While most of the ones there today were male, we did see one female calico that was adorable. With big yellow eyes and a very gregarious personality, Dinkus was hard not to take home immediately. However we are still getting over Abby and discovered that maybe we weren’t ready for a new cat just yet.

After leaving the store we followed up on another ad in the paper; this time for Siamese kittens. These little balls of fluff are only 6-weeks old and were precious. However, we both had a slightly unsettled feeling while at the private home selling them. After our experience with trying a puppy last year, we are not about to get an animal from a place we aren’t comfortable.

On the ride home we talked about it and came to the conclusion that we aren’t ready yet to bring a new cat into our lives. Nekko is adjusting to being the only cat with no outward signs of distress, and we are also getting used to having just one cat reminding us of our station in life.

So, for now, it’s just me, Michele, and Nekko.

I think each of us has an emotional reservoir that gives us flexibility in our responses to normal situations. You know that going out to eat will require some sacrifices on your part but you have the capacity to allow for those. When some large or unexpected emotional event occurs you use up some of your reserve capacity. You aren’t as forgiving or flexible about little things, and being out in the world becomes much harder.

Even though we understood that Abby’s time was coming we both used up our emotional reserve getting through last Thursday at the vet, and in the days since trying to reconcile our lives without her. I have had exposure to people at work, but that is ritualized and formal, with plenty of barriers to true emotional exposure. When I am at work I am not as accessible emotionally to others, or to my self. Since I am not open emotionally in the workplace it is oddly safe in this time of grief.

At home I am far more open emotionally for it is safe there. With Michele I don’t have to hide any of my feelings or thoughts. When the two of us go out for dinner we often have very deep intellectual and emotional conversations. We look forward to eating out not only for the food, but for the chance to connect with each other. Going out with my Sweetie is far more emotionally open than being at work, so it is oddly less safe right now. Both of us felt at odds with the restaurant and each other last evening. Our emotional reservoirs are near empty and we didn’t have the flexibility necessary to deal with the world while being open emotionally. In the end we got take out from another restaurant and ate at home.

I know that we are working through the stages of grief and that we are both respecting ourselves in letting this process happen at its own pace. Already the anger and hurt is starting to pass, and the love and happiness at Abby’s memory will be what remains.

One is that grief, like so many other powerful emotions, has a state trait component. In other words, your emotional, physical, spiritual, and intellectual state is unique to that situation. Since grief doesn’t happen everyday we aren’t used to the demands it places on us. We were both surprised at the physical exhaustion we felt Thursday evening and Friday. We were also surprised at the depth of our emotions. After talking about it for a while we decided that each of us has unexpressed grief from earlier events in our lives that is being expressed now. Most people aren’t comfortable with the whole grief process and therefore it is rarely ‘safe’ to completely process. As a child, grieving for my sister, I got a very strong sense of ‘okay, move along now,’ when I still had strong feelings of loss, hurt, and anger.

Over the years I have been able to emote those unexpressed emotions, but not until I had a safe place. Michele is my safe place; with her I have no fear of recriminations or come-backs due to my being in my truth. Currently my truth is about grief and remembrance. I alternate between utter sadness about Miss Abby, and great joy at remember all the wonderful ways she touched my life.

Michele gives me a safe place to fall and she doesn’t place any expectations on how or when I need to talk, cry, or rage about this loss. I do the same for her. I could not get through this process as honestly and openly without my dear sweet Love. I thank her for helping to create the wonderful place we call home. And I am honored that she turns to me in the same fashion.

Abby brought so much to us and I am proud that we can honor her memory by fully expressing all the emotions we have about her. There is no time limit and no right way to complete this process. We simply have to be in our truth.

The hardest part was expecting to see or hear our little Abby-cat in her normal routine. Often times, just before we go to sleep, we’ll lay across the bed watching television reruns. Abby would jump up on the bed and then curl up on my hip or chest and purr loudly. When I realized that she was never going to do that again I thought my heart would break. I woke up this morning without her raspy breathing inches from my face, her left paw poised to touch my nose again and again until I played with her.

We cried and cried after turning off the lights. Somehow going to sleep meant that it was really real. Letting yesterday slip away meant that we were that much farther away from our beloved little fur ball. We questioned our resolve to let go of Miss Abby in the darkness and had to rely of each other for answers and affirmations we did the right thing. Gradually our conversation slipped around to remembrances of Abby and the wonderful personality she possessed. Michele and I both believe in reincarnation, and we also believe that dogs and cats have a spirit that is part of a larger ‘hive-mind.’ We know that Abby has returned to her sisters and brothers, and that she took a lifetime of love and caring with her.

Nekko, our other cat, is acting oddly. She has never known a time without Abby. I know it will be a few days before she starts to adjust. I am not sure what changes we’ll see in her personality. I hope that she comes back to us soon as we need her wonderful self to brighten our days and lift our hearts.

The CD that has had the most airtime in my car lately is Peter Gabriel’s ‘UP.’ Filled with darker songs and themes one in particular stands out for me, and has since the first listen last fall, ‘I Grieve.’ In an interview, Gabriel explained that his earlier song, ‘Don’t Give Up,’ had generated hundreds of letters from people who found solace in it’s words and message. He went on to say that he hoped ‘I Grieve’ would touch people in a similar fashion. I find that I am finding solace in this refrain from the song: Life carries on.

I know that life will carry on, I know that we will gradual lose the heaviness in our hearts and that we will remember all the love and joy Miss Abby brought to our lives. Eventually we’ll add a new kitten or maybe a puppy to our household. But for now I grieve.

We have noticed a slowing down in her activities this winter, and an increase in blockages. She has had 3 bouts of constipation in the last 4 weeks. She has also started to lose control of her bladder resulting in several instances where she has urinated on the floor or couch. She urinated on the furniture again sometime yesterday, and this morning we found another fecal deposit the size of a golf ball. Today her anus is distended and obviously sore. She is avoiding us and will until the blockage passes.

Michele and I are both strong advocates of the whole living will idea for people. When we first started talking seriously about Abby’s condition in February we started keeping a diary so that we could objectively measure her quality of life. Based on that diary we are now seeing that her life is starting to diminish. Since she can’t tell us what she wants we have to take on the awesome responsibility of deciding for her, based on our knowledge of her and our desires for how life should be lived.

As I am writing this, Michele is contacting the vet to make arrangements for a final visit. We are going to let our sweet, dear, wonderful Abby go. I don’t want her to suffer needlessly. I don’t want my life prolonged through artificial means and I am not going to be hypocritical and force medicine or surgery on Abby. She can’t understand and the trauma of the treatment outweighs any additional life it may buy.

We have an appointment for tomorrow afternoon at 3 to let her go forever.

Update (1:00 pm) After coming home early today to spend time with Michele we decided that putting it off until tomorrow was just making it worse. We called the vet back and we are going to let go of Miss Abby this afternoon. We fed her a bowl of her favorite ~ salmon, and now we are rattling around the house waiting for the time to leave.

We have shed a lot of tears already, and I know that many more will come afterwards. Miss Abby has had a wonderful life, full of love and care. I know that she has touched my heart deeply. I also know that as long as her memory lives on in my heart she won’t truly be gone.

Every since Abby was a kitten she has had respiratory issues. She sneezes. A lot. Prodigious amounts of snot are produced in many of these explosions. There is enough velocity to fling some of this output to the ceiling from the back of the couch. A trip the vet early in her life indicated that there was a medicine that could control some of her respiratory distress but it came at the steep price of shortening her life span. Michele opted to love Abby for who she was and deal with the snot-factor.

There are times when her breathing is obviously labored, and these times seem to be increasing in frequency. She is also starting to have difficulty with her bowels. We first noticed this almost 5 years ago and in that time she has been constipated several times. Once, two years ago, we resorted to taking her to the emergency animal clinic overnight. Since that episode we have carefully monitored her diet and helped with oil-laced cat food when she seemed to be constipated. This past weekend she had a rather bad bout that included a first, urinating on the furniture.

Our fear is that Abby’s condition is starting to deteriorate. Between the respiratory trouble and now increasingly frequent bouts of constipation we wonder what about her quality of life. On her good days she plays and romps with Nekko. However, we are seeing a slight slowing in her activity. Abby has always been a tremendous jumper. At times we called her Air-Abby for the deft lightness she has when jumping from the floor to overhead objects. This past weekend, before she passed her blockage she was unable to jump to the desk, an easy distance for her most days.

We talked, often with tears, about letting her go, at length on Saturday. It is agonizingly difficult to discuss rationally. In the end, we decided to monitor more closely her general health, and to track her respiratory and bowel difficulties. If we feel that they are happening too often, or that they are seriously degrading her quality of life, then we’ll have to prepare ourselves to let go of our dear sweet Abby.

Abby is my cat, even though Michele originally had her for 3 years before me. Abby has adopted me as hers and eagerly follows me though the house waiting for me to sit so she can be in my lap. At night she sleeps on top of me, and during the day she reclines on a pillow on my desk. I never had a pet of my own growing up and my attachment to Abby is very strong. I’ve always known that I would have to let her go someday, I just didn’t think it would be so soon.

Taking the responsibility to euthanize her when her quality of life is no longer good will be very difficult. I am not looking forward to that piece of growing up. Little Mark is scared and afraid of what it means to lose Abby. I can feel his despair when I think about her. I know that some people would say it’s only a pet. To me Abby is a far more than just a pet. She is unconditional love. She doesn’t care whether I’m tall or short, smart or dumb, tired or active. She just wants to be near me or on me. To have her on my chest knitting her paws and purring loudly is wonderful. To imagine never having that wonderful sensation again is awful.

I know that I am far from done sorting this issue out, but it has helped to write this much today.

Originally the salmon was put down around noon. Over time however the two of them have learned that pestering the staff (me and my wife) will get them their salmon fix earlier in the day.

How early? Try 5:15 am today. Abby comes in and stands on me, scolding me with her piteous cries and whapping any exposed part of my face and head with her paw. She is relentless as only a properly spoiled house cat can be.

I know that I am bigger, stronger, and I that have an opposable thumb; still I am at the beck and paw of this little 8 pound bundle of fur and attitude.

Four years of college, 20 years of work experience, head of my own company, and house-boy to two cats.