Quote:
Originally Posted by Trilby
thank you for your sympatico, Dana.
It gives me hope that others have lived through it. I know Tony has, Jaydaan, Nirvana...Sundae lost Dylan, and more of us.
It's like Wuthering Heights weather-wise here and I've only a bouncy, cat-chasing dog for company. Even the cats won't come up.
I want to go away. I want some sunshine and some happiness before I ossify. godDAMNIT~!
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Oh you could certainly use some sunshine m'dear
You will get through. It'll all shake down to normality eventually.
I think I cried more for Pilau than I have cried for anything else my whole life. Boneshaking, tearing me from inside griefstricken keening. Awful, awful. I used to get his furlined coat that he used to wear when it was cold and hold it to my face to try and smell him. Not the wet dog smell, but that smell they have when they're warm and sleepy. And I measured the progress of each day against the longest time I'd spent away from him when he was alive. And how many times I had broken down in tears each day.
It was quite a long time before I realised I'd gone a whole day without crying.
Then I went through a mini version of it again when I brought Carrot home. Everything he did and didn't, everything he was and wasn't a stark reminder that Pilau wasn't here.
I'm not sure if people who aren't into animals can understand the depth of feeling that can exist between a dog (or cat) and it's person. especially when it's just the two of you. That one on one friendship between you Autumn was a profound thing. Is a profound thing. It doesn't just switch off because she's off to the bridge (;p).
It helped me to have Pilau's picture on my computer desktop. It's always on. For the first couple of months I said goodnight to him when I turned it off at night, and good morning when I turned it on each day. I still talk to him occasionally. It's like he almost exists there on the screen. I consider that he has been standing watch over his namesake, Carrot Pilausson. I consider that he is pleased. Because he would not want me and the house unguarded, or the territory unmarked in his absence. And when grief struck me, and even now, verrrry occasionally it can steal over me, and I cried, what brought me round was noticing his face watching me, and wanting to tell him i was alright, like I would have done when he came to me during upsets and sorrows. Somehow I managed to invest enough of him into that image, that I really did feel the need to reassure him, to wipe my eyes and raise a smile.
It wasn't without moments of guilt. They also still come from time to time. The things I didn't do and should have, the things I did do and shouldn't have, the avenues of care and diagnosis I didn;t pursue and didn' know about until after he'd gone, the futility of trying to wrestle tablets down him the day before he died, the flash of frustration that came out as raw anger only days before when he'd coughed the tablet out for t he fourth time and was being really uncooperative whn I knew this was the pain relief that would make him feel better.
There are times I see accusation in his eyes. Or confusion and hurt.
There's no way around it y'know. There are always things that make us feel guilty or inadequate.
The trick is remembering that those moments didn't define what we had. And given there is absolutely nothing I can do about those moments, I'm damned if I'll let them rob me of what I had, or rob Pilau of the importance of his 13 years with me. He deserves to be remembered well. Whatever I did or did not do, I will not allow guilt to taint my remembering of him.
This started out as words of comfort and sharing and turned into a rambling monologue of my own stuffs...:P It's still so close to the surface, almost 14 months on.