Black And Yellow...
Mar. 11th, 2005 10:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greenstorm...for mourning. Arthur died, either this morning or yesterday. I came home on a check from housesitting and there he was.
My own grief often frightens me, I think. I feel, and have since sometime midway through the relationship with Kynnin, that giving in to something like that and simply being upset, grieving, where people can see me -- that that was a bad thing, and could only drive people away from me.
Maybe because of that, because my grief is my own, I begin to know the cycles well.
Right now my mind goes back over the past, over things that will not come again. I think, I remember the day I went into the pet store with... who? I'm sorry, was it Tillie who came with me? I had my yellow hoodie on. Merlyn would climb straight to my shoulder, and I knew I wanted that, but Arthur was so small and went to seek out places to hide in my clothing, and he would shake sometimes, I think he was often afraid. I had only gone in to get one rat that day, but because of Arthur I came away with two.
I remember setting up their cage for the first time in the bedroom.
I remember the box they came home with me in, and holding it on my lap.
I remember listening to them rustling at night. Silence isn't so easy for me to sleep in, now that I'm used to them.
It was always 'they', even when Arthur went into his own cage for fighting. They were the two rats who looked similar, Arthur smaller and with the stripe that went all the way down to his tail. They were brothers. Now there's only Merlyn left to me of them, although I was in the pet store today and I think one more of that litter was riding around on a clerk's shoulder.
They were going to be fixed on Monday. Now it will be Caramel and Merlyn.
I'm sad. There are little horrible bits about the death itself that it hurts to write about. I had to get Chris to take him out of the cage, because his nose was sort of stuck in the corner and I didn't want to tug hard on it. I'm not sure if he'd had one of his little seizures and died during that, or if his dead body had settled into the corner. I couldn't tug on him hard enough to get him out.
He was very tiny when I held him after that, a little thin thing. He'd always been tiny, but I can see why they thought life has weight.
He's under the garden now, not at my house but at the house I rent, and the kiwi vines will be planted over him and flourish because he died and was put in the cold (oh, it was cold) earth.
It wasn't unexpected. The boys aren't young anymore, and haven't had ideal lives. Angus had a rat live to be six, and I suppose a corner of my mind was hoping...
But no. And today I wore black and yellow, and those are the colours of mourning. And I cry, and I'll hold my remaining boyos close, because I love them too, like I loved my Arthur.
Love, love, and love, with the only pain being the absence of the subject.
My own grief often frightens me, I think. I feel, and have since sometime midway through the relationship with Kynnin, that giving in to something like that and simply being upset, grieving, where people can see me -- that that was a bad thing, and could only drive people away from me.
Maybe because of that, because my grief is my own, I begin to know the cycles well.
Right now my mind goes back over the past, over things that will not come again. I think, I remember the day I went into the pet store with... who? I'm sorry, was it Tillie who came with me? I had my yellow hoodie on. Merlyn would climb straight to my shoulder, and I knew I wanted that, but Arthur was so small and went to seek out places to hide in my clothing, and he would shake sometimes, I think he was often afraid. I had only gone in to get one rat that day, but because of Arthur I came away with two.
I remember setting up their cage for the first time in the bedroom.
I remember the box they came home with me in, and holding it on my lap.
I remember listening to them rustling at night. Silence isn't so easy for me to sleep in, now that I'm used to them.
It was always 'they', even when Arthur went into his own cage for fighting. They were the two rats who looked similar, Arthur smaller and with the stripe that went all the way down to his tail. They were brothers. Now there's only Merlyn left to me of them, although I was in the pet store today and I think one more of that litter was riding around on a clerk's shoulder.
They were going to be fixed on Monday. Now it will be Caramel and Merlyn.
I'm sad. There are little horrible bits about the death itself that it hurts to write about. I had to get Chris to take him out of the cage, because his nose was sort of stuck in the corner and I didn't want to tug hard on it. I'm not sure if he'd had one of his little seizures and died during that, or if his dead body had settled into the corner. I couldn't tug on him hard enough to get him out.
He was very tiny when I held him after that, a little thin thing. He'd always been tiny, but I can see why they thought life has weight.
He's under the garden now, not at my house but at the house I rent, and the kiwi vines will be planted over him and flourish because he died and was put in the cold (oh, it was cold) earth.
It wasn't unexpected. The boys aren't young anymore, and haven't had ideal lives. Angus had a rat live to be six, and I suppose a corner of my mind was hoping...
But no. And today I wore black and yellow, and those are the colours of mourning. And I cry, and I'll hold my remaining boyos close, because I love them too, like I loved my Arthur.
Love, love, and love, with the only pain being the absence of the subject.
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no subject
Date: 2005-03-12 08:39 am (UTC)Much love and thoughts to you, Greenie. Its always hard, and you never do get used to it. Rich lives led, under your care, and happier they are for it.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-15 08:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-12 10:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-12 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-15 08:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-15 11:09 pm (UTC)My sympathy...
Date: 2005-03-12 08:47 pm (UTC)I hope the memory of Arthur and whatever you learned from him will comfort you in your grief. *Hug*
Re: My sympathy...
Date: 2005-03-15 08:56 pm (UTC)You're still alive. Awesome. :)
Condolences
Date: 2005-03-13 06:10 am (UTC)Three is a very long lifetime for a rat; six years is phenomenal.
no subject
Date: 2005-03-14 01:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-15 08:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-16 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-18 12:52 am (UTC)I'm really sorry, Greenie. Makes me remember when my gerbils died. I've lost a lot of pets. I know it's hard. But the memories help.