Thanks

First off, thanks to all of you for your kind words and the cards that arrived for us this week. You will never know how much Carlos and  appreciated your love for Tuxedo … and how much Tuxedo loved it, too; after all, he was, if nothing else, the center of our universe.

I think, for me, the hardest part of losing him is going through that first week or so after they’ve gone, and the little things that remind you of the loss. We had done the grocery shopping and returned home;  pulled not the garage and got out to open the door into the house And the close the garage door so Tuxedo couldn’t make a dash toward the yard. He wasn’t there; there was no reason to close the garage door, but I swear I saw him sitting in the doorway to the kitchen like he always did.

This week we had our deck replaced and Craig, who has done work in and out of our house since we moved here, was outside working. And he asked about Tuxedo, because Tuxedo always came out to watch what Craig was doing, or to sit in a windowsill and supervise the project.

The best, or worst, time of all, was one night while watching TV, I went into the kitchen for some peanuts and as I was filling a dish, I saw Tuxedo behind me. He never ate peanuts, we never offered him peanuts, but for some reason he was there and I was crying … again. It took me several days before I could say his name with welling up.

The tears are subsiding, though they are falling right now as I write this because, as you can see over there on the left, we have lost a number of cats over the years and I am now remembering them all. On the bottom row we have Spunky and Voncie, who both passed of cancer in 2005. That’s Thomas, all by himself because he was a huge cat, who also passed in 2005.

The next row up is Scruffy, the tabby, and Lady, the black and white cat; Scruffy died in 2006; he was the old man of the house and when he left us, Tuxedo took that role until earlier this month. Lady, Voncie’s sister, was seventeen when she passed in her sleep a few months after we moved to Camden in 2008. Sweety, another gray tabby who totally lived up to her name, died of old as well, just a few months after Lady. We adopted Tallulah—who looked a little like Voncie—after moving to Camden and had her until she passed from feline leukemia in 2012. We didn’t lose another pet for ten years when MaxGoldberg left us in 2022, and then Tuxedo followed seven months later.

The reason I post about these losses is because of a beautiful quote posted in a comment by Mr. Shife about Tuxedo:

‘What a wonderful tribute to The Great Tuxedo. I thought of this quote when I was reading this, Bob, and I hope it helps you and Carlos with the healing process.

"It came to me that every time I lose a pet they take a piece of my heart with them. And every new pet who comes into my life, gifts me with a piece of their heart. If I live long enough, all the components of my heart will be pet, and I will become as generous and loving as they are.”

Take care.’

I like to think I have each of their hearts with me and they all have a large piece of mine.