Dash

This sweet little fur-person is Dash.

He has very much the purr-sonality of

this fur-person.
So much so that it's almost spooky.
He even goes after the scratching post that Douglas particularly loved to torture, which has always been ignored by the other feline's that live here.
He's a sweet little cookie. He let's Paddycake carry him around like a stuffed animal. He even sleeps on my hip like Douglas.
I know he has helped to heal the Douglas sized hole that was in my heart. It's not completely healed, but it's mending.

And speaking of anniversaries

On this day last year, I had to say good-bye to my baby-cat Douglas.
Wow, in someways it seems like it was just yesterday and in others it seems like forever ago. I miss him so much.
***
In other news a boy I grew up with, named Bradley died this week.
Our mom's were best friends, they were both divorced, worked in the same office, and just struggling to make ends meet. So we ended up spending a lot of time together.
Our mom's even dragged us on vacation together a time or two.
He was year older than me and tortured me like a sibling would. Mom mentioned an incident last night of him locking me out of the house, and I had totally blocked it out. Ugh!
Being an only child who was quiet in nature, he was hard for me to deal with.
Most other kids were hard for me to deal with, since I would much rather be with adults.
So anyway we found out that he died this week. He was 38, with a college education, married, and evidently he O.D.'d.
I don't understand it, but I am saddened by it anyway.
His funeral was today, mother and I had intended to go, but in the end neither of us could pull it together to go.
I will be glad when this day is over.

I thought love would last for ever: I was wrong.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

This stanza from W. H. Auden's work Funeral Blues so expresses my grief over my baby cat Douglas. I know that Auden wrote this about his lover Johnny. I don't care, Douglas was my soul mate in a fur coat. He was such an amazing boy. I loved him so much, and I miss him desperately.

If you have never been loved by a rotten black cat, you really have missed out.

Douglas was even a part of my "lotto fantasy".

You know how all people have that "lotto fantasy". Oh come on, admit it, you know you have one. Well I will tell you mine. When I win the giant pot o' cash, I would buy one of those super deluxe luxury bus camper's, and hit the road with my Douglas, Hallie, and Miss Maizie, following the NASCAR season.

I had to express my grief tonight because little boy has talked about him several times today. He seems to think that Douglas is still at the Vet's office and can be picked up. I keep telling him that Douglas has gone to heaven to be with Jesus, but he still doesn't understand. He keeps saying "I miss Douglas", I tell him "I do too, baby." Then he launches into how I should go get him at the vets, and I have to tell him how Douglas has gone to heaven to be with Jesus.

I have finally gotten to the point that I am not a blubbering mess over him, but my heart still hurts and always will.

My boy

Some people can't understand why I am so distraught over the death of my precious Douglas. All I can say is that you really had to know him, to understand. This cat was a stray who just marched into my house and took over. He hung around the house for about a week, and then I told my husband that since no one had claimed him, I would take him to the vet for a check-up and we could bring him in the house. At the time the vet told us that he had asthma and was having a flare-up that would need to heal before we could get him neutered, but otherwise he would be ok to bring in the house.
Things seemed normal enough and then one day I noticed that Douglas who at the time we called Smokey(because of his smoked appearance)was only licking the gravy out of his food. Remembering my grandfather Douglas' fondness for gravy, I mentioned to my mom, that he was pulling a "Douglas" trick and eating only the gravy. The weird thing was that the cat actually stopped lapping the gravy, looked up at me and walked over to my feet and sat down. Mother and I looked at each other, and our mouths fell open. She said "Is your name Douglas?" He moved closer to her and looked up. I guess we had our answer, and we began calling him Douglas from then on, but the really bizarre thing is that he would come running when you said his name. Cats aren't supposed to do that. You know that joke is, dogs come when called; cats take a message and get back to you. Not this one.
He also began meeting me at the door when we came home. Again, dogs do this, cats don't. I can't tell you what a bond we developed, because quite frankly I still don't understand it myself. When he would meet me at the door, I would pick him up and he would put his front legs around my neck, like a hug, purring and rubbing his head into my face and chin. When my mother was sick, in the hospital, I would stay with her at night and come home in the morning for a shower and nap, Douglas would meet me at the door, jump into my arms I would hug him and all of the stress and worry I would feel would just dissolve away.
I miss him so much.
No matter what I envisioned for my life, I NEVER saw it WITHOUT my Douglas. I still can't believe he is gone.

Pain

Today the pain is so much worse. I can't believe that my boy is gone. Rationally I tell myself that he was old and so very sick. I did not realize that we had been owned by him for over nine years until I looked at the receipt from our vet trip yesterday. Like I told you in yesterday's post, at the time he showed up at our house the vet thought he was at the very least five or six years old. I will never know if he escaped from someone or if he was dumped off on me. I have always wondered if he wasn't an escapee of some sort since he was a Black Smoke British Shorthair and no one in our area had ever seen a cat like him. His hair was black with white roots, and felt like mink or chinchilla. All day yesterday before we went to the vet, he laid on my chest with his head on my shoulder, so I could cup his face to mine. I will never feel that soft fur against my face again and it is breaking my heart. I just don't know how I can live without him.
I put off going to bed last night as long as I could, because Douglas always slept on my pillow. A few years ago I was having sinus problems, and I was awakened by a soft slap on my mouth. It was Douglas, and my husband was there laughing, he said that I was snoring and Douglas slapped to wake me up. Apparently I was disturbing his sleep. He was such a diva boy. But I didn't care, I loved him with all my heart and it is breaking in two.

My baby cat Douglas

(Douglas doing a sneak-attack on mom's birthday flowers February 07)
Today is undoubtedly one of the hardest days of my life. I don't know how I am going to live without him. I don't know how old he was, as he was fully grown when he came here to live. The vet thought he was at the very least five or six years old and we had him since 1999. He had so many health problems, asthma to begin with. Then he had recurrent UTI's and had to have penis removal surgery. Don't ask how much that cost, you wouldn't believe me if I told you. He had really been doing pretty well in the nearly five years since he had that surgery. In the past two weeks he went down suddenly, he lost weight rapidly, and quit eating. My mother and I have been terribly sick with some type of respiratory virus and I wasn't able to get him to the vet as soon as he started getting sick. It wouldn't have helped anyway, Dr. Smith said that he was in kidney failure.
My heart is so broken, I truly don't know how I will live without my kitty boy.
Rest in Peace, Sweet Baby Douglas.