I got to work this morning determined to make it through the day. It’s taken a lot of effort to get anything done since Stella passed last Wednesday. My focus has been off, to say the least. I did manage to get some work done last night, into the wee hours of the morning. Better than I had been able to do for the week prior.
I was doing pretty well until the vet called and said Stella’s ashes are at the clinic.
I found these two pictures on my Mac desktop from a wonderful evening at home. One of the few times when Kiesha and Stella both curled up on my lap and were resting next to each other. They had decided to share the warmth on one of the first cold nights of the waning year. Instead of batting Kiesha away, Stella snuggled in and they kept each other warm. The tiny kitty next to the woolly mammoth. I wiped away the tears a little, after seeing the pictures. Good memories, before Stella really went down hill. Finding those pictures after the vet called was the hardest.
It’s like you know your pet has gone. You feel their loss at home. You don’t see the little furrball roaming the hallway to get a drink from the fountain and romp down the hallway playing a game of tag. You adjust, slowly, and things get kinda back to normal. Just enough time passes that you start to function. And right about then, the little furrball’s ashes arrive. Everything that happened is suddenly real because you are holding the tiny box.
When I picked up Basette’s ashes in 2004, I was okay until the vet handed me the blue plaque with Basette’s paw prints. My thumbs fit her paw prints exactly. She, like Stella, was a tiny kitty with a huge personality.
Deep breath. As a friend of mine on Twitter said, one day, one hour, one minute, one second at a time.
The people here at work are patient and understanding. Everyone has lost a pet or a loved one. Seems like only yesterday I was writing about picking up Ambush’s ashes back in March.
Glad I don’t have any meetings today. Hopefully no one else will ask me how my holidays were.
I am SO sorry for your loss! Stella was an amazing little kitty and I remember her well. She slept with me the night of my initiation into Northwind. Run free, beautiful Stella!
Thank you. She was a wonderful little kitty who blessed me with so much quality time. She was active and playing up until a week before her death. Such a little fighter.