Before everything changed

There’s only one thing in the Facebook “Memory” at right that’s still the same: That barely-in-the-photo black cabinet at the top of the photo is what the TV sat on, and still does. The obvious changes are that Bella and Jake are both gone, but the footstool in front of me wore out after I moved to Kirikiriroa-Hamilton, my jeans are now cleaning rags, and whatever shoes I had on are probably long gone, too. Even the midday news I mentioned was cancelled by TVNZ in a “cost cutting” move (must’ve been more than a year ago now). And, of course, that scene happened in our last house together, nearly 8 months after we’d all shifted into it.

For me, this simple photo represents all the massive losses that began in early 2019, however, as is always true in life, it wasn’t nothing but bad news and sorrow after this photo: So MUCH good stuff happened after this photo, too!

Later that year Nigel and I went to Australia with the family to surprise his eldest sister for her birthday, and we visited Brisbane for the first time. Leo joined the family the following year, we made cool changes to the house (well, Nigel did the cool ones… I did the more ordinary-but-nice ones), Nigel had successes and recognition at work, and, as always, we had a LOT of fun times, sometimes with the wider family, sometimes with the fur babies, and even many adventures with just the two of us.

2019 was, of course, when everything started changing, and so much of what made us a happy family started to end. But even now, good things still happen, and that fact is how I managed to survive all the horrible stuff.

I still have a very long way to go, both in healing and in life in general, but the important thing is that my adventure continues. My former wonderful life travels with me everywhere and forms the foundation of the life I’m trying to build.

So, yeah, nearly everything in that photo from eight years ago has changed, including me, but my adventure continues. I hope you’ll continue to follow along to see what happens next.

I blogged about this at the time, and that post provided more background, as well as including the other photo I took, moments after the one in the FB “Memory”.

Photo memory and realities

Yesterday, I was served up yet another Facebook “Memory”, this time for a photo I made my Facebook cover photo. As always, it sparked all sorts of memories and thoughts, which I share on my personal Facebook:

This was one of my favourite photos of the kids as they waited for their other daddy to get home from work. All four of them are gone now.

Around a year and a half after I took this photo, we all moved to the southern edge of the Manukau Harbour, and a little more than a year after that, Leo joined our family. Some nine months later, we lost Bella, seven months after that, we lost their other daddy, nearly a year and a half later, Sunny left us, and Jake around seven months after that. Sometimes even I’m shocked I managed to survive all that loss so close together.

I still have the mat Jake and Sunny are laying on, and the dog rope, too—though no one plays with it anymore. On the other hand, I’ve upgraded my phone several times and my photos have much better resolution now—and the fact that was one of the first things I thought when this photo popped up in my FB “Memories” is an indication of healing (so called…). The fact I remember in detail when each member of our family left us shows that healing from grief isn’t actually a thing: We adapt, we grow around it, we move forward with it, but usually without the searing pain it once produced. I miss them all as much as ever, and I can tell that Leo does, too, but we have each other and some days that’s everything.

After I posted that, I naturally wondered if I’d shared that photo on this blog ten years ago, but I hadn’t at all in all of July 2015. Today, I looked though my stored photos and I found the original, which I took on June 5, exactly a month before I made it my Facebook cover photo. That’s not remotely important—the date I took the photo and the date I made it my FB cover photo were both ten years ago, and the real point wasn’t the date, it was how much things had changed since then.

The whole thing gave me a chance to underscore the fact that grief never diminishes or ends, instead, we grow around it. I’ve talked about this many times, and I’ll talk about more into the future because I think it’s the biggest thing that people don’t understand about grief, and also what they most need to understand.

Still, the photo I took ten years ago was a great example of what my life was like only a decade ago. I miss that life, everyone I’ve lost. But I’m still here, and so is Leo, and together we continue moving forward. And that’s the way of things.

Furbabies have magical powers

I’ve often shared Facebook “Memories” here on this blog, some of which can spark feelings, good or bad, or are just interesting to me in some way. Today’s was one of the sad types.

The photo above was today’s FB “Memory”. I shared it to my personal Facebook (via Instagram) on October 12, 2017—six years ago today. In that 2017 post, I said:

Bella decided to visit me at my desk again. A welcome diversion! I never have photos like this with the dogs because they don’t do laps—plus, they both need haircuts!

I remembered that photo, and taking it, but it was the caption that caught my attention today. When I shared it on Facebook this morning, I said:

I miss those days more than I could ever find a way to express, because Bella, the two dogs I mentioned (Jake and Sunny, of course), and especially their other daddy, were all still alive on that day. They and that house are all gone from my life, but the stuff that was in it is mostly still around, not that it matters to me. What’s important, though, is that Leo joined our family the year after this photo, and that little guy fills up a lot of the cold void the rest of our little family left behind. Leo is the real secret to how I managed to survive all that loss over those two years that began in 2019. Furbabies really do have magical powers.

I was feeling as melancholy about it as that probably sounds, and it was probably all because I’ve been in a sometimes reflective, sometimes quite sad, head space since the weekend, something I referred to obliquely when I talked about not knowing “what my long term plan is” in my post about this past Friday and Saturday. There were other things that triggered similar feelings this week, too.

This goes to show, I guess, that it’s not just FB “Memories” that can make me feel reflective or sad—in this case, I pretty much already felt that way. However, seeing the “Memory” while still sometimes feeling that way, it was the obvious what sort of reaction I might have.

My reaction the “Memory” today is so completely different from what I felt about the photo on that day in 2017. Back then, I published a blog post sharing that photo and telling the story behind it. My photos often have stories behind them, of course—and it seems that my reactions to photos can have stories behind them, too.

Today’s reactions weren’t all sad, though—at least, not at first. I looked at the photo and thought about how much better coverage I got with my beard dye back then. But, of course, that created reflection of its own: Inwardly, I feel like I still look like I did in that 2017 photo, but I’m also aware that when I see myself in a mirror or a photo taken recently, what I see is how much my appearance has aged since Nigel died (and I feel it’s even more true if I don’t keep up with dyeing my beard).

I was reminded of that today when I looked at myself in the mirror when I had my shower. Then, I started thinking about a blog post in which I’d mention the house where the photo above was taken, and that led to me remembering bringing Nigel home for one last night before his funeral, and I cried. It was a few brief seconds, as such moments usually are now, and ended with me thinking that at least being in the shower meant I just needed to rinse my face. That thought made me kind of chuckle.

So, with all sorts of memories and feelings flying around these days, it’s no wonder this photo from six years ago would make me remember all I’ve lost. However, there’s another side even to that. This morning I picked up my iPad, and before I even had a chance to check Facebook, I noticed Leo laying in his bed looking particularly cute. I shared that photo of him (below) in a comment on my Facebook post sharing the “Memory”, and said: “Coincidentally, I snapped a photo of Leo a little while before I looked at FB and saw this ‘Memory’.” And, I knew that Leo also needs a haircut, but unlike Jake and Sunny that 2017 day, Leo is partly shorn in that photo.

I take two lessons from today. First, stories are literally everywhere, sometimes in multiple layers. The other lesson, though, fits right in with my mood this week: Everything changes. Oh, yeah, there’s the third important lesson, which is more of an important reminder: Furbabies really do have magical powers. And I’m certainly glad they do.

Today’s cuteness ration

Leo is very cute, obviously, and a very good companion and entertainer. I frequently share photos of him on my Instagram (which is public) or on my personal Facebook (which isn’t public), however, I don’t always share them here, too. That means that not everyone gets to see Leo’s cuteness. This post is a bit of a catch up—and includes blog exclusives!

The photo up top is one I shared a couple days ago, and it depicts what I found when I was ready to crawl into bed. I said in its caption:

Last night, Leo climbed onto my pillows while I brushed my teeth & got ready for bed. He usually lies on Nigel’s pillows, but I’m lazy about re-fluffing them, so last night he climbed onto my unsquished pillows instead. A moment after I snapped the photo of us, he crawled to the other pillows and I was allowed to go to bed. In the photo of just him, he has a “What?!” look on his face, but he was probably waiting for me to tell him to move. Every morning I wake up and find Leo snuggled up against me, not on any pillows. He’s a good boy.

This actually isn’t even a remotely new thing for him. The first time I shared a photo of him on pillows was in June of 2019, and there was the time in this house, back in September 2020, when he decided to sleep right next to my head. He’s also not the only furbaby to do something like this.

Back in January 2018, I woke up with Bella asleep on my pillow, on top of my head. Even Jake got in on the act back in 2012.

Sunny probably did it, too, but I didn’t share any photos of her doing it.

Here are two more related photos: The one at left is Leo laying on top of my pillows, before I took our selfie. The photo at right is one of Leo on “his” (actually Nigel’s…) pillows, taken last night:

Next up, Leo unintentionally making me laugh:

I said in my caption for that photo:

Yes, I’m (very) easily amused, but I always laugh when I see Leo carrying his toy like this, as if he’s a cartoon with a big blue smile. That stuffed toy, btw, is—was?—a blue dog, which he knows as “B-Dog”, and whenever I ask him where B-Dog is, he runs to get it (all his toys have names he knows). At first, I thought it was a little creepy, him having a toy dog to chew up and destroy, but, then, when I was a little kid I had the original “GI Joe” toy human. On the other hand, I didn’t chew it up, so…

I actually had other toy humans, including two dolls—sorry, “action figures”—from Marx Toys, the first was Johnny West and also Chief Cherokee (a toy I’m sure couldn’t be sold these days).

And finally, at the bottom of this post is a photo of Leo and me that I took yesterday afternoon, but didn’t share anywhere (I’d already shared several on social media over two days, so I decided not to). That concludes today’s cuteness ration.

Jake would've been fifteen

Yesterday would’ve been Jake’s fifteenth birthday, but his fourteenth turned out to be his last. Jake died here at home a bit more than five months later, only about a week and a half before the second anniversary of us losing Nigel.

The the photo at left is from Jake’s fourteenth birthday last year, and what strikes me about it is that he’s as subdued as Sunny was in the photo on what turned out to be her last birthday, her twelfth. That’s coincidence—it was often not easy to capture a photo of either unless they were laying down. However, both were unwell when I took their last birthday photos, and both were already in their final decline, so capturing a subdued moment was probably most likely for both.

Over the past three years, I’ve endured a constant parade of loss, what I referred to in February last year as “a Danse Macabre”. The first to leave was Bella, a loss I was really sad about. Then Nigel’s death ripped everything apart, especially me. Sunny stayed with us nearly a year and a half afterward, and Jake left about seven months after her. Throw a global pandemic into this mix, and sometimes even I’m amazed—or shocked, sometimes—that I’ve managed to survive.

All of this loss has definitely held me back and made it impossible to truly move forward, or to find a new life without Nigel. So, when I say I’m stubborn, I’m absolutely not joking, as the evidence of my continued existence proves.

But I do miss Jake. And Sunny. And Bella. And, obviously, Nigel most of all. I think Leo does, too, and that’s been on my mind lately.

Leo still sniffs Sunny and Jake’s collars, Sunny’s especially (they were best friends), but recently something odd happened: He started standing at the baby gate I put up to keep the dogs from running to the front door. Then, he’d cry softly, the same way he does when his ball rolls under the sofa, or when he wants to go outside. But there was nothing in the entryway that was even remotely related to any of that, and I hadn’t changed anything in that area for months. What was up?

I lifted Leo up and let him sniff around, but he didn’t seem fixated on any one thing. That didn’t stop his crying, so I again carried him to the entryway. I had him sniff the harness I bought for him, something I hung on the coat tree in the entryway. Maybe he’d seen it, I thought, but he wasn’t remotely interested—but he still wanted something.

The only thing I could see was another dog lead, the one I used to take Jake to the vet the day before he died, though I could've used it for Sunny at some point, too (I had two that were identical, so I probably mixed them up frequently, for all I know). Was that it? It’s been there since that day last September—why now?!

I had no other ideas, so I took the lead into the house and put it on a low shelf where Leo could sniff it—and he now does that several times a week, sometimes several times in a day. He also hasn’t cried at that gate even once since I put the lead within sniffing distance.

Then yesterday, another oddity: I was in the bedroom folding washing, and Leo was there—until he disappeared. I walked past the door to the en suite and saw Leo in there, staring at the toilet roll holder.

For many years, right up until many of her teeth were removed, Sunny used to steal the toilet toll from the holder and pull out the cardboard core, which she’d eat (she never ate the paper, but she left a shredded paper mess for us to clean up). Nigel and I started putting the toilet roll on the cistern when we went out, but Sunny still tried to get it. To stop that, we put empty cores on the floor below the toilet roll holder, which Sunny would grab and chew up. I dubbed it her “tasty, tasty snack”, and Nigel and both thought it was weird behaviour, but funny.

A little while after I’d caught Leo looking at the toilet roll, and thought about how odd it was that he did that, I remembered Sunny and her tasty, tasty snacks. Leo then walked into the en suite, and he looked again at the toilet roll holder. I had an empty toilet roll core that I hadn’t yet put into the recycling bin, and I gave it to Leo, who grabbed it and ran to the front of the house, tail happily wagging.

Before Sunny got sick, she and Leo both got toilet roll cores—Jake was never the least bit interested. However, Leo’s shown no interest in them ever since Sunny could no longer chew the cores and they both stopped getting them.

Again, why now? Why not months ago? And what was up with the toilet roll core obsession yesterday? I don’t know, of course, but I wonder if maybe he’s mourning Sunny and Jake. I know the feeling, obviously, so it’s logical to think I could be projecting; I just don’t think I am.

All of that’s been on my mind the past few days, starting with thinking about Jake and his birthday, and on to all the thoughts that go with that. Mainly, I just miss the family I lost, and I really do feel that Leo does, too. Jake’s birthday is what sparked all these thoughts for me, and while I have no certainty about what’s sparked Leo’s recent behaviour, mourning is as plausible an explanation as any. It’s also good for both of us that we still have each other.

Related posts:
Jake is 14 – What turned out to be his last birthday
Jake is 13
Jake is 12
Jake is 11
Jake is TEN
Jake is 9
Jake is 8
Jake is 7
Jake is 6
Jake turns 5
Jake is four
Jake turns three
Jake’s Birthday 2-day
Jake is one year old!
A new arrival
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Just the two of us

It’s kind of hard to get my head around this: Leo and I are all that’s left of the family of six we had on February 14, 2019. Bella died that day, Nigel a bit more than seven months later, then on February 2 of this year, Sunny left us, followed by Jake yesterday. So, roughly two years, seven months ago, we were a happy family getting on with life, but on Valentine’s Day, 2019, life started to leave our family. And now it’s just the two of us.

I think that, in a sense, I’m shell-shocked by all the loss and grief over that time. I never get the chance to just sort of adjust to my new reality because death has been always hanging around, just out of view in a shadow somewhere, but I could sometimes catch a glimpse of it, and usually sense it, just waiting to come and take away another member of my family.

This leads to unpleasant thoughts: What if something happens to Leo? What if something happens to me? Something will happen sooner or later, but is death still hanging around waiting to harvest one or both of us sooner rather than later?

The truth, as I so often say, is that none of us has the slightest idea when, precisely, we’ll take our last breath, unless, maybe, we choose the time and method of our departure, but even then nothing’s certain. That’s why I keep harping on about living for the moment, not the hour, day, week, month, or year, because sooner or later the very last moment for ourselves or someone we love will arrive.

At the same time, we can’t live our lives with the expectation of imminent death because it could be years or decades away. Focusing only on the possibility of death would waste the moments we so have, every bit as much as if we ignore our mortality completely and pretend we and those we love will live forever. The balance, I think, lies in being prepared for the inevitable, but to also try to pack as much life as we can into however many moments we end up getting. In other words, I think we should focus on every moment, not on how or when it, or any other moment, might end.

I’ve been trying to do that for the past two years in particular, often succeeding, actually, but sometimes failing miserably—I’m not perfect, shocking though that may be for some people to hear. But this parade of tragedy and grief I’ve been enduring keeps me determined to continue striving to live every moment, not just pass through them.

Toward that end, yesterday we gathered for dinner at my brother- and sister-in-law’s house, and I brought Leo. I could never bring three dogs, especially with Sunny’s lengthy illness, nor even Jake as age began to catch up with him. It also had to be all three (then, two…) or none.

Leo has a history of being carsick unless someone is holding him (no, I wasn’t driving last night), and my plan is to slowly try to get him used to riding in the car so I can bring him with me when I go visiting some people. That, and maybe to take him for walks in different places.

Leo hasn’t been on many walks since he came to live with us. Jake and Sunny were much older, and Jake was already getting arthritic, when Leo came to live us, but even so, Leo was too little to be able to walk as far as them. After Nigel died, I knew I couldn’t handle walking three dogs by myself, then Sunny got sick and Jake got even more arthritic, and walks with them became impossible. Leo will get them now.

I need to add here that my fully-fenced yard is quite large by Hamilton standards, and the dogs were always able to wander around the yard as much as they wanted to, and Leo often ran around the yard—or insisted that I run around inside the house chasing him. All of which means that they had lots of opportunity for as much exercise as they could tolerate, but Leo will now get to come on walks with me, something I need to do for health reasons. That was something I’ve put off mainly because I didn’t want to leave the dogs alone, sitting in the front window watching me walk away, and them not understanding why I was leaving them behind (they were used to seeing me drive off).

Life for Leo and me will be very different now that it’s just the two of us in our (very) little family, but I’m going to do the best I can to make sure it’s a good one for him—us—so that we can have many wonderful moments together for however long the fates allow. And if I do catch a glimpse of that dark, figure lurking in the shadows, I’ll do what I’ve always done: I’ll ignore it. Leo and I have far too many great moments to experience, even though it’s now just the two of us. I intend to make the most of as many as I can.

Leo and I took the photo above earlier this evening.

Farewell, Jake

This morning our beautiful boy Jake died here at home. He was 14 years, 5 months old.

It was only yesterday that I took Jake to the vet and got some prescriptions that might have made his condition better so he could have a better quality of life. I was going to start them this morning, but never got the chance.

I woke up around 8 this morning, intending to sleep in. Jake was laying on the blanket box at the foot of the bed, panting, much as he did the day before. The fast breathing wasn’t unusual, nor was where he was: He often lay on the blanket box when he got too hot. About 10 or 15 minutes after eight, I got up to go to the loo, but first I went to the bottom of the bed and petted Jake and spoke softly to him, much as I’d done yesterday morning, I was hoping I might calm him a bit.

I went to the en suite, and then realised it had become quiet in the bedroom: I couldn’t hear Jake panting. I went back out to him, and realised he wasn’t breathing anymore. I stroked him, told him he was a good boy, everything was okay, and that I loved him. It then became clear that he was gone, but I talked to him some more, anyway. I lay a “dog towel” over him like a blanket—not that it made any difference to him or anything else, but it felt like the right thing to do.

I rang my brother-in-law, and he and my sister-in-law came round to be with me for awhile. I rang the crematorium that handled Sunny and made arrangements to being Jake in. My in-laws left to run a few errands while I fed Leo and had a shower, then when they came back, I picked up Jake and his towel, carried him to my in-laws car, laid him on the back seat and then sat next to him. I held one of his legs and gently stroked the fur.

Once we got to the place, things were a little more complicated than they’d normally be because we’re still at Covid Alert Level 2. For example, I had to go into the room by myself (I was meeting with a staff member, and the space was too small to have more than two people in there.

She took the information, I paid the bill (I could’ve paid on pick up, but by paying today I could have someone else pick up Jake’s cremains for me, if need be). They should be ready on Monday or Tuesday of next week.

I spent a few last minutes with Jake. I removed his collar, and the towel I’d wrapped him in, gave his some final pats and a kiss, told him I loved him and thanked him for everything. Then I left. I didn’t want to spend any more time there because I knew other people might be bringing in their lost furbabies, but mostly because I won’t cry in front of others, especially strangers, so I needed to leave.

We had lunch after that, which was a nice diversion. They dropped me off at home and headed out. Once inside, I put the towel on the floor for Leo to sniff, just as I did with Sunny’s towel after she died. I got out Jake’s collar and let Leo sniff it, then I hung it on another knob on the dresser in the my bedroom. Leo sniffed it again.

Leo was acting a little off, not sitting in my lap as he ordinarily does, and a couple times he lay on the floor in one of his spots that was near the towel. I think that was coincidental, though, because when I stood up I realised he wasn’t as close to it as it appeared when I was sitting down.

I went to the bedroom and looked at the spot where Jake died—which was hard not to do, since it’s directly in my line of sight as I approach the room. I sat down on the edge of the bed and started sobbing. Leo looked at me, then walked over and sniffed Sunny’s collar, then Jake’s. He walked back to were he had been, and looked at me again. Then he looked at the collars, back at me, back at the collars, and back at me. I felt like he was telling me he understood, and maybe he did. He’d sniffed Jake after he died, and they can smell things we humans can’t, so maybe he understood far better than I could’ve known. Later, he sniffed the spot where Jake died.

My brother- and sister-in-law told me later that while they were waiting in the car at the crematorium a tui landed on a branch and started singing loudly, and two smaller birds landed near it. Some people, some Māori in particular, believe that birds showing up after someone dies is their spirit coming to say hello and goodbye, to let the survivors know it’s okay. In this case, it seemed to them like it was Nigel, Jake, and Sunny. I don’t think there’s likely to be any sort of afterlife, much as I’d like to think there’s something, but I do like the idea of the furbabies being reunited with Nigel, all of them happy and free of pain or suffering. Whether I think that’s likely or not, and so, whether I think birds can be messengers or not is irrelevant: The thought comforts some people, and that’s a good thing.

I know that if Jake could choose, he’d have chosen to die at home, a place he knew well and felt safe in. And, if he was capable of such a thought, he’d want to spare me from having to make the decision to take him to the vet for the final time. Just as with the birds, I don’t know if any of that is actually what happened, but I like to think it is, for his sake as much as mine.

The main thing for me is that my family is now just me and Leo, and the all of the beings that made up our family for most of the 24 years I had it have all died. Leo came into our lives only about 16 months before Nigel died, and since he arrived he lost his best friend Bella, then his other daddy, then Sunny, and now Jake. Our family may be greatly diminished by our losses, but we still have each other, and that’s a good thing.

However, my family is still dimmed a lot. When I shared the news on my personal facebook this morning, I added in a comment, “I fucking hate September.” I truly do, and this is just more reason for that. That feeling is so strong and real that only the strongest curse word I use would come even close to conveying the depth of my feeling. Losing loved ones is the worst possible feeling, I think.

The only other thing to say is to adapt what I said after Sunny died: Goodbye, Jake. Thank you for the honour of being your furdaddy. And if there is something after this life, then please give Daddy Nigel an extra kiss for me, and also kisses from Leo, too. ❤️

The photo up top is of Jake on his fourteenth birday back in April. The photo at the bottom of this post is apparently the last one I took of him, about a month ago. It was shortly after that day that he stopped trying to jump onto the sofa.

Sunny would've been thirteen

Today would have been Sunny’s thirteenth birthday, though that was not to be. At this point last year, she was still doing okay, and was still happy and loving, but she was also in gradual decline, something that slowly got worse for her until she told me she’d had enough.

Back in March, I hung Sunny’s collar on a drawer pull so Leo could sniff it. He still does that, usually in the morning when he first gets up, and/or sometimes later in the day. I think he misses her. We all do.

Nigel and I always used to say, “Sunny by name, sunny by nature”, and while her last months weren’t her best, this one day a year ago today was one of her good days, one where she lived up to that saying. In fact, that day she even gave me one of my favourite photos of her (above). When I posted her 2020 official birthday portrait on Instagram, I said:

Our girl Sunny is TWELVE today! She deigned to let me take a photo of her, though she’s not really into photos. Despite recent health issues, she’s still the same loving, happy girl as always. Happy Birthday, Sunny!

Sunny was the last of us to have their first birthday since Nigel died, and the first to die since Nigel did (Bella died the February before Nigel). I always thought that I was the only one who was sensitive to any of that that, but since Leo seems to miss Sunny, I’m wondering if I was wrong about that. On the other hand, they don’t seem sad or distressed, and never did except, maybe, right after she died. They don’t take any notice of their birthdays, either, of course, and are no doubt blissfully unaware that today would’ve been Sunny’s. Dogs are lucky like that.

If Sunny were still here, I’d say Happy Thirteenth Birthday, Sunny! I can’t tell her that in real life anymore, but I still think of her often. And we all still miss her—and her sister Bella, and especially her other daddy. Our family is much smaller now than it was at the start of 2019, but we manage. Together.

Related posts:

Sunny is twelve – What turned out to be her last birthday
Sunny is eleven
Sunny is ten
Sunny is nine
Sunny is eight
Sunny is seven
Sunny is six
Sunny is five
Sunny is four
Sunny is three – Her first birthday with us
Sunny has arrived – When Sunny came to live with us
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Leo is four

Today is Leo’s fourth birthday. This year is another first birthday without a family member, the third in a row: 2019 was his first birthday without his sister, Bella, last year, of course, was his first birthday since we lost his other daddy, and this year is his first birthday since we lost his sister, Sunny. Fortunately, he takes it all in his stride.

He still sniffs Sunny’s collar first thing nearly every morning. However, he and Jake seem to get along much better than they used to. At least, they don’t growl at each other, and I count that as a win.

Leo’s such a happy little guy, and he loves to sleep on my lap, something I’m especially glad of on this first day of winter. Sure, he still “barks at any person walking past the house (especially if they have a dog), and also at any truck driving past,” as I said last year, but he’s also still not likely to bark when I leave the house or when I return, something I also talked about last year.

The whole family loves him, and why wouldn’t they? Like I said last year, maybe that’s why he’s so happy all time.

Happy Fourth Birthday, Leo!

Related:

Leo is three – 2020
Leo is two – 2019
Leo is one year old – 2018
Another new addition
All blog posts tagged “Leo” – All the posts I’ve talked about him

Two years into this march of changes

Two years ago today, everything began to change. I’ve been alluding to it all week, because it was only after Sunny died I fully realised how things had changed so dramatically over a short period of time. When I shared the Memory (above) on my personal Facebook, I said:

And this is the event that started the massive changes to my story. It was the first reduction in our little family in years, but only the beginning. Seven months later, Nigel died. And now, after the loss of Sunny, my little family is exactly half the size it was on February 13, 2019. There’s been so much to deal with over that time (including my own health challenges), and I actually have no idea how I’ve made it through it all. To be sure, the love and support of family and friends has been a big part of that, a huge part, but most of the time, most of every day, I’m alone with the furbabies. Is it because they depended on me? Was it luck? Was it sheer stubbornness? I wish I understood what the “secret” was so I could help others, but all I know for sure is that for the past two years I’ve been dealing with near constant change, some of it indescribably painful, and I’m still here. Maybe that’s all that matters.

There were a few changes close together in 2007, but after that it was only about the family growing, right up until February 14, 2019. The timeline went like this:

1999: Our cat Curzon came into our lives when Nigel gave him to me for my 40th birthday. Our dog Saibh joined us a few months later. We moved twice, and they were with us for several years.
2007: Saibh died unexpectedly in May, 2007. Jake joined the family in June. Then Curzon died in September. 2007 was the trying year, but our family, including Jake, remained unchanged for several years.
2010: Bella joined the family in April, and then Sunny joined the family in December of 2010. Our family again remained unchanged for several years.
2018: Leo joined the family in May.
2019: Bella died two years ago today, on February 14, 2019.
2021: Sunny died on February 2.

There have been a lot of highlights over those years, of course, but when Sunny died I realised that I’ve been caught in a Danse Macabre for the past two years—beginning two years ago today. That was why I titled a Memory from February 2017 “Two years before the two years”. I wasn’t trying to be cryptic, it was just the way I saw it. I could never have guessed that two years later everything would start to change, and it would be relentless change for the two years after that.

So, this isn’t really about our furbabies, past and present, it’s really about how temporary life is. For nearly ten years, the life Nigel and I had was awesome as we added furbabies (when Leo arrived, Nigel jokingly said, “We bought a zoo!”), and we all lived happily together. And then it all started to change. This was behind my sharing the Memory about going out for lunch, because I was in the moment that day, blissfully unaware that that time was running out fast. And I shared a memory about a perfectly ordinary night (in which I was similarly in the moment) because three days later the changes began.

It’s fashionable these days to talk about “mindfulness”, which younger me probably would have called just “being in the moment” or maybe “living for today”. Then, it was mostly considered selfish and self-centred, now it’s presented as a mark of emotional and spiritual maturity. I’m not so sure.

As I showed this week when I shared ordinary FB Memories, I was often in the moment, but that couldn’t possibly have prepared me for the loss and change heading toward me at breakneck speed. That’s because it doesn’t matter how much “mindfulness” one engages in, absolutely nothing can insulate anyone from dealing with deep loss, and worse, once such a loss arrives, we’ll suddenly remember all the times we weren’t in the moment, when “mindlessness” would probably be a more accurate word. And it’s hard to avoid feeling regret when that reality arrives.

We all—everyone of us—live our lives as if we’ll live forever and nothing bad will, or even can, happen. We’re wrong. As I said last December:

The harsh, cold reality most of us choose to ignore is that we’re all going to die. It’s the only thing that’s certain about life: Birth itself isn’t a certainty, and neither is anything that follows it except for death. We’re all in a long queue leading to the exit from life, but we just don’t know where it is or how soon we’ll get there.

My family is now half the size it was two years ago, and I know more changes are inevitable. That includes my own death, though I won’t have to deal with the aftermath of that, at least. Still, I can’t possibly know what will happen when, because we can’t, and so maybe what I said today is the core reality: I’m still here. Maybe that’s all that matters.

My ‘house’ is now bigger

Today was the date that Nigel and I chose to be our cat Bella’s birthday, since we had no idea what her actual birthday was. Today I shared the Facebook “Memory” of the last time I commemorated her "birthday" (pictured at left). Here’s the text of what I wrote:

Today is the second anniversary of what turned out to be the last “birthday” Bella had, because she was gone some four months later. I was aware this was coming up, mostly because I keep forgetting to delete it from my calendar, but it was also because I realised that I completely missed it last year: It was two weeks to the day since Nigel died, and my mind was rather preoccupied. That means that the “birthday” was actually the first ”anniversary” of anything that I faced without Nigel, and that’s something I only realised a few days ago.

Here’s the thing: The fact I forgot about it last year is understandable, but the fact that this year I realised the little factoid about me missing it last year means that I now have room in my head and in my emotional awareness for minor and peripheral stuff, and that’s clearly some sort of progress. This shows me that the mental and emotional “house” I live in is now bigger than it was last year, and while this particular memory may seem like a trivial thing, and it actually is, the implications are huge. Sometimes progress through major grief is marked by the tiniest of things like this, but it’s progress nevertheless. I’ll take it.

This one didn’t pop up because of the Facebook “Memory”, but it reminded me about it. I was interested in it not to commemorate her “birthday” as such, but for two other reasons. First, last year’s “birthday” was the first since both Bella and Nigel died. That means I was actually wrong when I said in my post about the anniversary of Nigel’s death that “From now onwards, every anniversary that comes up will be one that's already happened at least once since Nigel died”. Technically that was true—this anniversary happened last year, but I wasn’t aware of it at the time, so it’s as if it didn’t exist until today.

The other reason I shared this today was what I said on Facebook, that the fact I was aware of all this now demonstrated a bit of progress. And that’s the best reason of all to share a memory like this. Sometimes the tiniest bits of progress are among the most important.

Leo is two

Today is Leo’s second birthday—already! Since he came to live with us he’s slotted right into the family, providing a lot of entertainment along the way. He was best friends with Bella, but as she got sicker Leo became best friends with Sunny. They still play together every day (Leo and Jake have an understanding…).

It’s a good thing that birthdays don’t mean anything to dogs because if they did, he may not have had an entirely good day. We’re part way through grooming him, and he fights us so hard that it takes several days to finish. At the moment, he looks a bit like he was put together by a committee.

That meant he insisted on a tight close-up for his birthday photo because we haven’t done his head yet. That, and the rest of the photos I took where he was looking at the camera weren’t any more flattering.

Leo’s actually a lot of fun to live with, and is happy all the time. We’re really happy he’s part of the family.

Happy Second Birthday, Leo!

Related:
Leo is one year old
Another new addition

Leo contemplates his second birthday as the photographer lurks in the background.

Jake is 12

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Our boy Jake is 12 years old today. He’s greyer and moves a bit slower, but, then, same’s true for me. He needs a bath and a clip, though he wouldn’t agree with me about that. 🤣🐶 #dogsofinstagram #dogsofauckland #dogsofnz

A post shared by arthur_amerinz (@arthur_amerinz) on Apr 3, 2019 at 5:31pm PDT

It’s Jake’s birthday again, and another chance to celebrate. We don’t need a reason to celebrate him, of course, but this year, after the recent loss of Bella, the celebration was especially welcome. Jake just enjoyed the extra attention.

When one of the animals has a birthday, we usually give them some special food, one of the tins of premium dog food we have as part of our emergency kit (in this way we use them before they expire, then replace them with new cans). The dogs don’t know why they’re getting what is to them a treat, but what’s actually the same good nutrition as their normal food, but they’re excited by it all the same. After they finish, they all spend quite a while licking their mouths and rubbing their faces on the carpet.

And that’s really the closest they ever get to a human-like emotion on their birthday. Sure, we know they’re just happy about the special food and also the extra attention, and that they don’t know about birthdays. But seeing them happy is a good thing all by itself, even if we’re the only ones who know why they’re getting special treatment.

Last year, I talked about giving the dogs fish oil, and all three get it. I haven’t noticed any big difference in Sunny or Leo, though Leo’s fur is softer than it was before I started giving him fish oil (there was an area of his fur that had been dry). Obviously, talk to a health professional for advice and guidance, as we did, before giving an animal fish oil.

Also, as much as the fish oil seems to help, Jake is getting older. His fur is greying, especially on his ears, and he’s moving a bit slower, and sometimes he has trouble jumping up onto something high, like the bed. Despite that, he’s still a happy and active boy, which is the important thing.

Two years ago, my post summed things up in a way that’s still every bit as true:

So, Jake is still the same loving boy he’s always been, and is still a joy to share life with. He’s made our lives so much better. He came to live with us at a sad time, and made the sadness go away. He still makes us very happy. He has magic powers, it turns out.

And, what I said last year is also still true: Magic powers, indeed.

Happy Twelfth Birthday, Jake!

Related posts:
Jake is 11
Jake is TEN
Jake is 9
Jake is 8
Jake is 7
Jake is 6
Jake turns 5
Jake is four
Jake turns three
Jake’s Birthday 2-day
Jake is one year old!
A new arrival

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 342 now available

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 342, “Year’s mixed start” is now available from the podcast website. There, you can listen, download or subscribe to the podcast. Who knows? There may be more episodes soon.

The five most recent episodes of the podcast are listed on the sidebar on the right side of this blog.

Bella’s journey ends

Bella c2006–2019

Today Bella’s journey ended. What at first seemed like an improbable life together turned out to be a joy, and she became a treasured member of the family. But everything ends, and today Bella’s journey did, too.

It wasn’t easy when Bella first chose to live with us back in 2010. She used to bite and scratch me without any real warning. She’d jump up into my lap, lie down to sleep, and then suddenly get a crazed look in her eyes and chomp! For a time it was so bad that I thought we might have to send her away—I had scratches up and down my hands and arms all the time. She attacked Nigel, too, but I seemed to bear the brunt of it, probably because I spent more time with her.

Some time later, possibly after Sunny arrived to live with us eight months after Bella, Nigel changed our routine. Instead of just giving the furbabies a treat when he got home, as we’ve always done, he fed Bella her treats out of his hand, one at a time. That was when everything changed. Almost overnight, or so it seemed, Bella stopped attacking me.

She gradually became a more or less normal-acting cat, though with a few toothy lapses every now and then, but that was all over by the time she became sick. Over the past two and a half years, she’s been like any other elderly cat, fine at first, then sometimes having brief setbacks, then rallying. But the decline continued steadily, if slowly.

In recent months she pretty much stopped grooming. She also sometimes had difficulty walking. She struggled to jump up onto anything, like our laps, and if she did try to jump up, she sometimes couldn’t hold on and fell back onto the floor. Every now and then she also seemed to have trouble merely standing. All of that became worse as time went on.

A few nights ago, I found her down in the rumpus room by the dog door, which is normally covered by a baby gate to keep the dogs inside. She didn’t often go down there by herself, and certainly not at night. She was lying facing it the door, looking at as if she wanted to go out. It crossed my mind that she might be wanting to go find somewhere to hide so she could close her eyes for the last time.

I carried her upstairs and put her in her cat box (which was in the bath to protect it from the dogs – a long story) because I thought maybe she realised she couldn’t jump into the bath and wanted to go outside to go to the toilet. In recent weeks, I’d increasingly often heard her struggle to jump into and back out of the bath. In any case, when she was done that night, she waited for me to lift her out again. Afterward, she ate a little bit, but not much.

Over the past few days she was eating less than normal, though still drinking about much as water as always. Last night, she didn’t eat at all, and this morning she ate only when we soaked her food in water, telling us her tooth was bothering her again. When she was done eating and drinking some water, she walked over to the walk-in wardrobe and peed (which, of course, I cleaned up immediately with the special pet wet-vac).

And this is how we came to realise she was struggling more than living. She had trouble eating with the bad tooth that can’t be fixed (because she wouldn’t have survived the anaesthetic), and even if that got better as it did last time, it’d obviously return, maybe worse. She had trouble walking, she couldn’t jump any more—in short, she just no longer seemed like she could enjoy life, apart from when she was sleeping out on the deck in the sun. She rarely purred anymore, either, or, at least, not loudly, like she used to.

Because of all that, late this morning, I made that phone call to the vet to schedule that visit. I fucking hate doing that.

Bella put up no struggle when I put her in the cage, though she looked a little confused. We let the dogs sniff her in the cage, and we left.

We arrived there right on time for our 4pm appointment. We had a very kind and caring vet who checked her and said her kidneys had atrophied to maybe less than a quarter of their normal size, and she could smell the toxins on Bella’s breath—not just the bad tooth. The vet made sure we wanted to proceed, we signed the paperwork, and while the vet went to get a nurse to help her with the prep work, Nigel went to pay so that we could just leave afterward, when we’d be distressed.

I stayed with Bella and waited with her, petting her fur, talking softly to her, until the vet returned and gave her a sedative. Looking at her, I realised how tired she looked, and weak. It almost seemed as if she was ready to give up the fight, if cats thought like that. By the time Nigel got back a moment later, she was just beginning to get a bit dopey. She was relaxed and a bit high.

The nurse joined us and they shaved Bella’s front leg to insert the line. The vet explained that sometimes the veins of cats with kidney disease “burst”, as she put it, due to weakness of the vein walls. Bella never fought them during this, because she was doped up. The vet administered the fatal overdose of sedative, Bella stopped breathing, and her tail stopped moving. The vet waited a moment or two, got the stethoscope, listened in several places, and confirmed that Bella had died. She was peaceful, quiet, and really did seem as if she’d just gone to sleep. It was maybe 4:30pm, I'd guess (i didn't look at my watch until were leaving).

The vet left us alone for a few minutes. We shed our tears, petted Bella for the last time, and talked to her a bit. Then, when we were ready, we left. Nigel opened the door to the inner part of the clinic to let them know we were leaving, and we left through the the exam room’s other door, which led out of the clinic. I was last to leave, and I turned around, gave Bella one last pet, and as I was about to close the door behind me, I said “we love you, Bella”, which is what I always said to her when we were leaving the house and she was there watching. It seemed appropriate. We were very sad.

By this time, traffic was kind of heavy, so we stopped at a grocery store to pick up a few things. We thought it would be a good idea to do something ordinary, and it was. While we were subdued and, obviously, still sad, it was a good distraction—or, it was until we turned into another aisle and were faced with all the cat food and treats (something we hadn’t been able to buy for two and a half years). Without saying a word, be both looked away. We passed that, literally and figuratively.

Once home, Nigel brought the empty cage back into the house and let the dogs sniff it again. They would have smelled Bella, seen that she wasn’t there, and they may have wondered about that. But I doubt they understood any more than that. We knew; that was enough.

Nigel picked up Bella’s food plate and the container we kept her food in so we wouldn’t have to look at it. I’ll take her cat box outside tomorrow and bury the contents (it’d be quite heavy for the rubbish). And then the house will be catless (she never liked cat toys, so we didn’t have any). I can’t imagine how that will feel, but I think there will be tears.

Today I wore a dark polo shirt. I felt I needed a dark colour because I was already sad, but I chose that one in particular because when Bella was somewhat younger and healthier she’d climb onto my lap and her claws got caught in the fabric and pulled threads out. In recent years, I’ve only worn the shirt around the house (because of those pulls), and every time I’ve put the shirt on, I’ve thought of Bella and those better times. Today, I wanted that, and even now, I still do. It’s kind of like a hug.

Bella lived long enough to live in this house and explore the lawns (something our former house didn't have), lie on the cement driveway, and also lie out on the second storey deck. As she grew sicker, that deck was one of her favourite spots, especially in summer. In the colder months, she slept in the sun against the sliding doors leading out to the deck.

Last night, Bella slept next to me all night long, which was unusual for her to do (she usually moved at some point during the night). I slept very poorly last night, partly because I was worried about her. When I got up this morning, I sat in my chair and Bella jumped up—or, rather, had me lift her up—into my lap. She slept there for quite awhile as I dozed off and on. Bella spent the rest of the day sleeping out on the deck, much of it in the sun. I’m so happy that she spent her last day doing things she loved doing.

Bella was different in so many ways from other cats we've both had over the years. A real lap cat, uninterested in hunting anything, playful with the dogs (up to a point…), totally unconcerned about a houseful of visitors, and she always seemed to be paying attention to me when I talked to her. She also talked to me. Until all that started to slowly fade.

She was very small and thin by the end, and we saw less of her than we had when she was healthy. And yet she filled the house so much that we definitely feel her absence, and no doubt will for quite awhile. But the dogs are still asking for attention, and giving it, and they deserve to have us carry on as before. But we’ll carry Bella in our hearts.

Despite the improbability that our life together would turn out to be a joy, it did. She became a treasured member of the family, and we will miss her so very much.

Previously
Bella’s journey
Bella’s condition
Bella’s new normal
Better Bella
Is this it?
Bella’s own plans
All posts about Bella are tagged “Bella”

I took the photo of Bella up top last July, the week of the second anniversary of her diagnosis. It’s one of my favourite of the most recent photos of her. Over the past six months, she started to look worse as time wore on. I prefer to remember her when she was still at her best. The photo montage of Bella at the bottom of this port is from January 2015. It’s always been one of my favourites of her.

Another 'birthday' for Bella

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Today is Bella’s “birthday”, one we chose because we don’t know when her real one was, or what year, because she was a stray who chose us as her family. In 2016, she was diagnosed with kidney disease and the vet gave her a couple weeks, at most, to live. Bella had other ideas. She’s now like a grand old lady, slowed down, clearly getting old, but with her dignity intact. That, and a family that loves her. Especially Leo. 😉 ❤️

A post shared by arthur_amerinz (@arthur_amerinz) on Oct 3, 2018 at 10:29pm PDT

Today was once again our cat Bella’s “birthday”, and it’s another we hadn’t expected, It was July of 2016 when the vet told us she had kidney disease, but that was more than two years ago now. The fact that she’s still doing well makes us very happy, of course, and we just make sure she’s comfortable and loved for however long she’s with us—basically, what we’d do, anyway.

Bella first chose us as her family back in 2010. She was pretty wild at first, but she settled down over time and even now is still a lap cat.

Photos of Bella aren’t necessarily any easier than they were over the previous couple years—she often looks away—but she will pose sometimes. Lately, though, most of the photos are of her sleeping, often next to Leo, who is her best friend. For example, here’s how they started Bella’s birthday, both of them napping on my lap as I had my first cup of coffee of the day (the orange and brown thing underneath them is Leo’s rope toy; he always brings his toys into my lap):

And here’s an Instagram photo of the two of them that I shared yesterday:

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It took awhile, but Leo finally decided he’d share his bed with our cat, Bella. Some weeks ago, Bella decided that’d be a nice place to sleep all day (when she wasn’t begging for food…), and Leo let her. After a couple tentative tries before, today he finally laid down beside her—it IS his bed, after all! Bella, meanwhile, took little notice. And peace reigned supreme. 🙂 🐶 🐱

A post shared by arthur_amerinz (@arthur_amerinz) on Oct 2, 2018 at 5:55pm PDT

Bella doesn’t spend a lot of time with Jake and Sunny, but they all get on well, which is the main thing—although, if Bella walks away from her food Jake, and sometimes Sunny, are happy to clean her plate for her. Maybe they have a secret deal.

We’re glad that Bella has beaten the odds and then some, and that we still get to share life with her. One day, of course, that will change, but that day is not today.

Happy “Birthday”, Bella!

Previously
Bella’s Birthday (2013)
Equal Cat Time (2014) Not a birthday post.
Bella’s ‘birthday’ is today (2015)
Bella’s ‘birthday’ again (2016)
Bella’s ‘birthday’ (2017)