Do you ever go through this?

Have any of you who have lost a pet find it hard to eat certain foods, watch certain TV shows and movies and even listen to certain music that you once did when that pet was around? I go through that because I associate those things with my pet, but it's always just temporary.

I used to LOVE rock and roll, Rolling Stones, AC DC, etc., but now find it too loud and too much since the death of my Chrissy. I jump every time I hear a loud noise out front on the street out front and dread to look that way sometimes, I always imagine a cat laying there. I wonder sometimes how I can ever enjoy the things I used to, because she will never enjoy anything again. I have to make myself think of something else and to imagine how I would want her to act if something happened to me, I can't accept thinking she would be so sad for the remaining time she had on earth, and try to enjoy life again to please her, I don't want to blame her for me being so unhappy. It's so very hard living with all this pain and anguish, but I do have to say little by little it is getting better. Time helps to soften the blow, and life is for the living. I'll always love her, no one can take that away from me, and I know I gave her 10 years of love and devotion, it always hurts so bad to be the one left behind to cope. I live now to try to bring happiness to the ones left behind, the helpless and the homeless, to make their lives a little easier and not so full of pain and hunger. As long as there are unwanted and unloved cats I'll be there and do what I can. My heart goes out to all of you that feel this pain, may we all be blessed with a brighter future full of happiness and love.

In my post (240 days...) I talk about the unexpected and tragic loss of my cat Back.  In the weeks and months prior to his unexpected death, I would pick him up and dance around with him in my arms while listening to certain songs.  Other songs, from over a year ago, I would associate with him because he would always climb into my lap when I was listening to them, or back then I would dance around with him too.  Since Back's death in May 2014 I often listen to those songs because they remind me of him and I can visualize dancing around while holding him in my arms, or cradling him like a baby in my arms while sitting at my desk with the songs on.  I *WANT* to be reminded of him.  I *WANT* to feel a weird combination of sadness and happiness at the same time.  I don't ever want to forget how I would scoop him up off the floor, hold him against my chest, and dance around, spinning, turning, etc. while he went along for the ride.  He also liked being thrown across the living room onto my sofa, the more "air" the better, but that's another story. 

My kitchen and living room was and still is the most common place for me as a single male bachelor to do things I enjoy doing the most. I have done many things such as cooking, making my beer and wine, studying for my College upgrading, and working on guitars(because I am an avid guitar player). My cats were always around during those activities, and they always kept me company at those times. When I watched TV in the living room, one of them would curl up on the couch or curl up on my lap. When I was in the bathroom, they would come in. When I was sleeping in my bedroom, they were there. Let's face it, everywhere in my place was where they would be.  Bonnie Tyler's "Heartache" album is one I won't be able to listen to for a while. The Moody Blues "Days In Future Past" is another one because that's the one I listened to (with a bit of wine) on Sally's last night with me.

Heaps of songs remind me of my cat. Today I almost cried on the treadmill at the gym when one came on and I went in the toilets and shed a few tears. It's very hard. I had an angel bright into my life in 1999 and he guided me for 15 and a half years and is still guiding me now. It's so hard without him here. I still can't believe the way it happened.

Me, too.  I couldn't eat a certain food for years because I associated it with the death of my dog.  And I still hate the movie I had watched the day my kitten died at the vet's office.  He had been there for several days and the vet thought he was so improved, playing in the cage, that we would be able to take him home.   But he was wrong. 

Put my little baby down yesterday.  see story of Rizzo.  He & I shared a big house and now I realize it was his more than mine.  I only use a couple rooms but he had the whole house as his territory.  Everything here reminds me of him. One would not think a little kitty could fill a whole house but it seems that way today.   I will not be able to watch the Sunday shows because that is what we did the last night.  There is no place I can lay down because every time I did he would jump up on me and sleep.  You probably shared the same close bond that we did. I have been crying for the last two days so don't feel this is not normal.  Best wishes to you.

Riley1 said:

 
Put my little baby down yesterday.  see story of Rizzo.  He & I shared a big house and now I realize it was his more than mine.  I only use a couple rooms but he had the whole house as his territory.  Everything here reminds me of him. One would not think a little kitty could fill a whole house but it seems that way today.   I will not be able to watch the Sunday shows because that is what we did the last night.  There is no place I can lay down because every time I did he would jump up on me and sleep.  You probably shared the same close bond that we did. I have been crying for the last two days so don't feel this is not normal.  Best wishes to you.

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Very sorry for your loss. Nothing is worse than coming home to no furry friend to be there at the door when you come in. I'm just starting to come to terms with my losses, and I plan to start cat-shopping next week. No pet is replaceable because they are all special and unique, but maybe in time a new furry friend or two would be glad to occupy that big house of yours.

Glencatman said:

 
Very sorry for your loss. Nothing is worse than coming home to no furry friend to be there at the door when you come in. I'm just starting to come to terms with my losses, and I plan to start cat-shopping next week. No pet is replaceable because they are all special and unique, but maybe in time a new furry friend or two would be glad to occupy that big house of yours.

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Thank you!

Wow, yes I've been avoiding certain things since Molly passed 3 weeks ago. There is a game on my phone I won't play and a TV show I quit watching because it reminds me of the last month when she was ill. I'm also having a hard time with washing her beds. She had some throughout the house and it feels like if I was them I am pushing her away.

Molly22 said:

Wow, yes I've been avoiding certain things since Molly passed 3 weeks ago. There is a game on my phone I won't play and a TV show I quit watching because it reminds me of the last month when she was ill. I'm also having a hard time with washing her beds. She had some throughout the house and it feels like if I was them I am pushing her away.

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I know what you mean! There are these little beds and perching areas that I still haven't washed or brush the fur out of. I even have the cat litter boxes with the cat litter still in them, scooped, of course. I know I'll have to make adjustments when I get new cats, but I'll keep as much as I can from the other ones. 

The winter before Puck died, I saw Life of Pi in the theatre. What a beautiful, inspiring movie. Puck was 18 and 3 years into his kidney disease. He had been a huge, muscular cat, high hips and a predator's low prowl, nearly 16 pounds, and so powerful and fierce. He's a jungle cat, my family would say about him, he's a puma! As he aged and his illness had progressed, he had become slower more gaunt, but he hadn't lost an ounce of his majesty.

That tiger, oh my God, that tiger was Puck. I bawled through that whole movie, and when it ended, I sat in the parking lot of the movie theatre and bawled for almost half an hour more. I hadn't lost Puck yet, but it was all I could think about. There is so much to think about and take away from that movie, but for me, it will always be the story of a boy and his cat.

I've watched it once since he died, on a night I told my housemate I wanted cry my heart out. She ended up doing the same thing - It's Puck, that tiger is Puck, she said again and again. I love that movie, but it's going to be a long time before I can watch that movie again.

The other thing with Puck was his distinct taste in music, completely different from any human in the household. He loved power ballads by high male tenors with a hint of a whine to them. Favorites include Richard Marx and *NSYNC, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, and best of all, he loved Styx. We used to have dance parties for him, and he would scamper in delight, and press up against the speakers and mark them with his cheeks. It was so much fun to watch him.

On the day he died, my sister came to sit with Puck and me in the hours before his appointment to be put to sleep. He had had a good day the day before, had taken an hour to walk down my garden path, but that morning he no longer wanted to move and just laid staring in his cat bed. We sat with him and played him music, and I played "Come Sail Away" by Styx, and he managed to pull himself upright to peer over the rim of the cat bed at the iPad and rest his head by the speaker. I soaked it all up greedily, and my sister sat there and wept. It was the last he really reacted to anything.

I can't listen to that song much anymore, though it was a wonderful gift for him to give me, so fitting, sad and silly and overwrought and uplifting. My housemate came home a few months ago and told me that it had come on the radio while she was driving home, and that she had cried but had also really liked the idea of Puck zipping around the cosmos with a bunch of aliens, and that's how she wanted to think of him now.

It's how I want to think of him now, too. Godspeed, Bad Cat. I miss you so much.

"No pet is replaceable because they are all special and unique, but maybe in time a new furry friend or two would be glad to occupy that big house of yours."

Three months after Back's death I adopted another cat, just under a year old, to be my other cat's new friend.  Well, I wouldn't call them friends even five or six months later, but in large part I adopted the new cat because I wanted something good to come of Back's death.  Giving a home -- heck, helping a cat avoid being put down at the pound -- to another cat is a good deed, and I felt an obligation to do it.  In my case, Back was black and long-haired, so I adopted the same type of cat (black, long-haired cats are supposedly the least adopted of all cats, probably because photos of their faces don't turn out well since the features don't show up).  Certainly you can't rush things or you'll end up resenting the new kitty, and that wouldn't be fair to him/her, but know that if/when you are ready to bring some new whiskers into your home, you are saving a life.

Flowerdew, I know exactly what you are saying.  My grief is quite fresh; 6 days, 1 hour and I still sob three times per day at least.  Everything in my house reminds me of him.  I have not been able to wash the glass table of his paw prints.  Even though I know he is gone & still expect see him in all the usual places.

Glencatman said:

I know what you mean! There are these little beds and perching areas that I still haven't washed or brush the fur out of. I even have the cat litter boxes with the cat litter still in them, scooped, of course. I know I'll have to make adjustments when I get new cats, but I'll keep as much as I can from the other ones. 

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Oh, gosh, I set up a litter box downstairs on Puck's second to last night. He stepped in it but never used it, and I couldn't bear to throw it away afterwards. His paw prints in it, it was just impossible. I covered it with a towel and set it in a closet in a spare room, and it's been almost a year and a half, but it's still there. I didn't think anyone else would understand, let alone have done something similar.

Riley1 said:

Flowerdew, I know exactly what you are saying.  My grief is quite fresh; 6 days, 1 hour and I still sob three times per day at least.  Everything in my house reminds me of him.  I have not been able to wash the glass table of his paw prints.  Even though I know he is gone & still expect see him in all the usual places.

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Riley, I am so sorry. :grphug: It's so unimaginably hard. I found paw prints in the dust on a side table near the window and couldn't bring myself to wipe them up. After a few months, enough dust had settled that they vanished, too.

Flowerdew

It took me days to clean out the two boxes on the first floor.  How sad is it that I think his waste is part of him.  Have not touched the one upstairs as it just has his paw prints in it.  I don't often go up there but when he wanted to hide in the last days we spend time there.  Like most of the rooms in my house that floor was completely his territory.  I am going to leave it for some time.