One Week Review

It's been a week since Spazz left us.  I find myself going through similar emotions as I did when my grandmother passed.  The 5 phases of death, if you will.  Even for a cat.  It's amazing how much difference one little kitty can make in a household.

He was an under foot cat.  Always there, even when he was in the way.  Didn't matter how many times I stepped on him, he stayed under my feet.  When I was cooking, when I was washing dishes, while I sat at my computer.  15 years of looking down before I move is a hard habit to break and I'm still caught off guard when I look down and he's not there.

If I had to put a positive emotion on his death, the only thing I have come up with, aside from his no longer suffering, is the lack of worry.  I never realized how much I worried about him while I was gone.  I'll catch myself thinking about him, the habit of worrying about him, and realize there is no longer any need.  That brings first relief, then sadness.

It's the absence of him that hurts the most.  I guess that's true of anything or anyone we have loved and lost.

Sweet Spazz

I came here yesterday after being gone for 3 years.  I came here to look at pictures and read posts of my dear kitty friend, Spazz, whom I had to have put down yesterday.  Then I came back today to update the kitty's ages over there on the right.  I then decided to update the banner. Then I pushed the button to write a new post.  And here I am.

Spazz... somewhere on here in the midst of 700+ blog posts is his story.  I was never very good at tagging, so most of them aren't.  I'm here now so I can one day come back and read and remember.

In the last three years, Spazz went from weighing in at 28 pounds down to about 3.  He wasn't laying around sick for all that time.  He was still his old Spazz self, enjoying the simple pleasures he always had.  But the last few months it was obvious that we were closing in on our last days together.  Thoughts of having him put down started to creep into my thoughts more and more as the days went on.  But I knew it wasn't time because he was still his old Spazz self.

One of his favorite things in the world was eating.  Obviously.  Two days ago, when he stopped eating, I knew it was time.  He knew it was time.  I could see in his eyes he was ready. He was no longer his old Spazz self.

I was able to be there when he left.  I wanted to be there.  He went very peacefully.  The doctor was very kind and left the room to give us time.  I had a very hard time walking away.  I had to keep placing my hand on him to see if he was breathing.  He wasn't.  He was still so warm from being wrapped up in the towel I had wrapped him in to make him feel secure.  The knowledge part of my brain knows that it takes time for a body to cool, even a small one, but some other part of my brain was saying that he was still alive because he was warm.  And some part of me thought that when he left I would feel him go.  And I didn't.  24 hours later it's as if I'm still waiting to feel that.  But the lack of him being right next to me as I type this is felt.  Deeply.

And then I pushed the Publish button...