Empty House
June 28th, 2006 - 8:58 pm
The house feels all wrong. My daily schedule is destroyed. My furry best friend is gone, and it is effecting every aspect of my life. I can barely stand to be in the kitchen where we spent so many hours together. In fact, I can barely stand to be in the house. Every nook, cranny, corner, piece of furniture, reminds me of him. Not to diminish Lin’s friendship with Fuzza, because they had a wonderful and loving relationship, but I was home every day all day with the cat … there was grooming, feeding, playing, cleaning up after him, having him “help” me with my crafts or household chores, and even when we weren’t actively engaged in an doing something together, I would always stoop down to pet him when I passed by, hear him padding around the house or getting into something (known as “unauthorized cat activities”
, and whenever I called him, he came running. Fuzza was intrinsically interwoven with the very fabric of my life.
I decided to take out the litter box and his bowls today. Seeing them only made me cry, but now not seeing them is making me just as upset. Those places now seem too empty and vacant. Maybe I should have waited another day or two, but when I caught myself topping off his water bowl from my giant mug of ice water (he loved ice cold water to drink), I thought it best to remove them. I haven’t picked up his toys yet. They can stay for a while. When I see them or trip over them, they make me laugh and remember good times (and then they make me cry). I just don’t have the heart to clear all his things out just yet. I guess I’m getting my first taste of what it’s like to have someone you live with die and having to deal with what to do about their belongings. I don’t know what to do with them. It seems wrong to leave them lying around, and it seems silly to put them in boxes and keep them forever, but getting rid of them doesn’t feel right either. Even in death, Fuzza is teaching me things I suppose.
I’m actually not doing too badly with all this. Prone to sobbing at any moment and depressed, of course, but I’m remembering so many happy times and all the love we shared. When I cling to those memories, the pain of loss isn’t so bad. I think once we get Fuzza’s ashes back, it will be better, or maybe not. I’ve never had the opportunity to experience having a dead loved one’s ashes sitting around in a pretty little urn before. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how it goes. Right now, I am looking forward to bringing his remains home. Once they are here, I may feel differently.
I started a post about yesterday, but it will be a while before I am ready to finish it or post it. Because I’d been talking with several of my on line friends about all this, and I can’t bring myself to write any emails right now, here’s all I have to say about it for the moment:
Lin and I both know we made the right decision to take him in yesterday. Fuzza knew it too. Lin and I both went as far through the event with him as we each could. Lin stayed through the beginning of the sedation, and while I hadn’t planned to stay with him until the very end, when the time came to leave, I found I couldn’t leave … and I am glad beyond words that I did. Those last few moments together were so important.
Fuzza isn’t really gone. Sure he isn’t running around the house or laying on my lap, but I feel him all around me all the time. Once I get used to missing his physical presence, I think I am going to be just fine. I have even informed the universe that I might be ready for my next rescue kitty to find its way to me (every cat I have ever had has found me, and not the other way around) … and the universe has never let me down before, so I know there’s another bundle of furry joy waiting to enter my life sometime in the future when the time is right. Who knows, it might not even be a cat at all. Maybe the next time Dinner the Rabbit hops into my yard looking for a handout, I’ll invite him in and see what happens.
I just wanted to make a post so no one would worry about me. I learned a lot about losing a loved one and the intense grief that follows when my dad died, and I am putting those lessons to good use … and with Fuzza guiding me, I am learning a little more about how to say goodbye and focus on the good while letting the bad wash away with the tears.
5 Responses to “Empty House”
Cherish your grief for it is just as much a part life as the one you grieve for. Just as if you were the one to have passed away they too would grieve for you. Which comes from a deep love shared by two
It is good to Honor your loved ones by keeping their Spirit alive in the memories of your heart. It can be said that we take strength from our grief for them, from our love for them, and form our memory of them.
I have no doubt that your Spirit and that of Fuzza were one in the same.
Thank you Orb for allowing your readers to share in your grief. I for one will miss reading/hearing about him.
A wonderful tribute Orb and I can’t agree more with Wildman. Hey, I was thrilled to hear you mention Dinner, I was wondering what happened to him. Rabbits can make good house pets, litter trained and very clean, only their habit of knawing on any bit of exposed wood can get dramatic and make sure all the electric lines are really well hidden. If you get a bunch of redwood chews around the house as furnature distractions, something might happen there. Is Dinner a boy? Boys with all their parts may try to impregnate any soft or fluffy things that are around, which can be a disconcerting dampness in your bedroom slipper first thing in the morning. All our best to you.
I’m an idiot!
This morning I went to the Library and I wanted only one thing to bring home, I had to have it, I searched high and low for, then I found it. Janno looked at me like I was from Mars — I mean more than usually. This evening I put it on, full blast through the house, while I’m in the kitchen making the pizza dough and I’m thinking, why on the gods green earth did I need this music today? I know the music and I haven’t listened to it for years, I’m chopping the onions and getting into it, if you know what I mean. Why? Why? Then the most obvious of answers. This is the reason I had to play Moszart’s Requiem in D minor on this day of all days.
I so understand how you feel Orb. Our cat Tigger was an outside cat so we don’t have toys for him but we still have the bowls he used. And we still have a ton of cat food, one package unopened because it was bought around the same time he died, which as you know we didn’t know about for another week.
It’s hard to realize that losing a beloved pet is just as hard as losing a human loved one. But it does help to think of the good times you had together. And I agree as well that even cat spirits live on in a ghostly or astral form. Sometimes it seems I saw Tig from the corner of my eye outside of the window where he used to sit and scratch at the window when he wanted fed. Sometimes he would just sit up there and sun himself as well.
Recently we washed the windows that still had his paw marks on them. Actually my little brother, who came out to visit from California, did the job because it was so emotionally hard for us women to do it.
I feel for you so much right now.
In the days of long ago from ways not forgotten we as a people (NAs) had respect for all living things. As we do to this day.
For those unknown to this way of life our ways may seem peculiar such in that we consider the Sacred Earth as the Mother of all life and to desecrate the Earth Mother is to desecrate life itself in any known form.
To those who think an animal does not have a Spirit I give you our belief that when we take an animal for food we Pray to its Spirit and explain in great detail and an even greater respect why we have taken its life away and we also ask for its forgiveness in taking its life.
It is said that we are related to all living things, that we should have love for all of such that has life, that the very ground we walk upon has life, and should be respected most of all.
When physical life comes to an end then a Spiritual life begins.
In our way it is unimaginable to think/live any other way for if you cannot have respect for even the most insignificant form of life you can easily not have respect for your own life.
Without the guidance of those who lived before us you wouldn’t be reading this and life as we know it could have never made it this far on sheer coincidence alone.
As for the question of animals having a Spirit everyone has their own beliefs for we all believe what we choose which is by nature. As for myself I have devoted my life to animals and I can tell you that like us they have intelligence, they have the ability to mourn for one another(or a human for that matter), they feel pain, they have the knowledge to solve problems, and they can readily recognize danger.
I once worked for a popular wildlife park that built an island with the intention of keeping Chimpanzees contained on it for the viewing pleasure of the public. In less than two months they built a raft and floated to their escape. I have been witness to animals mourning their dead and paying their respect to the bones of their loved ones on a regular basis.
To think that they don’t deserve the same respect that we give one another or that they are not capable of having a Spirit is just wrong to me.
These thoughts and beliefs are my own and come from having lived as one within nature and as one with the animals therein and in no way would I intend to say other thoughts and beliefs are wrong. These words only reflect the life of a Wildman that spent two months (24/7) with seven baby African Elephants that had been taken away from their natural parents in Africa and brought here for the entertainment of the public.
I guess when you bottle feed and sleep with such wonderful creatures for even a short time of their lives your thoughts and beliefs can be a little biased in knowing just how Spiritual animals can be.