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Good Night, Darling Prince 😿
(TL;DR for those who want just the meat and none of the heart-vomit: Beloved kitty gone from cancer and I'm not ok.)
___
We put my dear beloved kitty DP down today. He was 16.
We realized he was in trouble when he abruptly stopped eating and started being cuddly with the entire house.
After panicked searching, my partner found a vet that would do the job.
He declined fast. The tumor they found was like a stone. There was no chance. Stomach cancer in a senior age cat is a death sentence. They can't recover.
It's far kinder to let him go than to take extraordinary measures. ...we couldn't have done that either way, because we're literally poor.
We gave him one last night of cuddles before we sent him across the bridge to wait for me.
We tried to find a ride for two hours.
I actually dehydrated myself crying and the only reason I'm not right now is because I literally can't right now. At 8:45, at my altar because I have a broken ankle and could not make the heroic trek on foot to the vet's office, but with a paw on my fiance's hand and my voice as one last message from me (via Telegram), he finally stopped trying to fight the drugs, dozed off...and slipped off to wait for me in the After.
...I hope I didn't frighten the neighbors with the primal scream that I only barely managed to bite back. Though the Anguished Grief-Striken Negro Wailing™️ may have caused some concern.
I have a hard enough time if the dead body was empty when I got there. I freak out. I get sick. I—Well, I'd call it spiraling into apocalyptic despair, but "spiraling" implies at least a little mercy, a little reprieve before I hit the bottom. No, it's more like the ground teleports to meet me. Pretty much everyone who knows me and cares half a whit about me knows about this form of thanatophobia of mine ([i]thanatophobia[/i] is the fear of death). But I so wanted to be there for my darling boy as he crossed over.
My fiance literally took five minutes expressing his absolute prayers-answered gratitude that I couldn't be there.
He said that seeing this would have broken me beyond repair. The harsh lights, the antiseptic air...the quiet room that made it clear that this was a huge moment...the second life left his frail, still-plushie-soft body—
I can feel the scream rising again in my chest, like mercury in an old thermometer that's so old its glass has begun to craze and frost over, as I try to explain the absolute hollow-point bullet I dodged to you.
He said that between everything involved, and knowing what he has learned about me, he already knew that this was a mercy that he had to grant. He'd been cagey about getting me out there, and knew what had to be done.
Our ride text-attempts didn't get responses until 9:30 AM.
According to the vet, it was a good thing we got there when we did...because he wouldn't have made it that long.
My dear darling boy would have died in my arms, wrapped in the hot-pink fleece blanket I'd been laying on the past few weeks.
...I know for an absolute fact that my fiance was right.
I have suffered many, many things in my life. I was shot in the knee with my cousin's bb gun at 5 and whipped with a switch (flexy bendy stick) for "lying." My mother's death at 9, from breast cancer, during BCA month—so abbreviated because my keyboard insists on planting a godsdamned pink ribbon emoji after that demon disease's name. My grandfather's death, where I held it together just long enough to break down HARD in the limo...where my dumbass cousins cracked up laughing at my grief, mocking the sound that had ripped its way out of me after five days of zero tears and probably starting my path to a flattened affect. 9/11. Rape and PTSD. Illegal eviction. Bipolar crashes so hard that I actively wanted to die immediately.
None of them,
not a one,
hurt like this.
I wouldn't have cracked.
I would have simply disintegrated. I know there wouldn't have been any coming back from losing my friend and familiar if I'd had to actually watch the spark leave his beautiful but cataractian eyes.
(Well fuck there go the tears. Guess I'm hydrated again.)
The poor dear was only home from his boarder's for 13 hours.
He spent his last 13 hours with me. With us.
He was only here 13 hours but it felt like we experienced 13 years of love from him.
He was only here 13 hours, but the place feels so damned empty without his old-man meow.
... as weird as it is to say, I'm not sure I would trade those 13 hours for another day with him. I know he was hurting. He was weak, tired, physically unable to process input anymore. When we nabbed him, while he was in the crate, he frantically tried to reach me, even going as far as getting up on his wobbly spindly legs and charging the carrier door. But he melted into my body when I swaddled and carried him later, snuggling into my chest and neck like old times, and I could feel him: he seemed to be saying, "I've gotten everything I needed. Now I can rest." And when I realized that, I broke. But...
...in that short time, I felt so much love. From my fiance, who immediately fell in love with the boy; and from the boy himself, just happy to feel, smell, and hear me for just a little longer.
In that short time, love came home.
Now, I'm in the dark. I've lost the moon.
And my grief is the night sky, heavy with rain clouds.
And tomorrow I am home alone.
I'd be lying if I said I was positive I'll be OK when I wake up. But anything is better than what bearing witness would have done to me. I know the only reason I might have survived that would have been my brain calling an emergency shutdown and rendering me catatonic.
...please. if you can...candles, prayers, affirmations. Anything.
I want to get through this. I'm just not sure I can.
___
We put my dear beloved kitty DP down today. He was 16.
We realized he was in trouble when he abruptly stopped eating and started being cuddly with the entire house.
After panicked searching, my partner found a vet that would do the job.
He declined fast. The tumor they found was like a stone. There was no chance. Stomach cancer in a senior age cat is a death sentence. They can't recover.
It's far kinder to let him go than to take extraordinary measures. ...we couldn't have done that either way, because we're literally poor.
We gave him one last night of cuddles before we sent him across the bridge to wait for me.
We tried to find a ride for two hours.
I actually dehydrated myself crying and the only reason I'm not right now is because I literally can't right now. At 8:45, at my altar because I have a broken ankle and could not make the heroic trek on foot to the vet's office, but with a paw on my fiance's hand and my voice as one last message from me (via Telegram), he finally stopped trying to fight the drugs, dozed off...and slipped off to wait for me in the After.
...I hope I didn't frighten the neighbors with the primal scream that I only barely managed to bite back. Though the Anguished Grief-Striken Negro Wailing™️ may have caused some concern.
I have a hard enough time if the dead body was empty when I got there. I freak out. I get sick. I—Well, I'd call it spiraling into apocalyptic despair, but "spiraling" implies at least a little mercy, a little reprieve before I hit the bottom. No, it's more like the ground teleports to meet me. Pretty much everyone who knows me and cares half a whit about me knows about this form of thanatophobia of mine ([i]thanatophobia[/i] is the fear of death). But I so wanted to be there for my darling boy as he crossed over.
My fiance literally took five minutes expressing his absolute prayers-answered gratitude that I couldn't be there.
He said that seeing this would have broken me beyond repair. The harsh lights, the antiseptic air...the quiet room that made it clear that this was a huge moment...the second life left his frail, still-plushie-soft body—
I can feel the scream rising again in my chest, like mercury in an old thermometer that's so old its glass has begun to craze and frost over, as I try to explain the absolute hollow-point bullet I dodged to you.
He said that between everything involved, and knowing what he has learned about me, he already knew that this was a mercy that he had to grant. He'd been cagey about getting me out there, and knew what had to be done.
Our ride text-attempts didn't get responses until 9:30 AM.
According to the vet, it was a good thing we got there when we did...because he wouldn't have made it that long.
My dear darling boy would have died in my arms, wrapped in the hot-pink fleece blanket I'd been laying on the past few weeks.
...I know for an absolute fact that my fiance was right.
I have suffered many, many things in my life. I was shot in the knee with my cousin's bb gun at 5 and whipped with a switch (flexy bendy stick) for "lying." My mother's death at 9, from breast cancer, during BCA month—so abbreviated because my keyboard insists on planting a godsdamned pink ribbon emoji after that demon disease's name. My grandfather's death, where I held it together just long enough to break down HARD in the limo...where my dumbass cousins cracked up laughing at my grief, mocking the sound that had ripped its way out of me after five days of zero tears and probably starting my path to a flattened affect. 9/11. Rape and PTSD. Illegal eviction. Bipolar crashes so hard that I actively wanted to die immediately.
None of them,
not a one,
hurt like this.
I wouldn't have cracked.
I would have simply disintegrated. I know there wouldn't have been any coming back from losing my friend and familiar if I'd had to actually watch the spark leave his beautiful but cataractian eyes.
(Well fuck there go the tears. Guess I'm hydrated again.)
The poor dear was only home from his boarder's for 13 hours.
He spent his last 13 hours with me. With us.
He was only here 13 hours but it felt like we experienced 13 years of love from him.
He was only here 13 hours, but the place feels so damned empty without his old-man meow.
... as weird as it is to say, I'm not sure I would trade those 13 hours for another day with him. I know he was hurting. He was weak, tired, physically unable to process input anymore. When we nabbed him, while he was in the crate, he frantically tried to reach me, even going as far as getting up on his wobbly spindly legs and charging the carrier door. But he melted into my body when I swaddled and carried him later, snuggling into my chest and neck like old times, and I could feel him: he seemed to be saying, "I've gotten everything I needed. Now I can rest." And when I realized that, I broke. But...
...in that short time, I felt so much love. From my fiance, who immediately fell in love with the boy; and from the boy himself, just happy to feel, smell, and hear me for just a little longer.
In that short time, love came home.
Now, I'm in the dark. I've lost the moon.
And my grief is the night sky, heavy with rain clouds.
And tomorrow I am home alone.
I'd be lying if I said I was positive I'll be OK when I wake up. But anything is better than what bearing witness would have done to me. I know the only reason I might have survived that would have been my brain calling an emergency shutdown and rendering me catatonic.
...please. if you can...candles, prayers, affirmations. Anything.
I want to get through this. I'm just not sure I can.
no subject
I want to say it gets easier. That's not true - it's more correct to say your mind will try to do things to numb itself to the pain. I didn't sleep properly for over a year after Mont died. (I would lie awake and wait to turn off; a few hours later I would realise I had briefly switched off but it was hours full of empty air essentially.)
In my case I can't feel pain over Mont anymore because my subconcious deleted all memories of her. I know she existed and I know I loved her deeply but something in my subconcious wiped almost all the files. The best I have is the cliffnotes information of things she did and forced memories of a few photos/pieces of audio I took during her lifetime. But there's a glitch in the programming. I still think 'Mont' when I'm thinking of the new furballs. There are still memories here and there that haven't been altered properly. The humorous side of my brain has to wonder if my subconcious admired the VII Cloud revelation too much and decided to try that for itself.
This fortnight will be rough. The replays in your head. The mind tricks. The what ifs. The bargainings. The emptiness. The anger. Marking particular points in time as X hours since, X days since, at this minute it will be a week etc. One of the worst bits for me was all the little mannerisms I expected. I kept waiting to hear Mont's claws clack. I was expecting to be nudged in the arm. My ears kept pricking hoping to hear her yowl in the background. Even now I still occasionally look into the shadows and expect to see black and white fur. And then as the months go by you still feel the loss, you still feel the ache but everyone expects you to have moved on. But you know deep down it's not something you 'move on' from. A piece of your soul splits and your reality is fractured, suddenly you're in a new dimension, much colder and with that sense of being adrift. And you have no choice but to stumble through hoping to rebuild enough of yourself that you can feel as though you belong in the realm of the living once more.
I wish you all the luck in the world with this limbo. I pray it lasts as little time as possible and that your mind does not plunge too deep into the darkness. I do not lie when I say that getting these two saved me. It gave me something to keep going for. It was a small raft in a raging storm. And these will be fierce waters for a while yet.
May he rest in peace eternal. Let it be known he was loved so great in life that his passing had such impact. Sleep now, beautiful boy and take comfort in knowing how much those who loved you wish to be with you once more.
no subject
I keep beating myself up that I'm not over it...then I remember that it has literally only been 72 hours, and I'm gonna need longer than that.
It feels like so much longer.
And I beat myself up on occasion because—idk, I feel guilty about reacting not hard enough...then I remember that it has literally only been 72 hours, and it's gonna catch up with me.
It's at this point that I'm glad for the special teddy bear that my fiance got me. Between the broken foot, a markéd increase in the number of fights/spats that me and the bae have been having, and now this, the little dear bear has helped me get to the end of a lot of crying jags.
And this is that time of year, so sometimes I can't even answer the question "What is it now?" with anything other than "I don't know"—or, you know, just sad noises.
I'm actually glad my fiance's at work during the daylight hours...he'd be worried sick. I don't usually have extreme reactions to things, but now it's like I'm raw flesh and someone decided to salt me.
And I can tell my flat affect is starting to crack.
no subject
I remember watching the clock a lot. You count hours, you wait for specific points in time, you start counting in all sorts of measures. For about 2 years I was counting in Friends reruns. (I got myself the blu-ray set right before Mont died and shortly afterwards they began rerunning it on tv about 2 months later so I would count each full rerun of 10 seasons since Mont's death. One of my last memories of Mont is watching bits of s1 and s3 of Friends with her. Well I say 'memories'. I know I did it but the memory itself is a string of data, at best I remember being on the sofa.)
Sounds like that little bear is a lifesaver at this point in time. I hope there at least aren't as many spats during this point, though given everything that's happened I can understand things getting tense.
The worst is how you can't turn it off no matter what you do. A part of you wants to return to the realm of the living, enough of you doesn't want to drown but you feel like the lowest dreg because when something is going well you still feel guilty or numb or as though you're sinking into the abyss. The night I brought home two kittens I wept when I went to bed because they weren't Mont and I still felt hollow. It was horrible. It wasn't their fault, I was simply a mess. I can't remember how long it took before I became somewhat tolerable company again, I mostly remember being miserable, having a highly dark view of things and playing a lot of sims very badly.