Mouse

6th June 1994 - 1st May 2014.
R.I.P my darling little girl-cat xxxxx

more about my cat

I last blogged about my darling little cat (by the way, her name is Mouse), a year ago.

She is still with me, but I'm not sure for how much longer.  In the time between then and now, she's had a couple of set-backs - acute cystitis in September and then dehydration because of vomiting in January.  Today she is back at the vet with another bout of cystitis.  The vet is pretty confident that we can get her over this in 48-72 hours but her underlying kidney disease is progressing rather swiftly.  He feels that it will be no more than a matter of months before I have to let her go.  She will be 20 in June - a grand age for a cat - and she has lived a good, happy life during which she has been pretty well adored by everyone she met.

Mouse has been happy, playful, friendly, charming and comical her whole, long life and I have been there for all of it.  I know all of that in my head but my heart is breaking because it feels like I haven't had enough years with her.  There will never have been enough years with her.

April sucks.

six

Six years ago today I lost Starchild. My whole life changed direction that day and while I'm not unhappy, I think I will never stop mourning the life I lost.

I see what he was trying to do

The following exchange at work made me chortle this morning:

Prof Fleetfoot (talking about having run the London Marathon yesterday): well I'm glad I did it, but mainly because I never will feel the need to do it again. I think I will never feel my feet again either

Dr Daddy: I don't have to run a marathon, I just run around after my kids.

!!!

oh yes, I knew I'd forgotten something

One of the two IRL friends who reads this blog pointed out a glaring omission in my (lack of) posts these past few months. S and I are back together...
So, we had that perplexing morning when we broke up and we stayed broken up for five days. During those days we exchanged a few texts and calls and then he came back to London from visiting his parents and straight to my flat. He told me that he hadn't meant what he said and told me that he had panicked. I was sceptical until he said "the last woman I loved died and I never thought I'd get over it. When I realised how I feel about you, I became insanely convinced you would die too. So I ran."
To the casual observer it will seem a very bizarre thing to think. But I've done almost exactly the same. Each time I got pregnant after Starchild I was terrified and convinced (correctly as it happened) that something terrible would fall upon me. I understand drowning in irrational waves of panic.
Since then S and I have gone from strength to strength. I met his parents last month and they like me :-)
And I, kind listener, can't remember when I have been this happy.

"I know exactly how you felt"

A small group of us gathered together for an evening of pizza, wine and gossip.  The conversation ranged from the situation in Crimea to who we thought should go through to the next round on "The Voice", the wine flowed, the pizza was guzzled and a jolly good time was had by all.

At the end of the evening I found myself in the kitchen with the hostess.

"This has been a lovely evening" I said.

"Just what I needed, really," the hostess replied.  "Husband and I have been going through a really difficult time lately and this has taken my mind off things for a while."

She went on to explain that she and her husband have been struggling with infertility and it's been a terrible strain on them both.  

"It's been five months," she sighed.  I stared at her, thinking of my years "in the trenches".

And then she said it:

"I know exactly how you felt when you went through this, Illanare."

I picked up the stuffed toy dog her two-year-old son (conceived after two months of trying and now sleeping sweetly upstairs), had left under the kitched table and handed it to her.

"No, you don't," I said.  "I'm sorry for your difficulties, but you have no idea - NO IDEA - how I feel."

five

Tomorrow (Thur 6th Feb) will be five years since I lost my daughter Tilly.  It's been five years so, naturally, no-one else remembers.  Not my parents, not my friends and I am sure not even A.

There's no-one else I can tell, no-one else who will tell me that it is okay to still grieve except you who read this because you have also gone through similar.

I am very sad tonight.