Pawing It Forward 15th Birthday Celebration

Abby

 July 1,1999 

August 12,2013

Today marks Abby's 15th birthday.
My first without her.
Today will be a hard day no doubt. There will be tears shed and there will be joy as well. I am not far enough along in my Journey to be able to truthfully say I am without the sorrow deep in my heart, in fact the sadness still sits so heavy on me at times that it makes me wonder how long I will carry it.
Today will be one of those times that I will wonder how far I can carry it.
I am sharing many pictures of Abby throughout her years with me and also today I am sharing a special story about two extraordinary people whose story interwines and it's my Abby that ties it all together.

I want you to meet Abb. Isn't he gorgeous? Abb came to Clara Showalter around the time Abby was so very sick. Clara is a volunteer extraordinaire at Austin Pets Alive, a No Kill Rescue in Austin Texas. Clara works with many of the cats that come in with high health risks. She is special. Many of you may remember CancerCat, Sandy who Clara shared with us at Feline Foster Follies. I think this is actually how Clara and I met, you see Sandy was a manx too. Sandy was a true feline warrior and her story is one I highly recommend you read about.Sandy may no longer be with us but her spirit lives on.

 Clara honored Abby by naming this sweet ginger boy Abb. She fostered him through his eye surgery and got him back up on all four paws. Sadly, during this time Abby lost her battle. But, it was such an honor to have her name carried on by this sweet boy. When the time came for Clara to send Abb along his way, his adoptive Mother came all the way from Oregon to Texas to adopt this very special cat. Clara shared with Natalie (his adoptive Mother), the story behind his name and Natalie was so moved that she decided to keep his name as Abb. Abby became his well honor Angel Godmother and Abb I hope you know that you have a special guardian Angel watching over you.

Abb has his own Facebook page it's called Abb's Squirrel Tail.

That brings me to wanting to do something special since it's Abby's birthday. I thought I would do a commentathon and donate .50 per comment to Austin Pets Alive in Abby's and Abb's honor. I hope you will join me. One comment from each household please.
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Plus Abby is going to send one special person a $25 gift card to PetsMart. If you want to be considered for the random drawing just let me know in the post.
Also please leave a way for me to contact you, an email would be great!
I will be using random.org to make the selection.

I began Day 1 after I lost Abby by posting one B/W photo a day of her on her Twitter account under the #hashtag #rememberingabby. I was doing it in any constructive way in the beginning. It became  a way of remembrance. As time went by I refined that idea and began putting quotes with each photo. So things evolved and it became a year long project. I plan to put all the photos together on her one year anniversary. These photos are many I chose to begin that project with.

I have so many photos of Abby. It was hard to go back through them and pick and choose. I found in the beginning it was just so hard. When I uncovered things I hadn't seen in a long time it brought forth so many memories. Along with so many tears.

Abby loved sitting on the kitchen table. As you can see the sun was perfect for afternoon napping. Abby's garden is now right out of these windows shown in these pictures. I chose that area because of her love of looking out of this big picture window and the close proximity to the house. I see her garden every time I cross through the kitchen and that is how I wanted it to be. I wanted to see her and think of her.

It's so easy in my mind to just see her lying there.

I also love photos of her in silhouette. The one below shows the afternoon sun acting like a halo around her and that plush double coat of fur is so full.

Another of Abby's favorite spots was the back porch. Being in Florida with our milder climate the porch is a near year round room which all the cats go back and forth onto. Abby certainly loved whiffing!

It dawns on me that so many of the photos I've chosen throughout the years are in the kitchen. Abby is again on the window sill in the kitchen.

When I look now I can see some aging in her face in this photo from 2012 (in the kitchen on top of the kitchen table, I am sitting down below her looking up). I sure do miss seeing this face.

This photo is one of my all time forever favorites of Abby. I had it made into a over sized photo canvas last January. I photoshopped it to erase out the ugliness that her illnesses had done to her,so you'll have to forgive me for editing out the harshness. I would never publish a photo of her that was unflattering. But the story behind this is it was the last hurrah she had. That morning, August 3rd, a Saturday, she jumped up on the dining room table and had bath , then got down and came and sat with me and all the other cats in the morning sun. I mistakenly thought she had turned a corner, but in retrospect it was truly the last time she felt strong enough and decent. It was all downhill after this. In fact the day this photo was taken she had a set back and had to be rushed back to the ER for the second time in less than week. I didn't know it then but it was the beginning of the end.

It's been close to 11 months since that fateful day and it's been a  long and hard Journey. I'm still trying to find answers. Now I'm guessing, but I doubt I will ever find them. It seems I am not supposed to find them, not in this life. Over the next few weeks so many milestones happen, this summer will be full of triggers. Grief is such a tangled complex thing. Tied to our memories which we all hold so precious to our hearts, the smallest thing can spin the entire process into a raging storm. I miss her. I have looked for words to describe it better but they fail me. I just miss her. Still.

Thank you Natalie for letting me borrow these great photos both you and Clara took of our Godson!

But today I am trying to let Abby give back. So I hope you'll help me do that. I will total up all the comments and make a donation in Abb & Abby's honor to Austin Pet's Alive. I will leave the comments open until July 4th and let you know next week what the grand total is. Thank you all for compassion and love you've shown Abby through all of these years. Thank you for listening to me as I've traveled on Abby's Journey. I hope my own personal outpouring of grief posts have helped shed some light to anyone who may be going down the path themselves.That has been a part of my message.Grief never stops, it bends, twists,slows and takes many curves but it never stops. Once you hold something in your heart, it never leaves, but the missing doesn't either. That is my struggle today. I am missing the future we will never share during the rest of my lifetime.
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Happy Birthday Baby.
I love you
to the moon
and back
again...
and
again...
and
again...