How Mickey Shows Love

Someone had an excellent thread on the Pet Loss forums, and I wanted to copy my reply here in my diary because it's made me all Mickey-warm-and-furry. :)


"How do your babies show you their love?"

These days, she comes with her beautiful spirit around me, so I feel a sweet closeness that she is still with me. When she was still here in body, she stuck to me wherever I went. If I sat on the family room sofa, so did she. If I was reading in bed, I'd have to contort myself to make room for her. If I went to the bathroom, she'd sometimes follow me down the hall and then back again.

When I lived in a different place, I used to sleep on two futon mattresses stacked on the floor. Mickey had a nightly ritual of curling at the foot of my bed until I fell asleep, and then doing her little kitty patrol through the house to make sure all was safe before returning to sleep in a nested blanket on the floor of my closet (which I always left open for her).

In the last four months of her life, she couldn't even tolerate sleeping alone in the family room. She'd come and meow and meow until I came out to sleep on the couch with her. She had a special seat next to it, and she wouldn't sleep on it in the bedroom. It had to be just us.

She also used to greet me at the door whenever I returned. My husband and I laugh because usually I get home first, but one day he did. She came to the door meowing, and then when he came in alone, she looked up at him, stopped meowing, as if to say, "you're not Mommy!" That was one of the things that made me cry the hardest after she went to the Bridge. Not hearing the meowing as I put the key in the lock. I still greet her, since I know she's with me in spirit form. Then on the third day, as the tears started welling again, I heard a quiet little Mickey meow, and I didn't cry coming home anymore because I knew she still came to the door.



"How do they express themselves to you?"

Lots of meowing. She and I always understood each other. She, like all cats, has that delicate language of trilling, meowing, screeching, etc. and I speak very fluent Mickey.

Also through touch. I always knew that Mickey loved me when she refused to sit next to me without some part of her touching me.

She always liked when I meditated or did yoga. She'd be a little purr monster hugged up against me, so I learned how to form my postures around her. Wow, that was an amazing bond, in the spiritual state with the purring little tabby cat. It was like a cocoon. I can still have that now, and it's a big source of comfort.




"Do you think that they know when you are upset and how do they show that? "

Absolutely. If I cried, she came out of nowhere to sit next me and purr. She knew that her purring balanced my soul again, and she knew that she was an excellent little fixer of troubles. If she thought that her daddy (my husband) made me cry, he'd get a grand 'ol scowling-at from Miss Mickey until all was right in the room again.




"How do they try to comfort you?"

Purring, touching, being with me, and if all else failed, pulling out the heavy artillery of rolling over and showing her raggedy little tummy for smooches!

Mickey and Whiskers

I want to thank all the wonderful people Mickey and I have met so far at Catster. It's awesome that so many of you think she's a cutie as much as I do!

I wish that I had found this site earlier, so I could have a diary dedicated to Mickey while she was still living here with me. But her life here was so special, that I could still have a diary filled with stories and experiences I had with her. And she is still always with me.

Today I thought I would share a story about how Mickey made sure that my first hamster, Whiskers, and I were together when Whiskers went to Rainbow Bridge.

Back then, I was involved in a convention business, so I was able to be home a lot with Mickey, but I had to travel two or three weekends a month. Mickey's Gamma used to come over to take care of her and my hammie, Whiskers. Whiskers lived in a ten gallon aquarium (more like a palace because I always spoil my furbabies :) ) in an upstairs bedroom. Mickey knew him. He used to roll around inside his plastic exercise ball and chase her around the room, but she put up with him because she knew how much I loved him.

Anyway, one night, I was in Virginia Beach, about four hours from where I used to live. We were set up at a disastrous convention, and we did something that we'd never done before. We packed up all the displays after the first day. We came back to the hotel to an emotional message from my mother. She had come for a second visit that Saturday to check on Mickey. She figured that she's already checked on Whiskers once, so he was probably fine.

But Miss Mickey wouldn't let her leave. She knew that he was upstairs in distress. She meowed and meowed and kept trying to lead her Gamma up to him. When my mother understood what Mickey was doing, she found Whiskers circling and circling around his home. He couldn't control himself. My mother tried calling the hotel number I'd left, but when she didn't get an answer, she took him to the emergency vet.

I got the voice message and immediately said that we had to go. We checked out of the hotel and hurried home to Whiskers. I was pretty hysterical. I called every twenty minutes or so on a cell phone trying to reach my mother. Finally I got her, and she told me that Whiskers had a stroke. The vet didn't have much to do for him, but he gave him a prednisone shot to try to reduce the swelling in his brain.

My little boy was still circling around his house when I got back. When I took him out and cradled him, he would calm for a few breaths while he was against my heart, but then the neurological problems started up again.

Hamsters just don't live long enough. Whiskers was my baby boy (still is) but that was his last night here. I only had him here for a year and seven months. I slept on a futon mattress on the floor with his aquarium right next to me. The sound of shuffling wood shavings was relentless, but we were both exhausted so I managed to get some sleep. I woke up during the night a couple of times to comfort him, but right after 6 a.m., I opened my eyes to find him curled up against the glass as close as he could have been to me. His little heart just couldn't take all of that rushing around.

If it wasn't for Mickey, my mother would have never known anything was wrong until the next day, when Whiskers would have probably been gone. Mickey made sure that Mr. Whiskers got care, and she made sure that I was able to get home to be with him at the end of his life here. She didn't think about the little pest in the purple plastic ball who crashed into her all the time. She thought about how much Mommy loved that little guy, and how much he needed help.

Mickey is a special girl that way. She's still with Mr. Whiskers. Not only do they live together at Rainbow Bridge waiting for me, but I have the ashes of Whiskers, my second hamster Matty, and Mickey in a little pink urn. (I wish I knew how to draw a heart on here, because that's what I want to put at the end of all of her entries).