Journals

It has been a very difficult end to 2020 and May 2021 as you likely know. We had to let ^Orion^ go December 15^th 2020 and that hurt. I miss him. Very shortly after, ^Nova^ began to lose a lot of weight and we found he was entering full blown renal failure. Then ^Andromeda^ followed the same way. On May 26^th and 27^th we had to say good-bye to ^Nova^ and then ^Andromeda^ and it devastated me. How we build such bonds with our pets and how badly it hurts to have them taken from us. I still find myself trying to pretend they are not gone when I am not home and hoping that somehow, someway, I’ll be right when I get home. We do not think about our lives missing these parts while we have them. We tend to just know they are with us and ALWAYS will be, then we find how wrong we were. :(

Poor Apollo and Perseus. Apollo is the biological brother to ^Andromeda^ and they have been together their whole lives. At 17 he is suddenly alone. He was never great friends with ^Nova^ and often had slapping contests with him. He is also not buddies with Perseus, so he is alone now. He has been acting very different since a couple days after ^Andromeda^ was gone. He has changed his normal routines and now spends most of his day sleeping IN the cat carrier on the floor. He roams the hall or bedroom crying out loudly, over and over. It is heart breaking. Perseus lost his best friend ^Nova^ and has also changed his routine. He is not sleeping on the couch that often now (as watchers of the webcam know) and he has no friend that is feline now. I pray he and Apollo will learn to lean on each other, but I do not hold my breath.

The house just is so empty and lonely now. I mess ^Andromeda^ running out to greet me and keep me company most of the time and sleeping at my head at night. I Miss ^Nova^ being my buddy and wanting to follow me down to the shop and the feel of his super long fangs. He was SO friendly. I even miss ^Orion^s bossy attitude and how he liked me to pick him up and hold him.

I know over time the sadness and pain will leave me and be replaced  mostly by fond memories. But for now I live with the sadness and loss.

David went away for a week. He came home last week. I wonder if he went away because of Leo? I can see that David and Donna are sad still. I have been laying on the couch where Leo used to lay, trying to keep them company in the evening.

It has been very sad here since ^Leo^ left.

We had patterns with ^Leo^, and it is difficult to just stop them. 8pm at night I would warm his sub-q fluids and Perseus would jump on the counter and play with the warm water funning from the faucet. I would them brush Perseus while I waited for the fluids to be ready. Then I would get some food and let Andromeda and Apollo in the bathroom and Perseus would go into the shower, behind the curtain. I would give Andie and Apollo a bit of food and toss some to the curtain and it would land between the curtain and the shower side. Perseus would pull on the curtain and the food would fall to him, much like a slot machine drops money. Then I would put the fluids on the IV pole and get ^Leo^. I know he disliked getting them, but I would feed him a snack while I brushed him and sand songs to him. I would toss more to Perseus from time to time as well. When his fluids were done, I would hold him and bring him to the couch where Donna waited for him. Nova and Orion also got a little snack then as well.

At night he slept in a heated cup next to my head, and it is now empty.

Donna had routines she did with him as well and I know she misses him equally.

Now we have a picture of him up in the TV room, with some cards we received, his urn and we are on his second candle. I will post a picture of his urn, but I need to wait a bit forst.

^Leo^ was such a sweet cat. I miss him so much.  I am finding that as I get older, the sorrow and pain of each loss increases. It really is painful. Of course I realize that had there been no love and life sharing there could be no sorrow, and the depth of the woe only is a showing to the height of the love. For now I am still very sad, not eating well and find when I think on him (like I am now as I write this) I cry. I know that will last some time.

I bought a leaf for the Tree Of Life at Save-A-Pet, where he was adopted from. Each Leaf is a thousand dollar donation. Now ^Hamlet^ and ^Leo^ have one there. Though ^Itchy^ was not from there I will get him a leaf as well soon.

I know ^Leo^ would have wanted me to thank every member here who used to see him on camera, read his posts and prayed for him. Thank you all.

Leo had a grand-mal seizure Sunday afternoon. He was laying on the livingroom couch when Donna saw he was having one. Thank goodness she was right there.

I feel horrible. Sunday morning while I was feeding the cats, Andromeda was near the door and when I closed it her tail tip was in the door (where the door and the wall are joined) and I hurt her. She was bleeding and I called the vet and had them come in and rushed her in. She is okay. She has a bandage on her tail tip and will not have permanent damage. I just feel awful though.

Leo had a grand-mal seizure last night about 12:15am. He is more out of it today than he usually is after a grand-mal seizure. That is a bit troubling since the seizure did not seem as violent as others in the past.