Great Christian Diaries

2003-12-17 - 11.59pm  previous entry  next entry

Hello. I need to thank Nicola and Meg for the nice guestbook entries, and Jennifer for the lovely email (will reply eventually!).

But I just came to update to tell you that Percy was put down today :*(

I'm soooo sad about it. But doing better than I was earlier.

Mummy phoned me this morning to tell me not to get my hopes up too much about their vet appointment in the afternoon, because Percy had been sick again, and seemed fed up in himself, poor little love. But he seemed otherwise happy, and even went out in the garden for a little stroll with Paddy (his brother) and Mummy. He even stalked the blackbird a bit! Which is normally a very good sign, but oh well. He can't catch birds - he's never been any good at that kind of thing, thankfully. He's fast, but not exactly stealthy! The birds are usually well forewarned by rattling bushes as he approaches!

Anyway, I have been feeling really optimistic about Percy lately, even when she gave me that bit of news. I knew the appointment was at 4pm their time, which is 3pm our time, so I went upstairs to sew a bit while I waited for a phonecall from them to tell me how it went.

While I was sewing I felt so happy, I don't know why. Anyway, this one little line of a worship song kept being in my head, and I can't remember what it was now, but it kept on being there and making me sing it, and it made me want to put some worship music on - which I haven't done for AGES. So I went looking for a CD and came across the Michael W. Smith "Worship" CD. I put it on while I cut fabric and things, and sometimes sang along. There are a couple of beautiful instrumental songs on this CD, and they are really soul stirring, for me anyway. I had forgotten what was on this CD really. Anyway, one of these lovely songs came on, and I looked up from my sewing out of the window, and the sun had just set. The sky was absolutely clear, and the horizon was deep orange. A few birds were silhouetted against the colours of the sky, flying home to roost, and the tree out the front was silhouetted too. Everything looked so beautiful and calm and settled, and like the day was ending as it should be, and the music was so beautiful, and it was such a beautiful end to the day out there - nature-wise, that is. And for the first time I felt this.... I can't really explain or describe it, but I suddenly had a horrible feeling that Percy wasn't alive anymore. I checked the time and it was 3.25pm, so maybe I was right. How would I know that though, just by looking and feeling and listening? I didn't KNOW exactly, but something in me did.

Anyway, after that I felt very unsettled and on edge, waiting for the phone call. It came about 15 minutes later, and Mummy just said, "He's gone." She cried a lot. She said the vet told them he isn't eating because he has lost the ability to swallow for some reason. He weighed 5kg in his basket, 2kg less than on Friday, and when he was a big healthy boy he used to weigh 15kg - before he got ill, like his brother does. It was the end of the road, because he could never eat again nor keep anything down if he did manage to eat a little bit, and he would just get weaker and weaker for lack of food. His quality of life would deteriorate rapidly and he would suffer. So Mummy cuddled him and the vet gave him a sleepy injection, which took about 30 seconds to make him fall asleep with his head cuddled into Mummy's tummy. Then when he was asleep the vet left them for a few minutes, and they said goodbye to him and Mummy kissed his little head like I wish I still could, and then the vet came back and gave him the other injection. He couldn't find a vein because Percy has been so poorly, so he injected straight into his heart, but Percy wouldn't have felt it apparantly.

The vet said it's not really allowed to take animals home, and that it's actually illegal to bury them in the garden, but my parents didn't know what to say, and he said he thought they should put him in the box and take him home, and bury him in the garden with his blanket. I think that was lovely of him.

So they went home and sobbed and wailed on each other in the garage when they got out of the car, and then Mummy phoned me and cried while Daddy cried digging in the rosebeds, so that they could bury him before dark. Percy was in the car in his box until the hole was ready.

Mummy said it was the most peaceful and beautiful death she could have hoped for, for Percy. She feels sure that when they have recovered from losing him after a while, they will be so happy that he died so peacefully and before he really started to suffer.

I know it was absolutely the right thing to do, and I'm so glad he went so peacefully. It feels like it was the right time too. But oh my baby. And how it hurts to know he's gone. I hurt so much. I don't even know how to begin to explain how I feel. I felt like I could put it into words when Cameron died, pretty much anyway, but now.... I just don't know how to express in words how I feel. I always think that people don't think it can mean much when it's "just a cat", but those who have a cat who is as much a person in the family as their mum or dad or sibling will know that it's as painful as losing a human that you love. My cats don't lie about being cats. They have unbelievably human ways and communicate in so many more ways than miaowing - infact that's probably the way they use the least. Non-cat-lovers will not realise that these creatures show intense love and affection for their humans, in many ways that you'd never believe a cat could behave. Mind you, I do know a lot of cats who do behave like "cats" and not humans, and who scratch and miaow and basically eat, sleep and are otherwise antisocial. That's like a different species to our cats. I never met any cats like ours before, not even close. Not even the last cat we had, and he was pretty special.

Percy loved classical music, his favourite was baroque and the slightly earlier period. He had clear favourites and dislikes. He liked marmite, ketchup and raisins - actually Percy liked anything he could put in his mouth! Which makes it so sad that he died of something that prevented him being able to eat in the end. He had a marmite lick this morning though. He loved marmite. I introduced him to it years ago. Ketchup and raisins always made him sick if he had more than a tiny bit, but he never learnt and always ate it if he could find it all the same! He had a million different vocal sounds that meant clear different things to us. If he had been human, he would have been an exceptional opera singer - he had the most amazing throaty call of a miaow, which you could hear a long way off if he used it outside. Paddy has a little squeak in comparison! Percy took after his mummy more, because she was an oriental mix. Their daddy was a big British shorthair, and Paddy resembles him exactly right down to his calm gaze, with the exception of his colour (his daddy was white with ginger patches). I'm so glad we saw their parents.

There are a million more things I could say about Percy, because he was very much as a human being to me, with a huge variety of mannerisms and unique personality traits and moods and everything, just like a person. He was always more than just a cat, and Paddy is too. Paddy is more close to my heart than Percy, though I love them both just as much as each other, because Paddy wouldn't let anyone else touch him but me until he was about 6 months old, so he became my baby. Percy was the same way with Mummy, and he's always been Mummy's baby, so she is utterly heart-broken that he has died.

Well anyway, you're bored by now, especially if cats don't impress you that much. But I am sad for you if you feel that way about cats, because you obviously never knew how precious they can be. My parents used to hate cats, really. They used to rattle their keys at them and chuck water at them and everything. They really hated them - called them nasty fleasy fur-balls (!!) and stuff like that. But we adopted the cat next door, who did the rounds of all the neighbours! Me and my brother used to let him in the house when my parents weren't in, and eventually they found him in the house one day and he was so charming and adorable and pitiful begging to come in outside, and so affectionate and grateful to be let in (like cats are, you know!) that their hearts melted and they fell in love with him. We had him three years before my parents had to take him to the vet to be put down when he had kidney failure. Then 6 weeks later we felt desperate to replace him - to get another cat, a kitten perhaps, one that looked as much like the old cat as possible.

We found a kitten just like him at the local Cats Protection League, one of a litter of five kittens brought in with both parents - they had been wild strays. Two of the kittens had been homed already, and when we asked if we could have the tabby that looked like our old cat, they said the two tabby kittens were inseperable and they had to go together or not at all. So we came home and somehow me and Bennie managed to persuade my parents that we could manage two cats just fine (!!), so we got both tabby kittens. Percy was the lookalike for our old cat, with his swirly markings. Paddy was the baby of the litter, nervous and tiny, with spotty markings. I am so so so so so so infinitely glad we got both of them. And so indescribably sad that Percy has gone. He and Paddy never spent a night apart. It breaks my heart to think how lonely Paddy must feel tonight, and how he'll be feeling for a long time to come.

This is a picture of the boys in their new basket when they were kittens:

They were such cute kittens. They got REALLY big though! This is a photo of them in the same basket, fully grown! They barely fit, but they like to be close together. Recently Paddy had been sleeping close to Percy all the time, sometimes even lying on part of him, he's been so protective while Percy has been ill. Anyway, here's the photo:

And this last one is my baby boys in one of their beddy boxes (we have several!). See? They love each other. Percy is the one looking at the camera:

Sooo I have been crying all afternoon and most of the evening. It's not like the day Cameron died, because then it was such a huge shock and I just shook a lot. But this time I don't have so much shock, because I guess there was some warning. So I'm just crying, and I can't seem to stop.

After the phone call I went back upstairs and set my CD back to the beginning, and listened to the whole thing through, for 45 minutes (or however long it took to run through). I sat on the spare bed and looked out at the lovely sunset and the darkening sky and the wintery tree silhouetted against it all, and cried my eyes nearly out of my head. But I'm SO glad the music was playing, because it kept me close to God when I don't know what I would have done otherwise. I talked to God a lot. It reminded me a lot of a day after Cameron had died, because it was so beautiful outside and for some reason that seemed to hurt more than anything, it made the pain a lot worse to see such a beautiful evening. I couldn't bear that it was getting dark and that was the sun setting on Percy's last day, it made me cry till I was scared I'd be sick from sobbing. It didn't blot out my grief over Cameron either, which I had wondered about before. Infact it brought it all up again, and both Cameron and Percy were on my heart and in my mind, making my heart feel like it would just wrench open and bleed me to death or something.

A bright star appeared behind the tree outside, against the lovely coppery sky, and I watched it, knowing that the same star was shining down as my parents buried Percy - which they were undoubtedly doing at that moment. I felt soooo far away from them. I have never felt that kind of pain at being so far from my parents till now. I just felt as far away from them as I was from that star. I felt overwhelmed with the urge to be there with them, to hug my mum and cry with them, and to cuddle Paddy and see Percy for the last time as he was buried. I never felt so isolated from my family before, and I never felt like France was so far away before either. It could have been on Mars at that moment, it hurt sooo much :(

But after a little while of just "ow, it hurts", I started to listen more to the music that was playing, and I realised how much I have been missing God in my life. I realised how true the words were. Nothing made me feel any better and I still couldn't stop crying, but through it all I started to tell God aloud how great he is. I started to say, God I love you. I trust you. I need you. You are wonderful. You're almighty and good and loving and kind and worthy to be praised. You're Lord of all and the King of Kings, and I worship you. No matter what happens, no matter how much anything hurts, I trust you and I love you.

I started like.... really pleading and begging God not to take anyone else away from me, that I couldn't take any more loss after this year. But then almost the next second I found myself praising God for making me with the capacity to love people so much that I hurt this much when they are gone. Because that's a good thing, right? And then I thanked him for blessing me with people (I include Percy as a person) who fill me with so much love and joy that it hurts this much when they're gone.

I watched the sky and the tree outside all the time I prayed and cried and listened to the beautiful worship music. I could not take my eyes off the tree, and after I while I suddenly thought how this particular tree looks like it's reaching up with all its might, to God. It's branches give way to other branches, and those sprout twigs, all straining ever higher and higher. The uppermost twigs have small projections coming from the very tips, six or seven for each twig, and they are splayed out like the fingers of a hand, stretched as high and wide as they can go, as if they are hands desperate to reach heaven. I thought, that's how I feel. Suddenly I feel so desperate for God, because I became so acutely aware of how much I needed him, and how raw and stripped of everything I felt at that moment. Then I thought how it's so much easier to see how a tree reaches for God when it's stripped of it's leaves. For some reason that thought made me feel like a hammer hit me, and I just felt like.... I don't know.... like I have nothing left - of course I know I have loads left in my life, but I just felt so stripped of everything and so heart-broken. I felt like I finally came to a realisation that when everything is stripped away, there's only God left. Imagine getting to a point of feeling utterly stripped of everything, and thinking that's it. There's no God. There's nothing. No wonder people would consider suicide at that point. But there IS God. The seas might roar and the mountains might fall into the sea, the whole world around us might crumble away and leave us with nothing. But then the only thing left is God.

I guess I needed to realise that. If there's only God left - or at least, if it FEELS that way - then I am in a good place to start getting things in the right place in my life. God should be first priority anyway, so I need to realise that I need him and stop clogging up my vision with so many other things.

Urgh. It has been such a hard day.

After I realised all this stuff, I made myself sing with the worship CD. Well, not MADE myself, I mean, I decided I wanted to sing out those wonderful words, declaring God's greatness and stuff. I thought it would be a good thing to do, for me, for how I was feeling. I cried too much to sing mostly but I think it was a good thing to do anyway.

When the CD finished I phoned Neil and told him Percy had died, and then I got my coat and shoes on and drove to pick him up, because we had therapy this evening. It's so weird, I really can't seem to stop crying, even when I normally would have a better hold of my emotions. I cried driving to get Neil, but I did drive safely. Then Neil drove the rest of the way to therapy, and I cried in the passenger seat all the way there, which I would NEVER normally do. I didn't cry in therapy though - too "open". Cheryl was so nice about Percy. She is a real cat person, and has some cats of her own so she really sympathised. She is better from her flu - well, she has an awful cough, but she's looking better. I love Cheryl. She is really pleased with us this week - we are doing great. I wonder how much longer we'll actually need psycho-sexual therapy. Hmmm. That's a nice thought! We'll have been there a year in February!! Yikes! So I'm glad we're almost done.

Then afterwards we went into Waitrose and picked up bread and milk and things we've run out of. And then we came home and Neil said maybe I should go to France for Christmas instead of going with him to his parents. We are going to my parents in France for the week of New Year, after spending the week of Christmas (next week) with Neil's family. So now we are considering that maybe I'll go to France this weekend and stay there till after New Year. I don't know. We talked about it a long time, and checked online to see that I could change my flights without too much expense or hassle, and then I phoned my mum to see what she thought and to find out how they were doing.

They are doing okay. They buried Percy in a wine box (very apt for the region!), wrapped up cosily in his fleecy tartan blanket, and they put his name tag from his travel basket in with him too. Mummy said Daddy nearly did himself in digging the hole, as it had to be nearly a metre deep and he was rushing to get it done so they could bury Percy before dark. Paddy slept through the whole thing. I can't believe they buried him and that he's not asleep in the house with Paddy :*(

Mummy said the hardest thing was putting the earth back in on top of him. She said they sobbed and cried. It must have been so hard, I can't begin to imagine how awful it must have been to put sweet Percy into the ground and fill the earth in on top of him. It breaks my heart to think how much my lovely parents are hurting, and I want to be with them so much. I feel like a child again, I just want my mummy. I miss her so much.

I told her about our idea of me coming to stay with them early instead of going to Yorkshire with Neil, and Mummy was great - totally neutral, because she didn't want to influence our decision. She would love to have me early, but she doesn't want to be the cause of disappointment for Neil or his family over Christmas. I cried and told her I miss her and she's too far away, and I can't take not seeing her for so long like this. Oh this is making me cry. I feel like I've snapped somewhere inside, my loss overload switch has flipped or something, and I can't think of anything or take anymore, I just want my mum. When I cry I feel like I'm going to be sick, real nausea, it's so weird and horrible. I get scared, but at the same time it all hurts so much that I wonder that being sick would be a preferable thing?? Who knows why I feel this way just for crying though. It goes when my insides aren't squeezing with sobbing.

I feel wrung out and just achy. I phoned Anne (lady from church) who was going to take me to the last ladies' fellowship group meeting of the year tomorrow morning and then we were going to have a cup of coffee (not that I like coffee!) and chat afterwards. I was thinking that would be great, because I have been so withdrawn since Cameron died, not socialising at all really, and always staying in. But now I can't face going, so I've left a message to cancel.

I need God so desperately. Only God can heal my pain, and stop the out-of-control freefall feeling by putting his strong arms around me and comforting me and loving me. I am reaching out for him harder than that tree is outside, and I know he is faithful, so that comforts me already, even before I can feel his arms around me.

I don't know what else to say now.

Recent entries.....

Cameron's first anniversary - 2004-09-24
Update - 5th Anniversary and other stuff! - 2004-08-16
Church picnic and being happy and things :) - 2004-06-27
Barbeque at Cameron's house... - 2004-05-18
To Tara... - 2004-04-19