Ugggghhhhh…..what a day yesterday. Yesterday was just yucky inside and out. Yesterday was the day that we said goodbye to our beautiful cat, Doughnut. Pets really are like family members (at least in our household), and there is a definite void without her now.
I don’t want to focus on all of the awful feelings though. Instead, I want to tell you all about that gorgeous creature who graced our lives for 13 years.
Doughnut was a scaredy cat. Most of our friends never even got to meet her. She would hide under the bed the minute a stranger would enter our home and would not come out until they left. She treated me with the same irreverence. I don’t think I pet her once for the first 10 years of knowing her. Simply, Doughnut was my husband’s cat. He got her before we married, and he was the only person she ever really connected to. Once we were asleep at night, she’d come into the bed and curl up with him on his side furthest away from me. It was like she was a jealous lover even though I was the one who fed her everyday.
It took about 5 years for her stop hissing at me every time I walked by, and our other animals couldn’t really get too close to her either. She’d hiss at anyone or anything that came within a certain radius of her body no matter how friendly or unthreatening they were.
It wasn’t until several months ago when Doughnut suddenly began to change. Out of the blue, she became social. I wouldn’t say she became playfully social, but she stopped hanging out solely in her cat tree and started hanging out more around us. We thought the behavior was weird, and in retrospect, it probably was the beginning of her illness. It sure was nice to finally get to know her though. She tolerated petting and the other animals, too. My daughter especially began to bond with her, and I’m just so happy we got a few really good months with this cat that had been so distant but such a big part of our lives at the same time.
It is so unbearably sad to say goodbye, and yesterday, my daughter wanted to know what song I’d use for a blog about our Doughnut. As we discussed it in the car last night, the song playing in the background was “Thank You,” by Led Zeppelin. ”Maybe you should use this one,” my daughter said pensively, or possibly “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” as I know she was thinking about a homage to the pet loss “Rainbow Bridge” poem. The car was silent as these words echoed in the background, “If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you. When mountains crumble to the see, there will still be you and me.” Yes, those were the words that were hitting home, because despite all of Doughnut’s indifference to us for some many years, somewhere along the way, we all learned to love her unconditionally. She was our cat, and we loved her with all of our hearts.
So, blog readers, my song of the day is “Thank You” by Led Zeppelin. It is a love song from a man to a woman, but much of those love feelings can apply here, too. Click HERE to hear the song on Youtube, as we send our Doughnut on her way over the “Rainbow Bridge” with a big “Thank You.” We love you, sweet kitty. xxxooo