Sadness and relief

Our Cat, Lukie, finally died about 11 p.m. last night. I was there with him and Bern got out of bed to join me.

Mourning, it seems to me, is sharper and shorter with pets.

With pets there is never 'unfinished business'. They love unconditionally and there is nothing we could have said or done and didn't that would have made that love deeper. They just love you--no residual anger, no things left unsaid, nothing to 'make up' to them.

We wept together, Bern and I, wrapping him in his blanket and putting him in a box I'd been saving--a box from the holidays that he climbed into more than once (what is it about cats and boxes?)

We wanted to bury him today but freezing temperatures and 5 inches of snow ended that hope.

He's safe on the back porch in his box. Maybe tomorrow we can dig his grave.

I will miss him so....But after so long a dying, I am relieved for him as well.

Lukie has moved on.