Could We Start Again, Please

Sweet Stuffed is asleep beside me while I type, for starters.  The vet visited Friday afternoon to treat an overgrown dewclaw, trim the rest of Stuffed's nails, and to shave some of the matted fur that I've been too afraid to handle on my own.  He expertly and most efficiently did all these things but also said that Stuffed, at 19, is experiencing "Old Cat-ness" now and that we should just love him and do our best to take good care of him, especially since Stuffed can no longer take care of himself as well as he used to.  It is harder for him to bend and stretch while cleaning himself, for example, so we need to be the ones to wash his paws and paw-pads.  At this age, he went on, a cat's skin is so thin, it can tear just by scraping up against something, and its bones are so frail, people can literally break a cat by not handling it gently enough.  It is good that Stuffed wears a jingle-bell on his collar, he added, so there's less chance anyone will accidentally turn too fast and step on him.  Stuffed is down to five pounds now too, he said, and when a cat's skin has become as thin and fragile as Stuffed's now is, he explained, it's typically in the next six months that "real problems" begin.  

With "six months" seemingly echoing after the vet left, I spent the rest of Friday afternoon and evening bursting into crying jags, wishing I could go back to the beginning with Stuffed and do it all again.  That Stuffed avoided me the first three hours after the vet-visit was understandable but didn't help.  When he finally re-approached me, slowly walking toward me in bed only to curl up at my side unexpectedly, I started crying yet again.  ('Sweet Stuffed, ♥ no way for him to win with me Friday.)  I knew this was all coming someday, of course, but someday was narrowed down so suddenly.  As Mike pointed out Friday night, yes, Stuffed's old, but he could live five more years; The vet can't predict the future.  I am already suffering some of the loss, though, and am still choking up multiple times a day when I think of all this.  I have heard "six months" before about loved ones and have clearly survived, but there is something about this innocent little soul and the idea that he doesn't know what I know. . . .I already feel gutted by it.  I have already prayed to Sommer and asked her to take care of him after he passes.  I believe in such things, and she was a lifelong cat-lover and cat-rescuer, and if it's possible, I know she will do this for me.  Appear to him even before he passes, please. . . .I want him to be used to you already. . . .Don't let him be scared or lonely for even one second, Sommer, please, I mean this.  The thought that Stuffed could go from the warmth of my arms to hers is the only one really bringing me any peace these past few days.  ♥  I am having a hard time here. 

Ohhhhhh, my heart.  I get so very tired of this loss business, for all of us.