you.
Please will you give her all your love, and not think the labour vain,
Nor hate me when I come to call to take her back again.
I fancied that I heard myself say 'Dear Lord, Thy will be done,
For all the joy my pets shall bring I'll risk the grief I'll run.
I'll shelter her with tenderness, I'll love her while I may,
And for the happiness I've known, for ever grateful stay.
And should the angels call for her much sooner than I'd planned. I
'll brave the bitter grief that comes and try to understand.
~ Unknkown
March 24th - Memories of Tasha
Today I decided I needed to make a Blog for my sweet Tashi.
When I made her Residency at Rainbow Bridge, I was putting down each day's thoughts and what was happening much like a journal would be. But then I figured what was on her Residency would eventually be really, really long. That's when the idea of a blog came to mind last night as I was trying to sleep.
I can make "entries" and talk to her as the days go by.
First of all is an entry about her ... how she came to us, how she left us, my emories of her and if her Dad decides to add some to my list, I will include them. But I don't think that will be for a while though as he still can't bring himself to look at her picture.
About Tasha
We both love you so much and I am so grateful for the 14 years we had together.
Memories of Tasha
I also need to put down some memories of our time together to give others an idea of what you "were about". That's hard as you didn't "stand out" as some of the furbabies in Rainbow Bridge with you but I'll try:
~~ There was no such thing as having a door closed in the house. I still remember when Alicia lived with us and she would be sitting at the desk with her door closed. You would tap on the doorknob and she would reach over to open the door. Then she closed it again and you would be right there taping to go out. This repeated itself for quite some time. It's like you were saying "how dare you close a door in my house? Don't you know I need to come and go as I please?"
~~ I remember how Dad used to bury his face in your fur while he sat at the desk and you sat at the end of our bed. I know you were purring.
~~ I remember you chasing the stray cat out of the yard.