i lost my special kitty acorn recently to feline infectious peritonitis at only 1 year old. this has been very hard.i had so many plans and hopes for him. i had to put him to sleep and that took alot out of me. his cremation as well as my angel joshua's (we have been saving money and joshua passed almost 2 years ago) will be on saturday. i dont know how to prepare myself. i never got to tell joshua goodbye as i was in college when he passed at about 5 years old from ongoing issues with internal problems. seeing him and acorn again will be so hard. i made a tribute to acorn to help with the grief

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fusea...endid=392175618

thank you for listening.

with love corina and her angels

I am so sorry about your losses. I saw your tribute and it is really beautiful.

The only way I can think of to "prepare" for Saturday is mentally remember...you did the best you could for both of your babies. That is all you can be expected to do.

I firmly believe that when it is their time to go...there is nothing we can do to prevent it...all we can do is care for them the best we can and help them IF we are told we can but in the end....there comes a time...any control or treatment is just taken away from us..it is a battle we never win.

Be at peace within yourself knowing you tried and did everything you knew to do and feel blessed for the days you were allowed to be together by the powers that be.

We will love our babies forever and miss them every day but we eventually accept the fact at some point we are helpless to do anything more except to make sure they are as comfortable as possible.

Losing one so young is part of the cruel unfair part of life..but again, all we can do is love them when we have them and know how long they are to be with us is decided higher up and it is something we cannot change.

They will rest in peace and are 2 angels watching over you for they are part of your heart and your life and from that...there will never be a separation. We always wish they could be with us longer but then again...we can only help them so much ..whatever we are allowed to do.

Just remember how much you love them and they love you and that their spirits are a part of your soul now and so they are with you forever. You know you did the best you could for them and that knowledge will help you find peace and healing.

And think of this Service Saturday....as a final Tribute you are giving to your babies...because you and they care so very much...

Hugs...we all need hugs.


You said you never got to tell Joshua goodbye. Remember he and Acorn are a part of you now so you can talk to him anytime.
This Service is a good time to say to both of them what you feel.

Afterwards, this forum is also a good place to post your thoughts and feelings as you grieve...there are many here also grieving and we find by reaching out to help others through their grief...we help ourselves also.

Take Care....Saturday will be sad but you will be okay. Joshua and Acorn will be with you to see that you are.

thank you so much for your kind words and thank you for taking the time to check out acorn's tribute. i will keep your words in mind to help me through. it always plays in my mind that i could have done more but i know you are right that sometimes things are out of our hands. i hope you have a nice day and thank you again.

with love corina & her angels

Hello, am so sorry for your loss and I know and understand the pain and emptiness you have right now believe me I know well, I too lost my Son Buster on the last 20th of June and am still a mess, take good care, God Bless Click to view attachment

thank you for your kindness. it makes me feel better that i'm not alone. im sorry for your loss.

with love corina & her angels

Dear Corina,

You have already started to prepare yourself for Saturday by coming here and sharing your feelings. By coming here and extending yourself to others who have also suffered a loss, you have already taken many steps toward healing. When lending yourself to others and helping them with your compassionate words of comfort, you bring healing to your own heart as well as theirs. It shows just how much you care about others and not just yourself.

Your tribute to Acorn is just beautiful. Though both Acorn and Joshua have passed away, their spirits are alive and well within you. Nuture their spirits and keep them alive so you can share the love they brought and let it shine all around you. Bodies may perish but loving souls stay around forever. The special kind of binding love you have for Joshua and Acorn cannot ever be broken because your hearts and theirs became one long ago. Hang onto the gift each of them left you and celebrate the life you cherished so much in living and knowing them.

May you find comfort and peace this Saturday when you say "good-bye." It may be good-bye for now, but have faith that one day you will say "hello" again.

Many hugs of comfort and love from my heart to yours,
Beth

thank you for caring. you give me hope when you say i am already healing. thank you for taking the time to check out acorn's tribute. i wish saying hello to them didnt feel so far away but it will be worth the wait. your words bring great comfort and i appreciate them. i hope you have a nice day. thank you.

with love corina and her angels

Please accept my condolences at the lost of your sweet angel. When I clicked on Acorn's myspace, I had to leave into a quite office cuz it just made me well up in tears it was so beautiful. I wish I did something like that for my Candy.

Thank you for sharing about acorn and know your strength and love for Acorn strengthens us as well and helps in our healing too.

Candy's Dad

Hal

thank you so much. you dont know how much it means to me that his profile touched you in that way. i can hardly write i am in tears. i hope i can strengthen others, that something good can come from such loss. i had acorn and my other baby joshua cremated today. i can hardly handle it. your very kind words are helping me through. thank you.

with love corina and her angels

i forgot to mention that you can still make your angel a tribute. its never too late.

with love corina and her angels

I thought of you Saturday, knowing about the memorial for Joshua and Acorn, and wondered how you are doing.

I am glad to read here that the words of many here have helped you. Remember, everything you are feeling is very normal and if you want to post a letter to Acorn and to Joshua here, you will not be the first one to write to their baby.

Sometimes it just helps to "talk" to them in writing. Or, just posting your thoughts and feelings may also help. We are always here listening.

Take Care and since I didn't get to hug you Saturday...here is a BIG HUG today

thank you so much. i got the hug:) i was thinking of you and your comforting words as well. saturday was hard but hartsdale pet cemetery in NY made it really nice. joshua and acorn had a viewing laying on white satin sheets with satin blankets over them. they looked angelic. now i have two beautiful urns. its hard because even my own boyfriend isnt being sensitive to my feelings at this time. just wants me to move on already. i hate to argue over it because i know my kitties wouldnt have wanted something bad to have come from their passing like that.maybe i'm just choosing to be mad at him instead of deal with the sadness of my cats passing. i dont know. im just trying to hold myself together and you being there as well as others is helping. i hope you are well.

with love corina and her angels

One thing we all agree on here is........there is NO time limit on grief. You have to do what helps you to feel better and if it is crying or whatever....it is your decision. By reading other posts here you have seen that it is not unusual for others to put a time limit on our grief. But I have yet to read from one who has lost their special one that they themselves have decided to put a time limit on themselves. Only you know how you feel and how much you hurt inside and that's why it has to be your decision as to what helps you.

I don't think you are "choosing to be mad at him" instead of dealing with your sadness. I think the madness is a natural reaction because you ARE trying to deal with your sadness and it never helps to feel someone else is saying "Hurry up" because they truly don't understand how very painful this all is. Having your service and memorial for Acorn and Joshua is a beautiful thing to do but that will not close the door on your pain.

Healing comes with baby steps and the exercise of substituting a good memory from the past in the place of a sad memory that comes to us unbidden. It takes time to heal.

It's kind of ironic that if one lost a child...and had a funeral...I don't picture anyone then remarking..well, the funeral is over...so now you should be able to get over your loss right now.

Our loss hurts us just as much and just as deeply because it is a loss of a love we can never get from a human because humans were not created with unconditional love. That love just wraps around our heart so tightly that when it disappears from our lives...we cry out in pain.

Come here and talk anytime. We understand and we are listening. Any suggestions on how to heal come from the heart and in time...some of them actually do work for some. All we can do is try and help each other heal as best we can because we all have the same pain, the same intensity, and we KNOW it is not something that any time limit can be put on.

Take care and here is a hug that I know everyone here is part of sending to you.

Judy

thank you judy. i really feel your compassion. even though we havent met physically we've met on a different level. you are a good friend. i'm lucky to have your support. i wish grief was easily turned off when we wanted. night times when things are quite my mind drowns me with sad thoughts. i think of the happy times too and im reminded that they cant happen anymore. i try to numb myself and not think about anything but i dont want to not feel the love i had. i wish the love didnt come with pain too. acorn passed so suddenly and i feel like i would have done more if only i knew time was running out. i wish i could afford a pet psychic to tell me how my angels are doing and what they are feeling like the one on animal planet lol. im really depressed these days. the worst thing i thought could happen to me this summer was jury duty lol. this is my last summer vacation because next year i will be done with college and looking for a job. i had so many plans for acorn. i was hoping to make this the best summer but it has been the worst. end of august i will be back in school 4 hours from home in a single room. i know i will have alot of tearful nights knowing acorn isnt home waiting for me like he was before. i will try and sneak my cat chestnut who has stuck by my side since he saw me crying for acorn out of nowhere. he had nothing to do with me all the many years he's lived here until he saw me cry. i hope i can bring him for comfort. he's an old guy so i will be sad to lose him when that time comes. a cat i just adopted before the summer may have gotten f.i.p. from acorn and i have to have him tested. im so worried and feeling guilty. i just have alot of things on my mind. i am rambling. thank you for listening.

with love corina and her angels

It's amazing what attributes start showing up in a surviving pet after another has passed away. Though you will not be making new memories with Acorn or Joshua, you most certainly will with Chestnut. Other loved animals we live with change just as we do when a known presence is now absent. Personalities often change much for the better in them and in us. Their love and emotions responds to us because they pick up our feelings.

My Gidget was never one to be held nor was she particularly fond of other people or animals. After Goliath passed away she began to crawl into my arms at night and hasn't left since. In fact, she actually made room for our newest addition, Browser. Both sleep cuddled in my arms while we sleep. Gidget was never playful when Goliath was alive and mourned for him just as much as I did when the angels carried him off to Heaven. Now she plays beautifully with Browser and has become much more friendly toward people and other dogs.

Just as your life was different before Acorn and Joshua came into it................it can't help but be different now that they have both passed. It takes alot of time and tears before the hurtful pain subsides. Little by little though it does. People and animals come into our lives and go out of our lives. Each brings something to teach us and we can become better people because of it. My everyday living is so much different than when Goliath was alive. I'm far more laid back and I don't take issue in sweating the small stuff. Life has more meaning for me now than it ever did before and I have learned what the word "appreciate" really means.

I hope you do try and sneak Chestnut into your room when you return to college. That "old guy" would probably have fun making mischief with you. I love sneaking my chihuahuas into places I know they aren't supposed to go.

Hugs to you Corina. Good luck in school. Keep in touch.
Beth

lol i will try and get chestnut in. doesnt hurt to break some rules for our pets sometimes:) i snuck my kitty teara in my 2nd year there but someone ratted me out:( hope i'll have better luck this time and chestnut will stay hush hush lol. thank you for your kind words. i feel like my life has changed alot. i feel like acorn asked chestnut to be with me more. chestnut and my other pets help fill the emptiness of acorn's absence. thats nice that gidget has bonded closer to you and is more playful now. maybe she learned to appreciate life through goliath's passing too. i think acorn taught me to appreciate too. its a hard lesson to be learned. i remember yelling at acorn when he knocked down the fan. i still feel bad. now when a cat knocks it down i dont even yell. i just let it go. i always told acorn we'd have more time the rest of the summer to play in the yard and put it off alot. i regret that .now i take the other cats and dog outside almost every time they want if i have time. hard lessons to learn again. i told myself years ago when other kitties passed that i wished i took them outside more but i never imagined i would lose acorn like i did them. thanx for the luck in school. i'm glad its my senior year finally. i always thought it was torture being away from acorn during school.i regret missing alot of his short life being away terribly. it will be so much worse when i come home again and dont have him come running and see his face light up when he realizes its me. i had alot of plans to move him with me when i got an apartment. his absence takes the brightness out of alot of my hopes. its hard. seems like im ok when people are around but as soon as im alone, i feel the sadness creep in again. i'm glad i got your message. it helps. thank you. hope you have a nice day

I've had so many replys from people and I'm trying to find the orig forum and read the stories that accompanys the names. I was curious about f.i.p. I'll have to look that up and get details. Since I love cats, it would be helpful to know. I'm sure I'll get another some day. Like Arthur, I had no idea how devestating a pulled tail can be on a cat. He got bit there a year or so ago and the vet said to watch for touble relating to his bladder. There are many nerves that effect that area from a pull. And the day he was in the hospital I read up tail pull injury, and he had all the symptons of the worst kind. If I had not read that, I probalby would have instisted he have the surgery to amputate his tail and go from there. But he was shuttiing down inside, and if he made it we would have had to press on his belly 3 to 4 times a day to help him to urinate and such. I couldn' t have him live like that. So anyways, what I really wanted to get at was, I read your tribute(finally) and it was just AWSOME!. You are very clever with the computer. I smiled, and cried. What a sweet thing and that tie, soooo cute. Arthur was only a little over 2yrs. I think what makes it so sad for us, was the fact they were so young and had the potential to give us so many memories because of their special charater. I guess we have to consider ourselves lucky we had them at all...We freed them from their pain and we just continue it within ourselves now....Again awesome tribute..Ann

thank you ann. that touches my heart so much. brings tears to my eyes. im glad you took the time to see his tribute and feel all the things on it. wish you could see all of the pics but you need a myspace. maybe you could make arthur one too. it helps. i never knew all of that could happen because of a tail injury. my sister's kitty recently got his tail closed in a door and it was de-gloved. my sister(vet tech) amputated a little end piece. i never knew tails affected so much. makes me wonder about my tailess kitty. im so sorry that you had to lose your baby so suddenly and young. i agree that they had so much potential to create so many years of happy memories. it really hurts the most to think of that. its hard. we are lucky to have had them touch our lives at all, i agree. feline infectious peritonitis is horrible. i hope you never have to encounter it. i didnt even know what it was until acorn was diagnosed. i know about having to squeeze a bladder every day. we used to have such a sweet kitty named daisy who couldnt move her legs. by accident at the shelter she was in, they closed her legs in the door. my sister fell for her anyway when she came into her job. she wore a diaper and had to be squeezed. despite all that she was the most cheerful kitty. her life was too short. i wish we could spare of loved kitties all pain and have them live as long as they would like. that would be the perfect world. thank you again for all the compliments about the tribute. you are very kind.

with love corina and her angels