Today

I had a very hard time last night. I kept having the memory of Carol sitting in the chair that last night crying and saying she was afraid something awful was going to happen. I don't know why, after all this time, I felt guilt. I laid in bed and started to beat myself up over the fact that when she said that, I did nothing. I kept asking myself last night over and over, why didn't I go and sit with her, give her a hug, or hold her as she cried. I just laid on the couch and said nothing. Eventually, I went back into bed and that was the last of it. I played it over and over.

Today. As far as I'm concerned, today is the day. It might be different each year but I remember it as a Thursday. I remember being at work and getting the call. I remember the Friday. I just can't wrap my head around the anniversary of her death being on a Saturday. Call me crazy but that's just the way it's going to be for me.

How am I feeling today? Is Acceptance a feeling?

Kel

A little better

Today, so far, I'm feeling a little better. I still might leave early again today from work. Yesterday it felt good, in a sick kinda way, to go home and crawl into bed and just hide from the day. Of course, you can only hide for so long and eventually, you have to get out of bed and face the pain. I finally took my taxes in. Carol always did the taxes or at lest got everything together to take to our tax guy. She was very very good at it. She wanted to take a class to do taxes for other people. I think she would have been very good at it and been happy doing it.

So this is my plan so far for Sat. It just so happens that March 15 is Cambria's birthday. I was thinking about it and thought that I could hang out with Cambria and celibate her birthday. If we want to talk about Carol we can. If we want to hang out and have fun with a bunch of friends, I can. I get to take a long bike ride to Thousand Oaks. Then a long bike ride again to get home.

That's my plan so far.

Kel

Not a good day

I am fucking wreck. Just on my way to work my emotions would swing from complete peace and acceptance to sitting in fear and crying. Nothing I did or tried to do could or would stabilize my emotions. I hear what people are saying; That I'm doing good and that I have the strength to make it through this. That I lived through the day last year so I will do so again this year.

All of that is true. I will. But I just want to crawl into a whole somewhere and hide for a week. I just want to sit somewhere where my emotions can swing and bounce as they want to. I just want the pain and loss to go away. I just want to feel normal and at peace. I don't want to go through this. I don't want anything to do with this week. It is too painful.

But I will. I have no choice. I guess the saving grace is that I have the love and support of my family and friends. It would be a dark place indeed to be in if I were to have traveled this road alone. Thank you, everyone.

Dreams Part 2

I hate this week. I just want to go somewhere and hide. I want to stop feeling like I feel. Every attempt to distract my thinking or try and do something else has successfully resulted in returning to my feelings of dread. I dread this week. It’s like a countdown to the one year mark.

I dreamed about Carol last night. It was an odd dream. In it, she was asleep in my bed. I was in shock at first but then for some reason I got the impression it was a year ago. In the dream I knew Carol was going to die in a few days but she did not know it. I was confused about what I should do, should I tell her, should I not? Evidentially I decided not to tell her and let her live the rest of the week as if nothing was going to happen.

Dreams are dumb…

When is….

…a year a year? I mean, is it 365 days, or the day of the week, or the numeric day of the month? Carol died on the 15^th of March 7, 2007. It was a Thursday. The one year mark is all messed up. Leap year has added a day making it 366 days. If I reflect on her death on Thursday next week, am I premature? If I reflect on Saturday is it too late or just not the same? Some of you may be thinking, “what dumb questions.” And you may be right. I don’t know why it is important to me. I will always think of Carol’s death as a Thursday. I will always remember Friday as my first day without her which was a day that seemed to never end.

As far as other things in my life go I’m doing much better today. Should I feel guilty that I think I did the right thing? I don’t know. I had to wait until dark to look for pee spots with a black light. I found them in the guest room. It wasn’t until I went into my bedroom that I was horrified to see the extent of what has been going on. I have no idea how long she had been having that problem but there is not a single square foot of my bedroom that does not have a pee spot. I am fortunate that it doesn’t smell but I still think I’m going to have to re-carpet the whole house. For whatever reason, her brain clicked into a mode that she thought it was just ok to do what she wanted to do. I know that if Carol was alive, she would not have tolerated this for very long. It would have devastated her to do what I had to do but I know Carol, she would have done it.

So I guess I’m doing ok today.

Kel

Pain Part 5

It all started about 6 or seven months ago. I had a shoe box on the bedroom floor and one day notice that it was all wet inside. It didn’t smell and I had no idea what it was. Then about a few weeks later I notice that the paper I put on the floor for the cats to play with was all wet also. Strange…. Then one day I was lying in bed and heard it, Carrie was peeing on the rug. I freaked. How long had she been doing that? Why was she doing that?

I got another cat box and put it in the bedroom. I hate having a cat box in the bedroom but I couldn’t have her peeing on the carpet. It seemed to work but then noticed that in front of the cat box was all wet. She was peeing right in front of the cat box! I rearranged my bedroom to put my bed over the spot. When my roommate moved out I put the cat box in that room. Then I noticed she was consistently peeing in my bedroom and then started to go Number Two in the same spot.

I had a friend take her to the Vet while I was on travel to get her checked out for infection or something. The test came back negative. It was behavioral. This week I locked her in the guest bedroom to try and retrain her to use the cat box. Yesterday when I went home I noticed that she would still use the cat box but was also peeing on the carpet.

I had options:

1. I could lock her in the bathroom all day and night.

2. I could try and adopt her out to someone.

3. I could put her on medication.

4. I could put her to sleep.

1. I think locking her up would only make things worse. She always had a bit of a mental problem. Carol was the only one she bonded with and would love. She bonded with me but I was never home. She was used to someone always being home.
2. She dose not like people. She only likes one person. It would be too traumatic to try and put her in a cage and wait for someone to be willing to adopt a cat that doesn’t like people and pees on the carpet.
3. She doesn’t like people, even the ones she likes, to touch her or handle her. It would have been too traumatic to grab her one or twice a day and force medication down her. I think it would have cause more harm than good and there is still a chance it wouldn’t have worked.

Yesterday I have the overwhelming feeling that I knew what I needed to do and that I was ready to do it. I called the Vet that had been treating her and talked about what I needed to do. He agreed with all of my observation and assessments of the options and thought the best thing to do was to let her go.

Pain

I got the cat carrier out. She looked at it and started to run. She jumped up on the foot stool and seemed to say, “I’m ok! I’m ok now!”

Pain

I picked her up and put her in the carrier. Tears running down my face I took her out to the car. Crying, I drove to the Vet. We went into the room and waited. I had brought an old jacket of Carols. I took her out of the carrier and put on Carol’s jacket. I wanted her to smell Carol. They came in and rapped her up in the Jacket and took her back to sedate her. Then she came in and I held her as they gave her the injection.

Pain

They left me alone with her. I sat there and felt that gut wrenching pain again. For the second time in less than a year I was alone in a room with the lifeless body of someone I loved.

Pain

I left and went home. The committee in my head fucked with me all night. “Cat Killer!” it screamed at me. “Quitter!” they called me. I felt like I had failed Carol. She worried about her cats and who would take care of them after she died. She trusted me to take care of them and love them they way they need to be loved.

I tried, I truly tried. But I still feel like I have failed.

Pain

Carrie Carrie

I had to put Carrie to sleep today. I am not doing very good.