Rich, I'm sorry.

Oh you could certainly use some sunshine m'dear :)

You will get through. It'll all shake down to normality eventually.

I think I cried more for Pilau than I have cried for anything else my whole life. Boneshaking, tearing me from inside griefstricken keening. Awful, awful. I used to get his furlined coat that he used to wear when it was cold and hold it to my face to try and smell him. Not the wet dog smell, but that smell they have when they're warm and sleepy. And I measured the progress of each day against the longest time I'd spent away from him when he was alive. And how many times I had broken down in tears each day.

It was quite a long time before I realised I'd gone a whole day without crying.

Then I went through a mini version of it again when I brought Carrot home. Everything he did and didn't, everything he was and wasn't a stark reminder that Pilau wasn't here.

I'm not sure if people who aren't into animals can understand the depth of feeling that can exist between a dog (or cat) and it's person. especially when it's just the two of you. That one on one friendship between you Autumn was a profound thing. Is a profound thing. It doesn't just switch off because she's off to the bridge (;p).

It helped me to have Pilau's picture on my computer desktop. It's always on. For the first couple of months I said goodnight to him when I turned it off at night, and good morning when I turned it on each day. I still talk to him occasionally. It's like he almost exists there on the screen. I consider that he has been standing watch over his namesake, Carrot Pilausson. I consider that he is pleased. Because he would not want me and the house unguarded, or the territory unmarked in his absence. And when grief struck me, and even now, verrrry occasionally it can steal over me, and I cried, what brought me round was noticing his face watching me, and wanting to tell him i was alright, like I would have done when he came to me during upsets and sorrows. Somehow I managed to invest enough of him into that image, that I really did feel the need to reassure him, to wipe my eyes and raise a smile.

It wasn't without moments of guilt. They also still come from time to time. The things I didn't do and should have, the things I did do and shouldn't have, the avenues of care and diagnosis I didn;t pursue and didn' know about until after he'd gone, the futility of trying to wrestle tablets down him the day before he died, the flash of frustration that came out as raw anger only days before when he'd coughed the tablet out for t he fourth time and was being really uncooperative whn I knew this was the pain relief that would make him feel better.

There are times I see accusation in his eyes. Or confusion and hurt.

There's no way around it y'know. There are always things that make us feel guilty or inadequate.

The trick is remembering that those moments didn't define what we had. And given there is absolutely nothing I can do about those moments, I'm damned if I'll let them rob me of what I had, or rob Pilau of the importance of his 13 years with me. He deserves to be remembered well. Whatever I did or did not do, I will not allow guilt to taint my remembering of him.

This started out as words of comfort and sharing and turned into a rambling monologue of my own stuffs...:P It's still so close to the surface, almost 14 months on.

One other little point: the first couple of months with Carrot seriously knocked my confidence where dogs are concerned. I seemed to be doing everything wrong. he wasn't resopnding in the expected way on a lot of stuff. And he was running me ragged. I had no control, and any attempt to tell him off or be stern just ramped up the game for him and he became quite belligerant.

Nowt quite like failing to face down an 11 week old puppy to seriously dent your sense of yourself as a dog person.

Some of that was his undiagnosed hip problems, but some of it was just that he had a natural dominant streak (1st born in his litter) and needed very different handling and strategies than Pilau had. And some of it was just that I had forgotten how contrary puppies can be.

I had decided to do it right and bought training guides etc etc.

From the moment he threw a full-on tantrum and chewed his way through the zipper on the puppy crate on the way home that first night, he hasn;t resopnded in any o fthe ways the books account for when trying the recommended techniques. If anything, sometimes I've had to do the exact opposite.

Took a while, and my confidence is returning, but it really threw me.

94 ? you must have so many nice memories. My thoughts are with you and your family Rich...

Rich, I'm so very sorry for your loss. I can't, myself, imagine many things worse. Warm thoughts coming in your general direction. :(

thanks so very much Dana.

That really helped me a lot.


I am very down today -as yesterday.

here's a funny thing: My niece is having her first baby (my parents very first great-grandchild) and my other sister is going to Mexico tomorrow and I've no money since i didn't budget for the baby shower as I was told initially that too many people were invited and no room for us all and we'd have our own private shower for her in march.
THEN we were re-invited. too late----all the money is gone. So my sis and I ask my dad for a loan so we can buy a gift for Sunday (when the shower is) as my sis can't do it, she's too busy getting ready to go to mexico tomorrow.

dad said, WITH NO IRONY AT ALL, "Will 20 dollars do it?"

twenty dollars. for a gift from BOTH of us. for his FIRST great-grandchild.
That's how he thinks. He's such a motherfucker.

Rich I'm sorry for your loss.

Rich I am so sorry for your loss. As other have said, losing a parent is hard, however expected that loss may have been.

Trilby - I am sorry that you are having such a difficult time too. Dana has said a lot of wise things in sharing her experiences.

To you both - time, I wish you the healing effects of time.

I'm a little upset that it appears to be a beautiful day...

...And I can't go anywhere. I'm outta gas/money for the month. That hardly ever happens, this was a short month, too.:(

Might have to start next month a week early...

We hardly ever do. That's a tough lick, Rich, thoughts/prayers/good vibes to you and your's.


:blackr:

I just wrote an exam where the prof emailed detailed prep instructions as to what would and wouldn't be covered ... and 80% of the exam was on what she said wouldn't be covered. No joke.

So angry.

That sucks, but I'm not surprised, it happens way too often. A friend has her adviser do that to her when she went for her PhD oral exam. She heard later that was SOP, because they didn't want anyone to pass on the first shot.

No siree Bob, you don't get into our private club without providing us with a little entertainment, and Boston doesn't allow us to shoot at your dancing feet any more.

Do you get to ask the Prof WTF Ortho or do you just get to hear Nelson in the background? :eyebrow: [/Simpsons] :rolleyes:

As long as she didn't cover the material in class, I think she's in the all clear. :mad:

I plan to send her an email and also go by her office to talk to her about it next week ... but have to keep it low-key and diplomatic. I still have two more exams and a major project to go. Profs can do ANYTHING they want with their courses, and this is a completely subjective humanities course. Nothing objective. She can give me a zero and I can't fight it. This is the reason I always did math and science ...