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| Grace, the day we adopted her from the shelter, age 4 months |
Yes, you heard me right.
The day started out well. It was my husband's birthday so we planned to go out to breakfast and see a movie with our daughters. When we returned home, I saw Grace sitting in the kitchen. As we walked around her, she didn't move and I thought that was odd. I got down on my knees and spoke to her. Usually if I talked to her she would give me some meows and move toward me to be petted. She didn't move. Then I noticed her breathing hard. I could see her tummy move in and out with lot's effort.
Then I started to panic.
Something in me knew this was really bad. Since it was a holiday, her vet was closed so I called the local ER vet. They said to bring her in right away. When we arrived, they took her to the back to be examined and my eight year old daughter and I waited for the vet. When the vet came to us, her face demonstrated she had bad news. She said that Grace had FIP or Feline Infetious Peritonis. Most strains of the virus do not cause disease, but 5-10% of the cats with the virus develop a severe inflammatory response. Once this happens it is almost always fatal. Our poor kitten had this severe reaction and had fluid in her lungs so she was struggling to breathe.
So I knew what we needed to do.
We adopted Grace two months ago at a local shelter and both my older daughter and I already loved her very much. Now we had to say goodbye. Needless to say we cried and cried, couldn't believe that we had to leave Grace there and she would never come home with us. We said our goodbyes and when we left the hospital I started crying again.
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| Last picture I took of Grace |
I never ever thought my kitten would die. I planned to be her human mommy till she was an old cat. But that wasn't to be and I felt cheated.
I was pissed.
I wanted her back.
And I was pissed at Spirit and at myself. You see, I believe we come to this planet knowing what we want to experience. So, in essence, even though I don't remember it now, I agreed to it. And I couldn't understand why I would even agree to something so horrible. I felt like this was a punishment, for what I do not know.
The following day I walked around like I was going to burst into tears at any moment. By evening, I decided to to take a walk outside. During my walk I saw two cats. I was amazed since I never see cats on my walk, usually a few dogs are being walked by their owners or I see some birds or a stray squirrel. I took it as a sign that Grace was telling me she was all right. However, my anger and depression took its toll and morphed into a massive migraine by that evening.
After two hours, my migraine started to ease. As I lay in bed in the dark, I saw Grace. I asked myself, is this a memory or really Grace's spirit? Not caring, I asked to speak to Grace. And she came forward. She spoke in a grown up female voice, which surprised me. I always viewed her as a baby. She told me, "I know that you wanted me to grow old with you but I couldn't. I was too sick and could no longer stay." I knew this to be true. I just needed to accept it.
A few days later, I learned more about why I chose to experience the loss of Grace. Currently I am studying shamanism. During my last class, my classmates, teacher and I practiced doing shamanic journeys with each other. A shamanic journey is a meditative visit to one of the three spirit worlds: lower, middle, upper. This is always done with an intention, such as for healing or advice. I was lucky to have my teacher do a shamanic journey for me. She described an upper dimension world full of glass houses. She said in this place, all beings were made of light and energy (they look like columns of light to me, see #3 from this blog post for a description of what I saw). They have no physical bodies.
This is where I am from. This is my real home.
In this world, you can't hide anything. Communication is done by telepathy. And there is no such thing as touch. So this is one of the reasons why I like to come to earth, to experience touch. This makes sense to me because I am a very touchy-feely person. I love to hug and when I practice Reiki, I prefer hands on Reiki versus distance healing.
There is no loss in this upper-dimension world, we know and understand that life is forever. So this is one of the things I choose to experience here, loss, and loss of my sweet little kitten.
With every event that happens to me, whether positive or negative, it's always a learning experience. Although I miss my kitten tremendously, I understand that she was no longer able to be in the physical world. She's in a place where she belongs, at home, across the rainbow bridge.
