Starting again
November has been a grueling month for us. At the start of the month we had to say goodbye to our beautiful old cat, Lilo. Her decline was quite sudden and although we are fortunate that her passing was as gentle and dignified as we could have wished for, our hearts are broken. We were emotionally and physically exhausted, that final week being characterized by fear, stress, brief flashes of hope when she appeared to be perking up a little and despair when we realised our hopes were in vain. The countdown to the inevitable, the thing we have been dreading for the past few years, trying to prepare ourselves for but not being able to, was one of the most harrowing weeks of our lives. Then the emptiness afterwards, the self-questioning, the guilt - all completely natural parts of the grief process and not a sign that we hadn't done the right thing. We knew that we had done what was right for Lilo, even though we ached to cuddle her again. Running h...