thank you ~ and a frenzy of activity

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to those of you who left heartfelt comments on my last post about the passing of my beloved cat, Zippo. I cried reading them but yet felt the love. I know a lot of you can relate. Our hearts are slowly healing, but we all still miss Zippo terribly and it's painful to look at his photos. I know this will get better as time passes. Heck, we've certainly been through a lot worse with the passing of Phil - our son/Tim's brother nine years ago. Actually, there is no comparison of the pain and loss in that regard.

But, the passing of a beloved pet - which is indeed a family member - hurts. A lot. And now that it's been a week since Zippo's passing, we are now able to realize how sick he truly was before he passed away. It breaks my heart to realize how much he must've been suffering. The thing with cats is, they don't show when they're in pain. They're very good at hiding it.

Two days before Zippo passed away, Tim moved out of our house into his own apartment. I had taken a spur-of-the moment shot into Tim's room as he was packing things up and I didn't notice until I looked at the photo later, that Zippo was sleeping on his bed. Tim had spread out a towel because Zippo's nose was bleeding. See how Zippo's head is hung? He was doing that a few days before he died. He couldn't fully relax enough to curl up into a ball or even put his head down to sleep. I wonder if it was because he was in pain? I know I'll never have answers to these questions, but they're just ones that have gone through my mind.

It was a crazy 48 hours with moving Tim into his apartment. It started late Friday night with him getting home from work and packing more stuff up and wanting help doing last minute things, to Saturday - moving day - helping pack up the U-Haul and our cars and carrying load after load of stuff up three flights of stairs - 34 to be exact - to Sunday when we went shopping at Wal-Mart to buy a ton of needed stuff for his new place.

We hadn't seen his new apartment until moving in day, and we were pleasantly surprised. There's a nice galley kitchen...

 and a large open living and dining space, with a small balcony and storage room off the dining area.

 The vaulted ceilings and open concept looking into the kitchen make the apartment look and feel more spacious.

 Tim also has a huge bedroom, his own bathroom (same with his roommate, who has the same on the other end of the apartment) and a big walk-in closet that I'm envious of! He's only two miles down the road from us, so it's nice still having him nearby.

My mom had asked if Tim was going to hang any of photographs around his apartment and I tried to explain to her that Tim was a single guy moving into a bachelor pad with his friend. Neither one of them are exactly into decor. This was the extent of their current decor the night they moved in. Ha!

How are you all doing with Thanksgiving prep? I went to two grocery stores today and was surprised to find that both of them weren't as crowded as I feared. And the one thing I love about holiday time is that most people in public are in good moods. The shoppers and checkout people were extra-friendly and all wishing each other a Happy Thanksgiving. In one of the stores, the man in front of me let me go ahead of him since I only had a few items. I paid the kindness forward by giving extra in the Salvation Army bucket on the way out of the store.

I am going to a Friendsgiving celebration tomorrow night and bringing a corn casserole and these pumpkin bars. Thursday, we will gather at my mom's house and I'm making another corn casserole, green beans with orange-almond gremolata, roasted carrots and parsnips with honey and fresh thyme, and a pan of brownies. 

I also made a big pot of soup today and will be making a pot of chili tomorrow. Not only are they for our lunches and dinners up until Thanksgiving, but some of each will be packaged up and delivered to a friend who's mostly housebound right now, as her husband is on hospice care at home.

What else...oh yes, of course the contractors we are dealing with have both decided that this week is the perfect time to work on our house! This afternoon, the roofers were here (yes, that project is still ongoing...they have been quite incompetent) fixing some last-minute stuff that they didn't get right the first time and tomorrow morning at 7:00 AM, the deck builders are going to be here to start ripping out our front porch/deck.

One of my blessings in life is the many friends I've made through this blog. Thank you for your kindness, support, words of wisdom and love over the years. 

Happy Thanksgiving from my house to yours. 💗

my heart is broken ~ zippo

It pains me to tell you all that my beloved Zippo passed away on Monday night, November 12th. My heart is breaking. I couldn't even write this blog post until now.

He had rapidly gone downhill since my last post, to the point where he was even refusing to eat baby food (chicken and turkey) or his favorites, tuna and pumpkin. He'd either just give a half-hearted lick or turn his head away. His nose also never stopped bleeding. On Monday when he was drinking a ton of water but then losing control of his urine and it was mostly water (which we found out was renal failure), we knew he was at the end and he was suffering.

I wanted Zippo's transition to be as peaceful and comfortable for him as possible, so we laid him on towels and blankets on the floor and I quickly Googled mobile vets who could come to our house to administer euthanasia. Unfortunately, because it was the last minute, no one could come out - they were all booked. A couple also wouldn't travel this far. We were starting to get panicky. We really didn't want to have to bundle him up when he was in so much pain and have to take him out of the house to an emergency vet and be put down in an unfamiliar place if we didn't have to. Finally, one vet called back and said she could be at our house between 8:30 - 9 PM.

Those four hours of waiting for the vet dragged on forever, but me, Brian and Tim spent those four hours lying on the floor with Zippo, petting him over and over and telling him how much we loved him and what a good boy he was, in-between our bouts of sobbing.

Tim later moved Zippo to mine and Brian's bed, thinking he could snuggle with him one last time, but that was fruitless. He was too sick. 

The mobile vet was so kind and compassionate and calm. She explained every step in great detail and always waited until we were ready. She let us take as much time as we wanted in-between every step, always stayed off to the side and never said anything as we cried and petted Zippo more and talked to him. She answered all our questions patiently. She encouraged us to let our other two cats, Monkey and Clementine, come and go as they wished. She said they needed to know what was going on, too. When Clementine jumped up on the bed after Zippo passed, she said to let her sniff Zippo...that cats know. And they mourn, too. 

After the vet gave Zippo the sedative, he ended up throwing up a little bit and there was blood in it. She said that was either from him swallowing so much blood from his bloody nose, or else that he had cancer. When we think about it, this whole Upper Respiratory thing that he had going on could've indeed been nasal or sinus cancer and not just a URI. We'll never know, so I'm only guessing.

I just happened to snag this shot of Zippo in the sunbeam on Tim's box spring this past Saturday, on the day Tim moved out. I thought it was very poignant that this was where Zippo decided to lie down that day.

Back to the mobile vets that administer euthanasia at home: I highly recommend this if you should ever be in this situation. For the pet and for you to be in your home in the pet's favorite, comfortable spot (you can even be in the yard, if you wish) instead of a scary, sterile exam room in the veterinary hospital is worth every penny. I was actually surprised how peaceful the whole process was, though of course, extremely heartbreaking.

We chose to bury Zippo in our back yard instead of having him cremated. Bless Brian's heart...he dug a very deep hole in the bitter cold that night.

(Brian and Zippo when he was a kitten ~ August 1999)

With Zippo being so old for a cat (19-1/2), I knew that my time with him was limited and that I'd be very sad when it was time for him to go, but I never knew how much it would hurt until it happened. I am not a stranger to the grief of pets passing away - it has happened to me numerous times since I was a child - but I have to say that Zippo was probably my favorite pet I've had in my entire life. He was definitely a one-of-a-kind cat; a true companion. He was one of those cats that loved everyone and vice-versa. He was a people cat. A snuggler. Like my aunt said, "He was the family cat."

(Tim and Phil with Zippo ~ Feb 2000)

My heart also breaks for Tim because he was the one who found Zippo (and his two brothers) on our property back in 1999. We kept Zippo and a friend took his two brothers. So Tim always had a special bond with Zippo and even up until the week Zippo got so sick, Tim would lay in his bed watching TV, with Zippo snuggled into the crook of his arm.

(Tim and Zippo ~ August 1999...and I also noticed when I saw this photo, that Tim's artwork was above his bed. He was only 8 years old. No surprise that he ended up majoring in Art and Photography!)

Since Zippo passed away just three days ago, we've already had four signs from...whatever or wherever you want to call it: The Universe, Zippo's spirit, God. I never used to be attuned to signs, but I now believe they're all around us. We just have to be open and aware to them:

• On the night that Brian was burying Zippo in the back yard, Venus was shining brightly in the sky right overhead. Venus was the Goddess of Love.
  (Sorry for the formatting problem on this bullet point - I've given up on trying to fix it.)

• The next morning, Brian was in the bathroom getting ready for work and as he was getting dressed, he had the very real sensation of a cat rubbing against his leg. He said it totally freaked him out. And no, it wasn't Monkey or Clementine. They were sleeping in their beds in the basement.

• Monkey slept in the blue wicker chair in the living room on Wednesday evening. That was the chair that Zippo slept on all the time. Monkey had never, ever slept in that chair - until now.

• This morning, my neighbor across the street texted me to tell me there was a pretty kitty in-between my house and my next door neighbor's house. She said to look out my kitchen window. I did so, and didn't see the cat, so I opened my kitchen door and stepped outside. It was then that I saw this cat that I had never seen here before. And it was standing right by Zippo's grave. I know this photo is blurry, but I had to zoom in to get the photo of the kitty so that I didn't scare it away.

RIP, my beautiful Zippo.

May 7, 1999 ~ November 12, 2018