Yesterday, we thought we might, possibly, perhaps, if it feels right, go through pet and vet things we don’t need anymore, pack them up, lovingly, and give them to our vet.  Along with another check for services rendered recently.  They close at 12:30 on Saturdays, I am starting to write this at 12:28.  We knew, or at least I did (haven’t asked Mark), this morning, when we rolled over to go back to sleep after having been awake for a few minutes around 7, that it might not happen today. 

There is still the small box with the insulin bottle in the fridge, along with two syringes.  The rest of the syringes is still in the box in the cupboard.  The box we would pack up.  The insulin and the two syringes in the fridge – I think I still need them there.  I am not ready to dispose of them.  I need to be able to open the fridge and see the familiar.  

This morning when we went downstairs – the sun was shining after a few days of rain and cloudy skies -, I was so aware that we would walk into the kitchen and Nekko would not be lying on the sunny floor. 

Every so often I remember that the carrier in which we had taken Nekko to Rolling Acres is still in the trunk of the car.  In a strange way, it feels comforting to forget (?) to take it out of the trunk.  I remember that it is still there, and – that’s it. 

Mark and I are different.  I had the hardest time letting go of her body, of that empty shell.  I would have kept her at home, in the carrier where we had put her after she died, lightly wrapped in a towel.  I would have wanted to look at her, slowly letting go, over the course of a day or two.  Mark said that for him it would be difficult to look at her, and it would only get harder the longer we waited before taking her up to Rolling Acres where we had decided to have her cremated. 

What made it – easier? to let go was to observe and feel the changes in her body after she died.  At first, she was just not breathing, her fur and body still soft, it was unreal that she was dead, I so expected her to start breathing again, I was watching her belly, waiting to see it move again.  She was still so very much here.  Then, slowly, her ears became white, and her body, the flesh under her skin,  felt more and more rigid, stiff, unyielding.  By the time we were at Rolling Acres, it was obvious, visible, feel-able, that she was dead.  That what we saw and felt was only an empty shell which, until a few hours earlier, had housed her spirit. 

Last night, in an attempt to start introducing canned food to the other two cats, I put the left-over from Nekko’s last feedings – still in the can – on a plate and put it on the kitchen floor.