My year of death and loss . . .

Loss was a way of life for a very long time. It seems as if, from 2007 to recently, there has been nothing but loss. It takes a toll that is physical, mental and metaphysical. Loss chipped away at my heart, not diminishing me, but hardening or honing my sensibilities. I have spent a long time this year wondering about this time of my life and the losses I heard my grandparents and my parents talk about. I remember them talking about their friends dying. How much they missed them. And then the loss of their parents and how that made them feel. I lost my father, then my mother. Each of these losses came with possessions to sort through and memories to lay to rest.
The loss of my pets hurt me deeply as well. Arthur and Lost, my two feline friends of advanced age. Lost, the outdoor cat who came inside and decided he liked it better sleeping on the bed. Arthur, a proud, wild Russian Blue who fell in love with me as quickly as I fell in love with him. They defined certain years of my life and I held Lost as he drifted from this world to the beyond, and cried when I came home to find my beloved Arthur had waited until I was away to leave me, curled up in a ball as if he was asleep outside under my bedroom window.
Ubo, my little Shepherd mix girl, found at a distance ride and rescued because no one else wanted to deal with the small, sad mangy puppy who sat as close as she dared to the ride officials because she was just trying to keep warm. She just decided one night, very late, that it was time to go and rested her head in my lap and looked up at me until her eyes closed that final time.
They all lived long, happy and healthy lives. But still, each loss diminished me in ways I can hardly describe.
When I said goodbye to my beautiful Astrolea, mother of my two beautiful Arab geldings, full brothers only two years apart, it was planned. Rather than find her in terrible pain at some not-so-distant point in time, I decided it was far kinder to give her an injection that would let her go painlessly. Orchestrating the planned death of a beloved horse is not an easy thing to do. But I was determined it would be her last best day, with carrots, treats, lots of hay and she would be surrounded by her sons and their real uncle, Gandolf, who was the love of her life. They made her last day special and then the vet and her assistant were there along with my friend Jim who hated burying horses but did it just for me. He told me it always made him cry and he hated to upset the owners of the horses any more than they already were.
He had dug a great sloping hole in the small paddock. The vet did the injection and she dropped to the ground and was gone very fast. Sometimes, it is not that easy but I was lucky that day and so was she. My riding friends, husband and the vet and her assistant and I all took hold of her and slid her down to her final rest. It was easy and beautiful and the humans, working together to ease her into that place filled my heart with a kind of pride. I had wanted it to be a graceful end, as graceful as this beautiful mare had always been to me. It was April and my lilies and narcissus were in bloom. I cut a stalk filled with four creamy white lilies, one for each of the horses, who would no longer be four, but three, and placed it on her neck. I wrapped her eyes with white vetwrap because I didn't want sand to get in them when she was covered. She faced east toward Mecca because she was a full-blooded Arabian horse. Her bloodlines traced back to the African desert and to the Bedouins whose horses slept beside their silken pallets at night inside their tents and acted as watchdogs, alerting them if their enemies dared to come too close.
Jim finished his job and as he did, I wiped my tears and wrote the vet a check so they could leave. My best friend and riding buddy of 20 years stood with me as Lealea was covered and we said our goodbyes and talked of our two gray mares, their first ride together and how one would surely be waiting for the other when it was her time.
The loss of Noche, my black cat family matriarch and her daughter, Big began what was, for me, my year of death. I knew it was going to be bad but had no idea I would lose my two oldest and best friends, Chaos, my wolfdog for 13 years and Gandolf, my last best riding horse, mentor, protector, and wise teacher.
From February 5 until November 17 of 2011, I was numb and continued to feel as if I too was going to fall off the earth into nothingness, just missing them so terribly. Even now, writing this down because I willed myself back to this blog I have abandoned for such a long time, I can feel the sadness tightening deep in my chest.
If it is inhuman to miss my nonhuman friends more than some humans, then that is what I am. I'm not contrite, or embarrassed, or less a person than anyone else. The animals have always drawn me to them and I have always drawn them to me. From the time I was two and my frantic mother found me standing in the middle of a herd of cows who were licking my face as I giggled, I have alway preferred the company of the four-legged creatures.
As hard as it is to lose each faithful, giving soul, for they do have souls, I know I will continue to be a lover of animals and seek their friendship until I die. The poem about a rainbow bridge always makes me cry. Sometimes I count the heads of those I expect to meet me there and it is a very large number of furry faces. I only hope the bridge is wide enough so we can all go across together.