Thank you

I want to thank all of you for your kind, comforting words yesterday. They meant a lot to me. I printed them out to put in Atticus's scrapbook (Yes, I am a sap. All of my animals have their own scrapbooks.)

I am feeling much better today. Yesterday was just a sad day for me. Thankfully, I work with a bunch of animal lovers, so I didn't feel stupid about crying all day long. I wore my nose raw from wiping it all day. People were very understanding. My sister sent me flowers at work, and I wasn't expecting them. I picked them up at the front desk, where an applicant was applying, and promptly burst into tears. She looked a little frightened.

God is very merciful to me. He knows what I can handle. I know that a very long, drawn-out illness would have been so difficult for Atticus, and myself as well. He had the exact kind of passing that I would have wanted. Plus, I was busy yesterday until late in the evening, surrounded by kind people. It kept me from sitting on my couch and crying for hours on end.

One thing about loss that is so hard is the empty space. Walking into the cat room and no Atticus in his usual spot. The puffs of his cat hair still on the couch. Realizing that I don't need as many litter boxes.

The truth is that deep down I would have gladly wiped his little stinky kitty butt every day for the next ten years, if I'd had to. But that wasn't to be. It's okay. I keep picturing him running around heaven without a limp, snorting in that Atticus way of his. When my first cat, Nouwen, died tragically about fours years ago, I wondered aloud to my sister, "Why did God have to take him?" She said, "Maybe God needed him up there more than we needed him down here, for some reason."

So maybe there was an Atticus-shaped hole in heaven that needed to be filled.