Dear Nancy,
I am so very, very sorry for your loss of your wonderful Tenderfoot. It is never, ever easy to lose our furbabies, whether they are very old, or whether they are young. There seems to never be enough time with our sweet innocent furbabies.
Like Carol, who writes such beautiful poetry and has helped so many of us, I too do not come around as much as I used to. In 2009, it was a hard year for so many of us here, (though every year is hard for many, I know), and Carol lost her sweet boy, Charlie that year. I lost five of my cats in a period of only six months. The youngest was Proto, who was a black and white tuxedo, and he was only 5 years old.
Since my husband died in June of 2005, I have lost seven cats, and I thank God that Bill was not here to go through the tremendous grief that I went through after each loss. Each cat I lose is a reminder of a part of my husband and the connection we shared with the love we had for these sweet members of our family.
Please know in your heart, that you will move on, perhaps slowly at first, but as days and weeks go by, you will look back at the happier times you and your husband and family shared with Tenderfoot, and you will know that he is in a better place for now, and will be waiting for you one day.
I pray that Cody will not grieve for too long, but our animals do go through periods of grief, as we do. When my husband died, our oldest girl, Gracie, looked for my husband for almost a year, before she finally seemed to give up. My regret was that when Bill died here at home, that I did not let the cats out of the bedrooms to say their farewells to my husband, whom they all loved so much. So much was happening, and I was afraid they would get out the front door, so I kept them in the bedrooms until my husband's body was taken from our house. I can talk about it now, but I realized that after that time, I would allow the cats to visit with the other cats (as they died), as a way to help them seal their little hearts from wondering where their 'playmates' had disappeared to.
That was the best thing you did, allowing Cody to say his goodbyes to Tenderfoot. May you find comfort in all the friends you have made here on this site, and also stay especially close to Cody, and love him as much as you can.
Each day is a gift to all of us, and time goes by so quickly. I will be 62 on Friday, and I never thought I would get this far. I still have five cats here at home with me, and two that will probably not be here too long, but I have to prepare myself once again to face the loss when their quality of life no longer is good, and I only pray that they might die here at home, in their sleep, but I know that is rare.
Take care.
Sending lots of ((((HUGS)))),
Jean and Charcoal (GA)
