This has not been the happiest holiday weekend for some Balloon Juice correspondents…
From commentor Bklyn Sarah:
Our brave and beautiful Max died on Christmas day. He’d been failing for a while, but took a sharp turn for the worse last week. My SO stayed with him and I went to my dad’s for the holiday, but I came home early when it sounded like he was getting worse. We took him to an emergency vet hospital here in Brooklyn, and he died in my arms, very peacefully. There is a huge empty place on my bed that will never be filled. I don’t believe in god, but I believe that Max is in kitty heaven, hunting mice and playing with his best pal Louie, who left us a few years back. RIP, Maxie. You were a good cat.
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And a note from commentor GrammyPat, whose beloved Li’l Buddy got featured here a while back:
Thank you for posting about Li’l Buddy last month… the outpouring of goodwill from the BJ community were helpful and sustaining.
__
He passed this morning in my/our bed and I am inconsolable with grief. I’ve been bawling all day and expect to break down into tears regularly for the next few weeks as I mourn the death of this remarkable creature. I will miss him beyond words and all reason. My life, my soul, my bed will all be a lot colder and emptier now that my Pun’ kin of these many years has finally gone.
__
Nonetheless, he died as he lived: calmly, with dignity, and without drama. He simply faded away (with that tongue sticking out) and I’ve buried him in the “Hill Country” of central Texas. If there is a canine afterlife, I can only hope that he is now joyfully running at top speed on all fours, that he is surrounded by all the different foods that he could possibly want, and that he gives and receives as much love as his big ol’ heart deserves.
__
RIP, Li’l Buddy. Thank you for bringing such joy to my life…You will be missed.
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(Be back soon, I’m gonna go give my guys some extra attention. And maybe a cookie, too.)
General Stuck
No shit, too much sad loss on the furry critter front. I will give Charlie and extra hug and maybe a slab of Salmon tonight. When he gets over being pissed at me for the bath trauma thingy.
Dennis G.
By this time last year we had lost Maggie, one of our aging coonhounds. Not too far into 2010 we lost the other, Ben, our housemate since 1995 and the ring bearer at my Wedding. My heart and thoughts are with all who follow down this path of loss.
Still the memories remain and I recall something about those two lazy crazy dogs that makes me smile almost every day.
Best wishes and be well.
Cheers
stuckinred
One of my best friends died Christmas morning. He was a Marine in Vietnam, 68-69. He was from Decatur, Illinois but we met in Champaign-Urbana soon after we both came home. He was proud to have been a Marine and he was proud to oppose the war once he came home. He had been ill for almost a decade and he drove the folks at the VA Hospital in Danville up the wall because he didn’t take any shit from anyone. It is a great relief to his friends that he is no longer suffering and that he did not die in the damn VA hospital. I realize this thread is about pets that people have lost but I figured it would be ok to recall him here. He would have liked it. Semper Fi Hoppy.
Shadow's Mom
GrammyPat and Bklyn Sarah: Please accept my sincerest condolences on the loss of your furred companions. I know how much joy comes from the unconditional love our companions bring into our lives, and I am sorry for your pain.
Ruckus
@stuckinred:
You talked about him on another thread and from your post I can see that he was a great friend. It’s always hard to lose a good friend, I think that’s because we can never have enough of them. I hope he got out of life what he was looking for. And I think it’s a good trait to not take shit from anyone, as it sounds like you do as well.
Once again sorry for your loss.
stuckinred
@Ruckus: Yea, I wondered if I should post it again but he lived life to the max and didn’t look back. While I am bummed that he died, whatever happens next is ok. In many ways he knew he had 40 extra years that his buddies didn’t get.
Mike Kay (Democrat of the Century)
man, this sucks
Ruckus
@stuckinred:
I try to look at life that way myself. It may not always be paradise but most days living are better than the alternative. Not always, not every day, but most of them.
Mary G
I am so sorry, BklynSarah, GrammyPat and Jenjen. I also am going to give the kittie some extra love (i.e. food).
Jane2
So sorry, BklynSara. I believe all beloved pets pass on to the Rainbow Bridge where they frolick pain free and content…and we will meet them there someday.
stuckinred
@Ruckus: I’m thinking that the loss of a pet is different because we feel so responsible for every aspect of their care and they can’t tell us what they want. Going through a 2 years battle with cancer with our wonderful cocker Raven was a real education. The treatment was surely a form of torture for the little dude but he seemed to know we were trying to help him. Now with Lil Bit it’s a menu of meds for her anemia and eye problems that will be required for the rest of her life. I wonder some times what she thinks of the whole thing.
bystander
{{Hugs}} to Bklyn Sarah and {{hugs}} to GrammyPat. Ladies, I am so very sorry. Theirs were lives well lived and much loved. All these losses are heartbreaking. {{Hugs}} to you, too, stuckinred. All our buddies take a piece of us when they go, I’m just grateful they leave a bit of themselves behind to help fill the hole.
John O
@stuckinred:
That was good, stuckinred. He would have enjoyed it, I’m sure.
Having put a cat down a week ago tomorrow, my beloved Slush(y), he of Tunchian attitude, I got me some sorry for those of you in the same boat. It just doesn’t matter how many times I’ve gone through it, that’s for sure.
Thank FSM for the little critters, though.
The Dangerman
Condolences to all that have lost friends or pets. It’s never easy; I had an Australian Shepherd while I was a young teenager, through college, and into my first job. She still shows up in my dreams.
It’s a Law of Thermodynamics that energy is conserved and, I believe (somehow, and I won’t even try to evaluate how), the energy of love, of pets or humans, is conserved somehow. Call it Heaven or another just another plane of existence, but it’s there, somewhere, in some dimension, we just can’t perceive it with our human senses and brains. If some Physics types are right (and I believe that they are), there are 11 physical dimensions in String Theory (of which we can perceive 4, more if we’re listening to some Floyd)…
…but that’s kinda deep for my level of sobriety. Once again, condolences for the losses. May you dream of them kindly and often….
Kristine
@stuckinred My sympathies for the loss of your friend
I’m also so sorry for all the BJers who have lost four-legged friends over these past few days. No time is easy, but it’s worse in winter. Short days, early darkness, and loss.
King is snoring and Gaby is suffering from rumble tummy and is a bit aromatic as a result. Those are easy problems. They don’t even count.
Ruckus
@stuckinred:
Having an older cocker I understand. I’ve had Bud for 11 months and we’ve been through thyroid(meds every day rest of his life), bad, almost total liver failure, which turned out to be infection(meds every day for the last 5 weeks).
I think you may be correct on the difference because they depend on us to do the right thing or they can go fast. For those of us that hang around though it is still a loss of a friend. And there is no price on that.
stuckinred
@Ruckus: Yup. Lil stinkers. I love em.
ps
11 months or 11 years?
jeff
I’m so sorry to hear of all the bereaved pet owners.
I have a sincere question, and I deal with pets dying every day, so I hope I’m allowed to ask:
The whole “rainbow bridge” thing upsets me to no end. It seems to torment animal lovers with a BS pseudo-heaven for animals, when the people who propagate it don’t believe in real-heaven……the question is: is one meant to believe in such a thing, or is it just some kitschy thing to do when you best pal dies?
I see a lot of pets go, and the rainbow bridge has been really bugging me. Anyone care to answer what it is about, assuming nobody believes it literally.
junebug
My wave of loss happened a few years ago. A generation of pups and kittens are in boxes cremated and in the yard buried, respectively.
The next generation is getting older, but there is this one little firecracker keeping all of us young.
I know what it is to lose a loved one and I hope that all are ok. I don’t know what else to say. Nothing anyone said to me meant much.
It’s very cold here, and I think my boy that made it through the last freeze has made a buddy with the littlest feral.
I’ll stop now.
Jeff S
I’d just like to add my condolences. Sitting here with cat Bubbles in my lap, hearing the other cat Marshall knocking something around in the kitchen. It’s always so hard to lose them.
junebug
@jeff:
I got that when my pups died. I think it is just a marketing thing.
It’s on the card you get from your vet/the company that made your pet cinders.
At the same time, I appreciated the cards I got when my babies died, so it’s a wash.
asiangrrlMN
My deepest condolences to Bklyn Sarah and GrammyPat on the loss of your loved ones. May Max and L’il Buddy run swiftly to the other side.
@John O: I’m sorry for your loss of Slushy, John O. My condolences.
@stuckinred: Sorry again for the loss of your friend.
suzanne
Losing a friend, human, furry or otherwise, just fucking sucks SO HARD. Hugs to stuck, JenJen, BklynSarah, and GrammyPat… I’m holding you all in my heart.
I had mentioned on a previous thread about a week ago that a very good friend of mine was hit by a drunk driver and nearly died. Fortunately, one lacerated spleen and a load of broken bones later, she’s home and (slowly) on the mend. Seems just like too much suffering, especially around the holiday season.
Keeping the ones we love close.
JenJen
Oh, no.
Hugs and peace to BklynSarah and GrammyPat. I am so, so sorry, and of course know exactly how much it hurts and how heartbroken you feel and how intense the pain is right now. What a sad weekend for all of us.
Love to Anne and John for being really good friends just when we needed them. Thanks to all of you, for your words and your thoughts; you’ve made an unbearable day just a little less sucky. Your kindness has really moved me today, and I’ve appreciated it so very much.
jeff
@junebug:
Thanks. I don’t know why it upsets me so much, but if it helps most people better able to deal, than that’s great. I think I took it too literally. Best Wishes.
Ruckus
@stuckinred:
Bud’s a rescue. January. But he is about 11-12 yrs old so things may be starting to go wrong. Fingers crossed on that.
catpal
so sad. so sorry for the losses.
unfortunately I lost my 14 yr old cat 2 days before christmas. she had an aggressive tumor. It was so hard to say goodbye.
my cat #2 seems lost – looking for her companion – that just brings more tears.
Anne Laurie
@stuckinred: Stuck, I’m so sorry to hear about your friend. Sounds like he was a warrior right to the end — there are worse ways to go than fighting…
Anne Laurie
@jeff: __
Well, there are people — some of them highly educated, “otherwise sensible” people — who do believe it, literally, and thinking that they will be reunited with their loved ones of all species is a great comfort to them. Myself, I believe in reincarnation, which is kinda the polar opposite (I don’t want to think of my lost friends as ‘waiting for me’, I want them to go on to their next great adventure with happy hearts), but I find the Rainbow Bridge myth-recital cheering nonetheless. Way I think of it… and I assume some comitted non-believers as well… like Dangerman says above, LOVE is a universal constant, and while the pets we no longer have in the flesh still dance through our dreams & memories, they are “with us”, connected by a vibrant bridge of love.
It may irritate you less if you can think of it as a ritual and not a statement-of-fact. Whatever happens or doesn’t after death, our human rituals are less about the departed than they are about the survivors.
wonkie
I am sorry for the losses suffered, the friends and pets who have died.
I like the rainbow bridge story but I don’t take it literally. Rainbow bridge is a geoplogical feature in southern Utah, a natural birdge of stone. It is extraordinarily beautifu. I am very partial to desrt landscapes which I find spiritual although I am an atheist. If any thing could make me religious the lanndscapes of southern Utah could do it.
So I ahve that connection to the Rainbow birdge. but even if I didn’t associat the story with the acrtual bridge it would stil be comfoting to me. I can’t bare the finality of death sometimes. My dog Lassie died ovoefr a year ago and I’m in tears right now. There are so may things I want to say to her. She ws only two years old when she ws killed.
I suppose that’s waht’s comforting about the sgtory of the bridge the fantasy that all the suffrering of life will be redeemed by happines in an afterlife and the fantasy of being reunited.
You know, it’s weird i guess but, while I miss my parents, I don’t need to believe in heaven. I am much more accepting of their deaths than I am of Lassie’s.
Anyway It’s tough to lose a belivoed pet asn I am sorry for the grief Bklynsarah and Grammy pat are going through. maybe there is a way to stay connected to the pets we loved after they die other than just memory.
Ruckus
@Anne Laurie:
When I was about 20 I looked around one day and thought, I wonder if I’ll make it to 30. I’ve never even considered that I could make it past 60. There are lots of reasons for that, which I’m not going into here, but at all the milestones of age I’ve had the same thought. And I think this has made me look at life two ways.
Short term. All I want is to wake up every time the earth revolves. Still breathing. So far so good.
Long term. I just want to see how far this goes. I’ve been surprised so many times to still be around that it seems that I’m supposed to enjoy as much as I can while I’m here. And if that means fighting for each day, then that’s what I’ll have to keep doing.
So fighting has been working for me, like for stuckinred’s friend. Don’t know if we fight/fought for the same things or for the same reasons, or even with the same level of enthusiasm, but it seems to work for me.
Course these days I seem to be angrier than I’d like.
Jman
@jeff: My spousal unit and I said good by to our first dog some 16 years ago just past Thanksgiving on a rainy Saturday morning. I stayed with him until he stoped breathing and the vet checked his heart and said he was gone. I could not move for fear of falling apart. The vet said sometimes bad things happen for no reason, he gave you his best and you gave him your best too.
I paid the bill with out saying a word because my throat choked closed and my eyes blurred. I met my SO in the parking lot where she waited in tears while our dog passed away, unable to bear the loss in public. She ran to me and put her arms around my neck and I held her while a break in the Oregon rain clouds opened in the east. A rainbow appeared with the sunlight that leaked through the clouds and the rainbow spanned the grey sky over head. We imagined the rainbow was sent for our beloved Sam to take him to the other side. We dried our eyes and collected our selves enough to watch the rainbow until the gap in the rain clouds closed and the rainbow disappeared.
We began our search for another pup to fill the enormous empty the next morning. There have been three more pups since Sam died and we sadly said good bye to yet another. Each pup helping to fill the empty left by Sam. Now every time we see a rainbow, we think Sam is sending us a message that all is well. And so there it is.
JR in WV
Hi all,
I’m sorry to hear of everyone’s loss. We have 5 cats and 3 dogs, all rescues of one sort or another. Two cats are really elderly, and one dog, Big Boomer, is getting old now too.
Boomer is an 85 pound light brown (with white face and neck now) farm dog. Last spring we had 2 low-lifes drive their primer-gray Chevy truck up to my shop building like they owned it! I let the 3 dogs out, they were barking up a storm.
The first two dogs are 40 pounders, medium farm dogs, and the low-lifes pretty much ignored them. Then Boomer showed up, and they jumped back into their truck. By then I was down at the driveway up to the shop. I said “What’s up, guys?”
The driver said they were stone cutters from Marmet looking for stone to cut. 3 things wrong with this. They were 50 miles from Marmet, in a truck that wouldn’t carry much stone, in a place with no hard cutting stone.
Then the other guy said, “that big dog, when his hackles went up, he scared me!” and I answered, “then he earned his keep today! That’s his job on this farm.” I told them there wasn’t any stone to cut here and not to be back.
Boomer is 14, and his hips are giving him trouble. Soon it will be his time. He’s had a great life out here on the farm, with deer to chase, like he could catch one.
Rufus the cat is 18, nearly 19. The age chart at the Vets stops at 15, which is 90 cat years. So Rufus, who is big and white with a red head and spots, is probably 115 or so. He has thryoid problems, and gets skinny sometimes, which always scares me. My Dad died back in 2004 from complications of COPD, which was caused by chemo for his Leukemia. His main complication was not having enough oxygen for his digestion to work, and he essentially quit eating under hospice care. He was done fighting, after 80 years.
Rufus likes to lie against my head at night, to stay warm, or against my shoulder. He purrs loudly when I scratch between his ears in the dark. Now that it’s winter, he always wants a lap of leg to lay against. We’re best friends, and I’ll miss him a lot.
We take care of all the fuzzy kids, and they help us get through the day.
Take care of your friends and they will help take care of you.
Best of luck,
JR
asiangrrlMN
@catpal: I’m so sorry for the loss of your beloved companion. My deepest condolences.
@jeff: I don’t think of it as literal. I do, however, believe in something bigger than all of us, so if our spirits go on (not so sure about that), then so do the spirits of our animal friends.
Platonicspoof
@Kristine:
I can understand the seasonal dark making any additional ‘darkness’ that much sadder.
And I think for those with high emotional expectations at xmas time, close to weddings, etc., unexpected lows, death, can be relatively more painful. My niece and her husband just walked away from a roll-over car accident and a near miss from the next car that hit the same ice because they were wearing their seatbelts and because of luck, but it’s too easy to imagine the family going from planning to celebrate yesterday, to planning two funerals.
I’m more grateful for what I still have when people here share their losses, as others have already said, so thank you.
Minor note, since I’m atheist in all ways, but maybe the Rainbow Bridge is one more way of deciding to finally frame, to keep alive, memories in a positive way after accepting that there won’t be new memories with that pet.
Maybe healthier than not being able to get past that point of repeating a specific unchangeable painful memory over and over in an endless loop in your head.
Comrade Javamanphil
So sorry for your loss, Bklyn Sarah, GrammyPat and stuckinred. It is never a good time but this seems especially tough. I hope all your memories together shine forever.
As for the rainbow bridge thing, whatever gets you through. It’s a bit kitschy for my tastes but then so is Catholicism (and Christianity and Islam and Hinduism…)
JPL
All animals go to heaven. What else would a heaven be for?
Miss Moxie received extra scritches in memory of your pets.
Sarah in Brooklyn
Thanks everyone. I don’t post here a lot, but I do feel that I’m part of the animal lover community of BJ. Your thoughts mean a lot to us.
bookcat
So sad to hear the loss of so many beautiful companions. Their pictures really moved me to tears. I’ve been through it and, gazing at me dogs now, know I will again and it grips my heart. I truly hope each of you can find some moments of peace in the grief that overtakes you. I’m truly truly saddened at your loss. But look at the one last gift they’ve given- bringing strangers together in grief and kindness and compassion.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
I’m so sorry for both of you. But thanks for sharing both the joy and sorrow those beings brought to your lives. They’ll have forever homes in your hearts.
Trinity
My heartfelt condolences to you both. The love you so freely gave and received lives on in the memories of your heart.
curtis
Bkln Sarah and GrammyPat, I know how hard these days must be. My thoughts are with you.
Linda
I’m so sorry for your losses, Bklyn Sarah and GrammyPat. My 15 1/2 year old black kitty, Walt died on the 16th. I found a lovely picture of him and placed it where I could see it in my living room. I cry everyday, but also remember all the wonderful times we had (and the love he gave to the kittens when I brought them home 10 years ago).
I smile when I remember that I gave him a wonderful life of warmth and safety and love. And he returned the favor.
Let yourselves grieve. And remember. And know you are not alone.
rebmarks
Thanks for publishing my story about Boo Boo the Wondercat a little while back. A magnificent white and tabby Maine Coon cat adopted from the MSPCA at the age of 18 months, he had dropped from 15 pounds to 7 at the end of his 16 and half years. Still gorgeous and sweet-tempered and still always the center of attention, we said goodbye to him just a couple of days before Christmas. The vet and her assistant kindly agreed to come to the house and we all sat on the living room floor, with Boo in my lap and my husband stroking him while he purred contendedly. We spent a few minutes saying goodbye, and when I finally nodded to the vet, I felt Boo’s life force slip smoothly away, and wept for him as if for a child. My young niece compiled a DVD for us “In Memory of Boo” which my husband and I received for Christmas. After a few drinks, I managed to watch it all the way through, although blurred with tears. Sleep well, Boo.
rebmarks
And sleep well Max and Li’l Buddy and all our loved ones who left us this year…. Best wishes and sympathy from our house to yours….
Dog is My Copilot
I’m so sorry to both of you for the loss of your beloved pets. I know from experience that it is never easy to lose a pet with whom you share a strong bond. People who don’t have pets don’t understand that bond. I’ve never seen my dad cry his whole life, except for one time – when my golden (Red) passed away about 11 years ago. He was bawling like a baby. Have a safe journey across the Rainbow Bridge, Max and Li’l Buddy. Say hi to Red for me.