Green Hair, a Wedding Dress and My Life's Lesson

Thank you for your kind comments about Voldy. There have been lots of tears here and it still hasn't really sunk in. Emily has been distraught at times and her howls of utter misery when Jon and I first told her, late on Saturday night, will stay in my head for a very long time. She experienced losing Merlin, of course, and all the sadness and heartbreak of that, but this is different yet again; not any easier or harder, but different, perhaps because Emily was prepared for losing Merlin as he'd been ill for such a long time and we'd discussed it. With Voldy, it was such a shock and he was still a baby.

February and romantic moments are clearly not good times for our cats - we lost Merlin the day after our wedding anniversary two years ago and now Voldy on Valentine's Day.

I'm haunted by uncertainties over exactly how Voldy died; can we be sure it was a car or motorbike not a deliberate act of cruelty? If we'd got to him sooner, was there something we could have done? Was he conscious of what was happening to him? What silly, trivial thing were we doing, inside the house, when he was hurt? Was his spirit sad at not being initially recognised? You can imagine the thoughts, I'm sure and I'm sure others who have lost pets in similar circumstances have felt the same too. It's been doubly hard because I was so sure initially, finding the body, that it wasn't him. He just didn't look like our fluffy baby... or perhaps we were just desperate for it not to be him. He was jet black all over, with no distinguishing marks as such and it was very dark outside and there are a number of other black cats around here apart from ours. Alive of course, we could recognise him instantly, but although it sounds silly we just couldn't be sure at first. So although we picked him up and took him back to our home, we did so initially thinking it was someone else's pet - we took him off the pavement because we couldn't leave *any cat* there on a Saturday night with the drunks walking past and because we knew we would have wanted someone else to take our baby's body somewhere safe too. We did all that, still thinking it wasn't him and still calling for him and searching for him. It wasn't until much later, on yet another close look with a torch that we finally realised the worst.

But, life goes on, of course.

Today in an effort to take Emily's mind off things, we dyed her hair green. As you do. It's now Sonic Green from the lovely people at Bee Unique. We'd bought the dye about a week ago and I also bought Blue Velvet for me too, although we haven't got round to doing mine yet. The coverage isn't absolutely salon perfect, since I'm a novice at dying anyone else's hair, but it's pretty good and I think Emily's hair looks beautiful (just as well as she's got to live with it now for a month or two at least, lol) - she's very happy with it :-))) Plus, as only ever so slightly an ulterior motive, it didn't hurt to point out to her that she wouldn't be allowed to dye her hair that colour if she was attending school..... ROFL! Never being one to post one picture when half a dozen will do, here she is in all her sonic green glory, including one cuddling our poor bereft Severus.





On Valentine's Day, before our hearts broke, we opened up the box containing my wedding dress, the first time Emily had ever seen the real thing. Of course, she had to wear it. And of course, I was thrilled that she did. It's obviously far too big, but she looked so pretty :-))




Work went out of the window on Sunday as we were all a bit numb, so I've only just now finished my deadlines that were due first thing this morning. Emily's gone off to kickboxing and to play with Jacki's girls - she wasn't going to go (didn't go to karate on Sunday morning because she was too tearful), but I guess it's better that she carries on with her routines rather than sitting moping. I think the green hair helped since she was then keen to show it off ;-) Lulu is doing well. We're going to have to start leaving her loose at the same time as the cats are around, provided we're there to supervise. We can't keep shutting cats out forever.

And of course, that's yet another thing to feel guilty about. Since Lulu arrived in early January, Voldy spent much of the last month of his life being shut out of various rooms at various times. Of course, he still had oodles of love and attention...but these things prey on your mind when it's too late. The night before he died, I was really cross to be woken up at 3.30 am by Voldy wanting to go out and threatening to rip his claws out under the door if he didn't get his way ... heck, most nights for the last few months I was really cross to be woken up at 3.30 by Voldy wanting to go out (you could almost set your clock by him). And when you're grieving, these are the things you have to go through remembering and feeling horrid about.

I'm beginning to seriously think that it might be my life's lesson to learn - to appreciate things while you still have them and not take them for granted. When Merlin died, I felt that I'd taken him for granted for a long time; now the same with Voldy. When I had my wobble about Emily being so suddenly grown up, just before her 10th birthday, I was in bits over the times I'd resented this and that instead of just loving every single day of her life. I'm really making a conscious effort now to just enjoy the people and animals in my life; it's hard when you tend to suffer from depression and when you live in utter chaos, lol - but I'm working on it. I get the message.