WHEN ANNIVERSARIES COLLIDE

 

I remember the numbness I felt after we left Tigger behind with the vet.  After having a moment to hug and cry, we walked back to the front desk.  Maybe there was paperwork left to sign and bills to pay.  I don't remember exactly how the date came into my mind, but I remember telling Manfred rather somberly... 

"Today is Dad's fifth anniversary."  

We had Tigger euthanized on January 28, 2013... five years to the date that my Dad died.  

I didn't think about Dad all that morning, as we were panicking to get Tigger to the hospital in Edmonton.  Tigger was filling our minds and our emotions.  He was our four legged boy.  Manfred was his dad for ten years and I was his mom for four.  He was Manfred's first cat.  

For four years, January 28 was Dad's day, now he would share it with Tigger for the remainder of my days.  Every year to pass became an emotional balancing act.  I tried to find ways to keep both my precious father and my precious furbaby in my mind and heart.  

I wasn't with my Dad when he breathed his last breath, but I was with Tigger.  I held Tigger as his body bid farewell to this earthly existence.  It was my first experience being with a loved one in that moment.  Life ebbed from him and his energy lifted from it's earthly cage to mix unencumbered with the universe.  (a rather poetic picture).

I wonder how Dad would have felt sharing this special day with a family feline.  I remember often how Dad would embrace Boomer.  He had a soft spot for critters and it showed in the way he cuddled that Calico that shared his life for twenty years.  Maybe there is something rather fitting in this story.  

I often think of the special people who collide on my calendar.  My friend Lori shares a birthday with my Oma.  My great nephew shares a birthday with my Grandpa.  It brings a strength to the day and leaves it less lonely.  I can celebrate with one, and remember the other.  

Today it is fifteen years since Dad died and ten years since Tigger died.  Reaching those milestones makes me wonder if it really feels like it's been that long.  I have had a whole marriage in the time that my Dad has been gone and I have mothered two cats in the time Tigger has been gone.  I am not saying the Dad and Tigger holes are gone, but with Manfred, Sofie and Twinkel in my life... it's like flowers are growing in the holes.  A beautiful reminder of presence and absence, a gathering of warm love residual from the past mingled with the present.   

"People respond to your loss relative to how they view the value of what you've lost."  

Ruby Neumann