Taz's Mom one Easter long, long ago........
I’m starting to get my voice back. It’s been a week now and although we still miss Taz terribly, it’s getting a little better. I’ve also noticed that the Twins miss him too. The three of them were always together.
When I was trying to get Taz to eat by giving him treats, Jason was always there too. Of course, he got a treat for every two that Taz got. I thought it was so neat that Jason “wanted to be with Taz” and Charlie, being the realist, said “I hate to say it, but he’s there because he knows that if Taz eats, he gets to eat too!” We had to laugh. It was true I’m sure, but there is definitely something in the way the Twins seem to miss him being around. We’re glad they had each other for three years.
I didn’t know that my friend, Mary, was following Taz’s blog. She and I had worked together. Both of us have cats and at work we were always talking about our cats. She and her husband, Mike, and their 7 cats, moved to Arizona after they retired in 2007. I’ve talked to her a couple of times and caught up on how they were and how their cats were.
Mary left a message saying she had read the blog and thought Taz was going to pull through for us. We played phone tag a couple of days.
Yesterday when I getting ready to go for a walk, Mary called and I took the phone with me to talk. We talked for awhile about what was going on, etc. and then we talked about our cats. It helped to talk about it, although I haven’t been able to talk much lately!
Then Mary told me that her cat, “Samantha” passed away at the end of August. Here she was consoling me about Taz and she had just lost HER favorite cat too. It was heart breaking that Samantha was diagnosed with kidney failure in April. Through the months, she was taken to the vet a two or three times a week for fluids. Then one morning Samantha couldn’t walk well and she was trying to get into her little “cupboard” to hide. Mike and Mary found her halfway in and knew she didn’t have much time. Mary held her and Samantha passed away in her arms.
I could tell she was still in a lot of pain from losing her little Samantha. But, she encouraged me to be happy about having Taz as long as we did. She told me to listen to a song by Garth Brooks called “The Dance”. She had played it over and over again (I can relate to that) and the words “.....I could have missed the pain, but I would have had to miss the dance..........”
So to Mary it was worth the pain of losing Samantha because she had the joy of knowing and loving her for 16 years, which is better than to not have ever had her at all. And I feel the same about Taz. I wouldn’t take anything for those 11 years that we had him with us.
It was a nice conversation for an hour plus and I said good bye feeling much better. I still have the guilt of letting Taz go and wonder if it WAS too soon. Mary has been “lucky” with her babies. They have all passed away “on their own”. I don’t think I’ll ever stop second guessing it, but she did make me see that even though the vet didn’t think Taz was in pain, we don’t know that for sure. Cats do not show pain like people do. She wasn’t even sure that Samantha wasn’t in pain, but Samantha was still eating a little and still liked being held, so they kept her. I would have liked that for Taz too.
Taz will "come home" to us tomorrow. The blog will begin to lighten up.
Thanks Mary. You are truly a “soul sister”.
More later..........
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