Almozt a year

It's been nearly a year since the fire and I'm wondering when I'm going to stop getting upset over what I lost.  I don't think it's just the fire that gets to me but losses over the past number of years.  It seemed to have started when I lost my Rocco and then my precious Ollie.  Just when I decided I wanted to be a dog mother again and got Charlie, he nearly died and there I was in crises mode.  Charlie recovered but it felt like I had missed his puppyhood.  I guess it's hard to be a bouncing ridiculous puppy when you've faced death.  So once he was strong we got another puppy, Patty who was dead within days.  More vet visits, Parvo this time, and a puppy dying alone in the bedroom. 

I feel that I let Patty down so.  We had to keep her quarantined so that the parvo wouldn't spread to Charlie and only after she was gone that it dawned on me that maybe she should have had a heating pad.  Charlie had Frankie our ancient cat to curl up against when he was ill and maybe it was the warmth of her body or just her touch that helped.  Patty had none of that.  I couldn't even cuddle her as I would have liked for fear of carrying the infection out of the bedroom and onto Charlie.  I feel as if I let that poor baby down.  We wanted to adopt again, up and down with here's a pup and there's a pup and , eventually we got Kali.  Old cat Frankie died, a cousin died and only then did I find out I had lost more relatives that my sister neglected to inform me about.  It had always been in our family that one person in each family group is called to spread the word to the others.  Since my sister had decided to disown me, she couldn't be bothered to tell the rest of the famiily about that and so, I am sure, certain cousins looked at me as some kind of heartless shit.

Then came the fire and the cat the disappeared.  My dear little Isabella the timidest cat in the world.  Who knows what happened to her once she got out of the house.  Then there was living in a hotel and then the rental, sandwiched in between two households that weren't reluctant to show their dislike of us and added to that, the breakdown in my relationship with my son..  Well, you know how it goes, I have written of this before.

And all through that, I was NOT allowed to cry.  Everytime I broke down there was a lecture.  Crying over Rocco and Ollie were ridiculous, they were only dogs.  Crying over Patty, the same, and why did her death make me so unhappy, I hardly knew her.  Why cry over the house, everyone got out fine, it's only things, look at how beautiful it is once rebuilt.  Only it still doesn't feel like home.  It doesn't feel permanent. It doesn't feel right and still I should not cry because it was a blessing.

So now I find myself breaking down over inconsequential things.  A photo of a strangled pup on Facebook that sent me into hysterics, a stray thought, a memory.  As if to make matters worse, I was found crying one day only to to be told that they reason I was crying now is that the stress was over and I allowed myself to cry.

WHAT? 

Perhaps that is why I had a breakdown at the elderly neighbor's funeral.  One where I had to hide myself away so that my tears could not be seen. 


So what is all of this about?  I don't know.  I suppose I still feel so lost and broken and fragile that I am reaching out for any life line.  Even if it is putting down all of these losses and this pain down into the written word will help to ease them out of my head.  To make me whole again. 

Will it work.  I don't know but I do wish I could find my laughter again.



I think that was a victim of the fire as well.