I lost my baby junior about 4 months ago. I still can't think about him or say his name without crying. I miss him so much, it's like losing your only child.

I don't know what to do anymore. Can anybody tell me how you've got past it.

Hi, Junior's Mom,

I wish I knew the answer to that one, too. I lost Freyja a month and five days ago, and Saki two weeks ago. The past week, I've been crying less, but right now it hurts as bad as the first hour...

From what I've read out here, it seems quite possible that you don't ever get over it. It was probably DJ that said "your heart is always bruised..." (sorry if someone else said that and I am misattributing it). So I am starting to gather that maybe it gets less intense, but never goes away...

And I hear it is often worse if you are old, single or are child-free... I guess those groups are less distracted from their pets...

And I think it is like the loss of a kid. I don't have kids, so I don't really know. But they love you unerringly like a baby does, and need you like a child does. And, if you are a decent human, your life revolves around them: feeding, watering, walks, lounge time... Then suddenly all of that is gone and you are so lost... and lonely...

We have one surviving cat. But she's not Saki. And she's certainly not Freyja (the dog). So I guess I'll vote NO....

Advice: 1)do what you can to memorialize Junior. 2) Keep posting and reading posts. 3) People are telling me I need to get out of the house, take a night off, and they are probably right, but I haven't done it yet...

4) Also, know that there are people who grieve with you. I don't know you and wasn't fortunate enough to know Junior. But I do understand how SUBSTANTIAL your loss is, and I am very sorry...

Love,
Jennifer (Saki and Freyja's Mom)

You never get over it.
Sadie we lost in December 02 and Jude 3 months later in March 03 and they were both 17 years of age..We are always now thinking of them instead of ourselves at bbq's(that's where the remainders went), Xmas(that's where everything else went etc.)
All you have are happy memories and little stories to relate.
What lovely memories.
Ian & Sue

Poor your heart out on this forum, its helped me tremendously all the silly little things we humans feel we cant or shouldn’t say and then bury them.
I've actually voted yes because I pray that in time to come I will think of my girls and smile or laugh like I do my nan, granddad and dad.
Unfortunately you’ve come on to a site which has recently been updated so theres not much on here for you to see what others have done and said to help them start the healing process, so I'm giving you the web page of the old site for you to read through, be warned it will make you cry more but the tears are better out than in. http://forums.lightning-strike.com/index.html

Love Sue

It's true. Your heart will always be bruised. But not always broken. You WILL heal. In memory of your lost one, you OWE it to them to heal yourself and make the most of your life that you can.

Think of yourself as a memorial to them. Help others, love yourself and those around you. Enjoy the sunshine on your cheek, the wind on your skin, the snowflakes on your tongue....

Talk with us - tell us all about it. WE can't ease your pain - but time can. We can only let you know that we SHARE your pain - we have lived through it, and sometime repeat it day after day.

I come on here, long after my pain has faded, and relive the moments of loss. Do you know why? So that someone out there can "feel" my heart with theirs. You can understand that I KNOW what you are going through and with all of my heart I will be here for you until the pain ebbs and the good memories outweigh the bad.

You never get "past" the pain. It will lessen, the great memories will come to the front of your heart and it helps if you honestly believe you will feel & smell your beautiful baby again. The most important thing is that you found a place where you are loved, respected and comforted. No one hear will ever belittle your feelings by tellling you to get over it......it was just an animal...etc....We all feel for you and your heart ache. We understand how the intial shock of losing your baby can feel like you are being suffocated. This is a wonderful group of people who will laugh with you, cry with you, light a candle for your baby or just simply listen....You are in my heart and prayers.
Kimberly
tay-tays & ma ma's boy mother (thanks for all the butterflies you two have been sending me lately-I LOVE THEM!!!)

I voted yes, but it's taken a long time to get where I am now where I can remember my cats with a smile of love. My last cat died Feb 2002 and I lost two others before that. All were with me over a 20 year time span, from young cats and they lived to good old age. They kept me company and saw me through some tough times in my life. I have to add that I now have the help of a loving partner, a relationship of nearly 5 years now, and I can't say how I would be feeling today if he wasn't in my life. I expect I would have more cats by now if I was on my own and I fully understand how people who are on their own depend far more on their pets' company and thus how devastating their loss is. It's not easy folks, but you can get past the hell pit of grief. One day you'll know that the years of happiness and joy of pet ownership outweighs the misery of their loss.

I'm just still angry. It seem so unfair. He was just 6 years old and he was sick every day of his life. First he had a problem with his eye. He spent a month at the eye clinic. Then just when I thought that everything was going to be ok, he started losing weight. I took him to the vet, they did tests and said he had a liver problem, probably due to all of the eye medications they used. Then his liver problem got worse, took him to specialist and when they did the needle biopsy he hemorraged but he made it.

I took a deep breath and said, ok, medication, we can do this. Then after about a year of the medication he started to lose weight again. We got new medicine and kept going. Then he started to stop playing. Took him back to vet, now they find a heart murmur. So now we are on meds for heart and meds for liver and still have to treat they eye with # drops every day.

Junior always hated going to the vet, he would cry the whole way. You know he had put on weight, he was playing alot and I really thought things were getting better.

The night he died I remember getting up because he wasn't in bed with me about 4 in the morning. I found him, I played with him, I even gave him some of his favorite hair ball treats. By 8 he was dead.

I don't have kids, my marriage is really pretty bad too. This little cat and I were together before I met my husband. The prior relationship was extremely abusive and the only reason I kept going was junior. If I cried, he came and kissed off all the tears on my face... he never could stand for me to be unhappy. He was always so happy to see me and spent every second he could with me.

My husband is not abusive but he doesn't see why I just can't get over it. He said that I can't keep crying about junior anymore and he won't even let me talk to him about junior.

I've just been so messed up, not knowing what to do next and I'm angry. I'm mad that junior suffered every day in his life from one illness to another and never had a fair shot. And thru all of it he was the sweetest most stoic animal I ever met.

I know life's not suppost to be fair, but I wish it was just a little more fair to junior. Someone told me when it happened that God must just have needed one more angel on his side. I wish he didn't have to take my little angel when I still needed him so much. People don't realize how much you come to depend on a little cat. To be happy to see you when you come home, to yell at you if you close a door between the two of you, to go wild when he smells MY dinner . I appreciate all of your kind words. I just don't think I can accept all of them right now. I hope you can understand. It took me a long time to come back to the site because I just couldn't do it.. read about all of your sadness too.

sam

Dear Sam you have been through the mill havent you, and poor Junior must have been trying so desperately to stay with you.
Maybe he knew good times were round the corner and that pretty soon you would be able to cope on your own so he felt he was able to have that one last play with you before he went.
Its not just husbands that dont understand, there are lots of people that dont understand the bonds we create with our pets.
Im afraid im at work at the moment so cant stay long but will look in again tonight.
Please talk to us we understand and weve all been through the loss and heartache of loosing our precious ones ive been talking for 4 months and it really has helped to be able to say all the things people dont have the time to listen to.
Keep well
Love Sue

I read once that perhaps we suffer on Earth in order that we may learn the skills we will require in our next life.

I don't think life "is not supposed to be fair" as you said. I think life is wonderful. Perhaps if Junior hadn't had YOU he might not have made it as far as he did. Perhaps YOU taught HIM was true love was and once he learned that lesson he was ready for his next journey.

And maybe you can learn some lessons from him.

Life can be short. Life IS short. Much too short to settle for less than you deserve. Junior gave you his love - that means you deserved it. Perhaps you need to learn a lesson from that. You said "my marriage is pretty bad too". Junior may have come into your life to teach you what love is truly like - he may have left so that you could find the strength to look within YOURSELF and see that you got his love because you DESERVED it.

Remember how much he loved you - how wonderful and amazing that was. He's gone but that love is NOT. You still love one another. So prove yourself worthy of that by looking at the life you have and how you can live and be true to the lessons that cats teach us.

We DO understand. And Sam, don't look at the PAIN in our stories - look at the love. Notice something - it never stops. We STILL love them. We will ALWAYS love them. And their love for us allows us to share our love with YOU.

Hugs.....

I've been thinking of you all afternoon and remembered that the anger came out for me after three months, this is a natural process in grieving.
You are obviously having a lot of trouble dealing with this on your own and I would say have other issues which are stopping you from healing.
Have you thought of seeing a counselor I have just looked on the web and found the following web page http://www.aplb.org/frameset4.htm which has a list of support groups, you have to scroll down to the bottom of the left page to get to Support Groups. I found this on a pet site so they are specially for people grieving over pets.
Hopefully you can find one in your area, of course I don’t know which country your in but it would be worth looking through if for no other reason than to give you something to do.
Also have you looked through the list at the top of the Death and Dying Support page, LS Support has done a lot of research specially to help people like us.
I know it seems that nothing is going to help and to be honest it takes a truck to get us to get off our butts to do anything but eventually we have to just do it – no excuses – just do it whether we feel like it or not. Then slowly we can start to heal ourselves and remember our babies with love and smiles.
I hope you can find it in you to go out and find some support but in the meantime keep saying all that you need to say on here we are listening and you don’t have to read of anyone else’s losses until you want to, I opened up my own ‘new topic’ just to post what I was feeling and thinking, you can do the same then youll know exactly where to go without looking through the forum.
Good luck and try to smile, even when your crying just smile
Love Sue

I appreciate what you are all saying. Sue, I did go to a psychiatrist. I thought I could talk to her and work thru some things. She didn't want to talk at all though. She gave me a survey and a prescription. About 3 months in I decided I felt worse on her meds than to be on my own so I stopped them cold turkey.

I don't think I am depressed, I just think I am very sad, lonely without junior and wish things were very different in my world. Trouble is, I just can't seem to do much to change them.

Junior was a good friend to me... I talked to him like he was a person and losing him was just the last straw really. I feel he got slighted on having the fun times and "cathood" that he deserved.

I think the one thing I ever did right was to never ever cause him a single second of unhappiness. I am glad for that. I am sure he knew every second he was loved. I do feel horrible he died alone, one room away and I wasn't there for him. It will never sit right with me that he was alone. I feel I terribly let him down and maybe he might or must have cried out or something and wondered why I didn't come.

We can all do things to change our lives we just need the courage to take the first steps and it helps if we know what direction we want to go in, unfortunately very few of us get support from the people around us to accept any changes in us.

I would try another counsellor and don’t waste your time if don’t feel comfortable with them in the first meeting – if at first you don’t succeed – trust your instincts because if your not comfortable with the person or how they are working then how are you going to be able to pour your heart out to them.
My sister went to see one and couldn’t believe how she was bringing things up from when we were children, things she hadn’t realised had affected her so deeply ( I was burnt as a child and she had held herself responsible, she wasn’t even at home at the time). One of the things she came away with was to shout to herself STOP and then LET IT GO when her mind dragged up the things that were upsetting her
I think Junior had a wonderful life, oh but to go through life being loved so much, if you hadn’t been there for him through thick and thin he would have lived far short of his wonderful 6 years.
If it hadn’t been a wonderful 6 years you would have known like I did with Jude and Steve did with Lucky at the end, and some animals want to be alone at the end my Sadie went to the bottom of the garden to pass, I think if Junior wanted it otherwise he would have come and laid by your side or by the bed or even by you door if it had been closed.
I know its hard but we have to believe that they are now fit, well and healthy we all deserve that after living down here.

Juniorsmom, in my view the pain does ease with time and I really hope that this is true for you. You are obviously feeling very low and I can understand your feelings because I had my beloved cross collie Lucky put to sleep on Friday after 15 years and the grief is horrendous.

I went through the pet loss nightmare for the first time 3 years ago when my other dog Kiri died. The grief I felt then was almost unbearable. Ever since, I have dreaded the day when I would have to say goodbye to Lucky and that day has finally come. But at least I know that I can get through this because I have done it before.

I remember when Kiri died I was overwhelmed with the profound grief and I was really scared that I would never get over it. I really thought that life would never be the same again. I went through all the usual feelings of guilt, anger and profound loss. I posted on this site and I found it really helped me to say all the things that I wanted to say about the loss of my faithful friend knowing that there are people here who love and care for animals as much as I do. Over time, I gradually came to terms with my loss and whereas before I felt only sorrow when I thought of Kiri I eventually learned to laugh and smile when I thought of her.

The tragedy of sharing your life with a beloved pet is that they live such short lives and you will inevitably suffer the pain of loss. The unconditional love that our pets bestow upon us creates enormous bonds between us, and the pain of losing our little companions is horrific. I am going through it all again now with the loss of my little Lucky but although I cannot see it yet, I know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that one day I will laugh when I think of her instead of crying.

It is very sad and moving to read your postings and I hope that you can come to terms with the loss of Junior. There will always be a yearning and an emptiness in your heart, a place which was once filled so admirably by Junior. You have formed an unbreakable bond in your heart and although the physical reality of that bond has been broken, the emotional aspect of it will remain with you forever. I try to think of all the good times we shared and think positively about the joy I felt at sharing my life with such beautiful friends.

The question I ask myself is whether I would prefer to have forgone the years of happiness that I spent with Lucky and Kiri in order to spare myself the grief of losing them. The answer to this question is an emphatic NO.

Good Luck, and sleep well Junior

Sam,

I haven't cried today and I am as I read your posts and their replies. I wish I had magic words for you.

So few people would've put up with a pet that was regularly ill. Do you know and understand how special, generous and kind you are???? People kick pets out for fleas or potty accidents... and you spent so much time effort and money trying to make Junior's life as wonderful as possible...

And YOU did make it as wonderful as possible!!! And as long as possible. GOD BLESS YOU!!!!! I thank you and Junior thanks you and probably everyone on this board thanks you. You are an amazing and wonderful, caring and compassionate woman.

Medications can be useful, and if you find them useful, then use them. So can posting on the board. Don't read the other posts if they make you crazy. Don't talk to your husband about Junior, if he doesn't understand. Talking to people who don't understand just makes the pain worse. Instead, talk to people who DO understand. Be good to yourself.

Thank you again for being so wonderful.

--Jennifer

Sorry I've been absent so long. I have been working on doing a design/landscape where I buried Junior in the backyard. I am going to make a huge circle out of those home depot landscaping bricks, then put in this arch with the roses called "Stairway To Heaven"

http://www.jacksonandperkins.com/cgi-bin/n...1&prrfnbr=60965

is the picture of the arch and the roses. I am going to put a little bench in there so I can go and talk to him sometime. It has made me feel better to plan this. I like the idea of building the arch with stairway to heaven so hopefully , know it sounds silly, but it gives him a bee line to god.

you know, pointing the way, and also a kind reminder for me that he is in heaven now without any pain.

Hi juniorsmom its funny but just reading about you designing your garden I think I've been doing that subconsciously. We have tons that need doing in the house but I've been spending all our money on the garden.
I have a shed down the bottom of the garden and have always promised to grow a rose up it and I love the name of yours, so if you don’t mind I think I will copy you and grow stairway to heaven up my shed, although we have to wait till autumn to plant roses in England, but ill put my order in.
Please can we have a photo of the garden when its finished.

Love Sue

Hi, Sam,

Your archway is absolutely gorgeous!!!!!! I completely understand how planning it and doing it can provide you with comfort. I must admit -- I am jealous. I tried to plant a tree for Freyja but I think it is dead now. And I would love to make her burial spot (under an ever green) beautiful, but I am all black thumbs. Still, I am memorializing them the best I can. The archway really is wonderful.

Love,
Jennifer

Hi Jennifer your dying trees brings to mind what DJ said: -

Maybe Freyja wants her own special tree to lay in the shade at Rainbow Bridge and decided the one you planted was just what she wanted!!!

Love Sue

Of COURSE the tree is at the Bridge with her!!! Our babies have to have SOMETHING to pee on

Ya'll are making me laugh and cry at the same time!!!!

I just wanted some type of life to go on for him. You know there has been torrential rains in florida this week, it's been hard not to think about him out there cold and wet. I know his soul isn't there anymore but it's still a bit hard. I was shocked to see the picture under S's name, it looked so much like junior...he was a blue eyed, seal point tonkinese.

Dear Sam,
Psychiatrists are trained to treat mental health disorders with medications. Grieving is not a disorder, it is a perfectly normal response to trauma. Try to find a counselor, such as a clinical psychologist, or a social worker, they WILL talk to you about your loss.
By the way, I've been crying for 11 months, it takes time. I have panic attacks whenever I think about Scott or look at his pictures, so I stopped looking at them. But surprisingly enough I think I'm starting to see the beauty of his life instead of the horror of his death now. Coming to these support sites has been the quintessential element in my coming to terms with losing my one and only (correction, there were two, Scott and Hennie). Now that the Triad is broken (that's what I call the three of us) the last one is grasping at straws to survive without them. Hennie left in 2000 and Scott left last year. Fortunately, Hennie came back to me in a different package about two months later. I found a chicken that looked exactly like her, even had the same broken leg! It's like Hennie never left.
I'm rambling, I'll stop hogging the spotlight.