It has taken me a while to get used to the places where Selkie isn't anymore. ...

My friends think I'm mad, but you will understand I think... I bought a sheepskin rug. A big white fluffy one... Sometimes I put it on the floor at the end of my bed, sometimes at the top of the stairs where Selkie used to lie... Just having that big white fluffy rug is enough to have a place in the house where I can stand and feel her with me, or pat and smile at a fleeting memory of her. Pharaoh has taken to sleeping on it. So it will hold both memories now when he leaves me too.

I still dream of her... Sometimes I dream that she woke up again at the vets after I had gone and was lost... Those dreams are the worst now. The ones where I can't find her, but I know she's looking for me, lost and alone. The guilt has all but faded. I know I did right by her. I know it was her time and that the last few months were more about me needing to have time to say good bye than her enjoying her life. The worst guilt hits now when something happens and a thought comes unbidden "you could never have done this if Selkie were still with us." Then I feel a wave of guilt, or rage if it was said by someone else... I would put up with all the inconvenience and smell and noise in the world if I could have had just one more day with my happy shining smiling girl.

Oh Helena...

It does get better

But it never goes away.

Huge hugs to you all...

It has taken me a while to get used to the places where Selkie isn't anymore. ...

My friends think I'm mad, but you will understand I think... I bought a sheepskin rug. A big white fluffy one... Sometimes I put it on the floor at the end of my bed, sometimes at the top of the stairs where Selkie used to lie... Just having that big white fluffy rug is enough to have a place in the house where I can stand and feel her with me, or pat and smile at a fleeting memory of her. Pharaoh has taken to sleeping on it. So it will hold both memories now when he leaves me too.

I still dream of her... Sometimes I dream that she woke up again at the vets after I had gone and was lost... Those dreams are the worst now. The ones where I can't find her, but I know she's looking for me, lost and alone. The guilt has all but faded. I know I did right by her. I know it was her time and that the last few months were more about me needing to have time to say good bye than her enjoying her life. The worst guilt hits now when something happens and a thought comes unbidden "you could never have done this if Selkie were still with us." Then I feel a wave of guilt, or rage if it was said by someone else... I would put up with all the inconvenience and smell and noise in the world if I could have had just one more day with my happy shining smiling girl.

Oh Helena...

It does get better

But it never goes away.

Huge hugs to you all...