The Diaries of a Fat Chick

Many of you know the story of my first cat Mollie so I won’t bother to share it again.  Six months ago Mollie died.  She died as the result of a combination of things.  Old age and ongoing kidney disease was most certainly the major culprit, she was 19 years old.  But, in my opinion, her death was also a result of my own personal failure to, as her caregiver, take care of her at the end the way I should have. 

I am no stranger to death.  I’ve had multiple pets over the years and, as such, have been a part of multiple deaths.  Rodents and smaller animals tend to have shorter life spans and the very first cat I ever fostered, Norman, died unexpectedly at a very young age from heart disease.  In some cases I knew their death was unpreventable, that I had done everything I could for them and while those deaths were still difficult, there was some comfort in knowing that I had done what I could.   Over the last couple of years I had, or at least thought I had, tried to prepare myself for Mollie’s death.  She was an old cat and she was suffering from kidney disease.  And, in all honesty, the first week or so after she died I thought I was doing okay.  There was sadness and tears and a feeling of loss but overall I thought I was doing okay. 

The dictionary describes grief as:

1) keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow or painful regret

2) a cause or occasion of keen distress or sorrow

This particular part, painful regret, is an apt description.  The last six months of an overwhelming sense of loss and sorrow, anguish and heartache I can handle.  The painful regret combined with the loss and sorrow?  Makes me feel  like I am slowly going mad. 

I had decided that I would write a post here about exactly what happened, and how, despite friends and family’s well-meaning assurances that I was not to blame, I had a deep sense of failure and responsibility for Mollie’s death.  In the past, writing has always had a cathartic effect on me and I didn’t believe it would be any different this time.  I was wrong.  The feelings of regret and guilt and sorrow are so strong that I haven’t the ability to even write about it.  I can hardly bear to think about it; forget writing it down.  Seeing it actually written down, at this point, would not be helping to remove the knife of guilt in my gut but rather more like twisting and shoving it in deeper. 

The last six months have been hell, let’s just leave it at that shall we and move on?

Two weeks after Mollie died, I booked appointments for both Ben and I to have tattoo’s done at a tattoo shop in Vernon.  I had done some research and found a tattoo artist online who specialized in animals.  Her name is Janette and her and her husband Kevin own Genesis Designs Tattoo in Vernon.  (www.genesistattoo.com)  She was booked solid for six months so we patiently waited until March and five days after Mollie’s birthday we had our tattoos done.  We had similar ones done with the exception that on mine I had a Haiku poem I had written about Mollie a year before her death, tattooed under her picture.

I can’t recommend Janette enough, she was warm and kind and an absolutely fantastic tattoo artist.  We were both so very pleased with her work.  Their shop was open and bright and very clean and we had a wonderful experience.

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