I really can't stop thinking about death, and it's not even really about my own death. At least not until recently. Everytime I look at my best friend who has grown old and bonier, I think about the one we lost and I think about the one im going to lose. With snickers, its always bothered me that I never took it upon myself to take her to the vet even though we didn't have the extra money for a hefty bill, so instead I had to watch her die slowly as she struggled to walk and eat up until the day she died. She didn't go out quietly, but she went out alone. I'll always regret that I didn't stay at the vet's because no matter how much I prayed to be wrong for her to survive I knew that deep down she was going to die and I wasn't there. I never thought she would die so soon, I mean I had been preparing myself for my older cat but I couldn't prepare myself to lose her. I always thought she'd be there for me when I lost my best friend.

Its harder when you are an atheist, because you don't blindly believe in something like a heaven or a god. You study and figure things out on your own. I stopped believing in the Christian faith many years ago, because of my life and everything I've lost. I just couldn't believe that there was some god out there that wholely knew my limitations, that would take away things so important to me to test me or make me a better person. On top of that there's so many different beliefs, if there was a heaven I'd want to be with all of my pets not just one. For reincarnation, I'd like to be born over and over again just to meet them again. I mean do you ever really wonder what happens when you die? I imagine it as this endless darkness full of a peaceful feeling. In most cases when you are about to die you feel oddly at peace.

Believing in ghosts used to help me sleep at night, but it wasn't just some blind belief. I used to spend hours talking to my grandfather in the graveyard, just telling him about how things were going with our family and it felt like I wasn't alone. I felt safe and comforted when I visited him. I didn't start becoming more aware of these feelings and senses until I woke up one night and couldn't move when I looked to the side of my bed there was a shadowy figure in a hat and trenchcoat. He was strangling me, with such force I couldn't breathe I couldn't move I could only watch as the feeling of someone's hands on my throat slowly disappeared. But I was still shocked and afraid so it took my body some time to begin breathing and able to move. It occurred to me that I might've upset one of the people buried in the graveyard since my main source of transportation around town was my bike. So I've been wary about visiting again and un-easy even now that we no longer live in town. It could've been chalked up to my incessant horrible nightmares, But it was unlike anything I had ever experienced.

When I found a serious boyfriend, I never really realized that his sister was dead. I mean I knew but not like.... it's hard to explain since we weren't close as kids. But for our first couple of dates, out in the back room something felt off. I was un-easy and I kept glancing around the room it felt like I was being watched by something, even when no one else was in there with me and it didn't feel friendly. It made me feel like I was going to be attacked, so I kept leaving to find him. In the main part of the house I didn't feel this, it was more of a light im being watched feeling. Until you know, doors were being opened by themselves. I wasn't told that the house was haunted until we were together for... I think a year he got talking about it when we were out in the hot tub and I openly said well that explains a lot. When I told him about the things I had been experiencing he told me about the things he and his family had. Needless to say it made my hair stand on end, and when I did end up staying over night in the guest room I often found I wasn't able to sleep because that feeling of being watched and attacked came back. I learned more about them, some of his sister's ashes were in the house and the spare room had once been her room. The more I found out about her the more I felt that she was still around. The things that set off my senses happened a lot less while I was there for the next couple of years.

When we moved into this apartment, it was the first time I didn't wake up constantly at 4am with a horrible nightmare. I had so very few nightmares it was shocking, not even like my really weird wacked up dreams that made me feel like I was on something. Like.... probably what I though smoking pot felt like to people. When snickers died, I just wanted to see her so badly. I just wanted to know that she was ok. That I don't remember if I felt paw steps on my legs or weight when no one else was there. But I was in turmoil, all I did was cry and heave and it got a lot worse when I realized the only other person to care about me cared more about himself to leave me in my time of need. It hit me hard, I ended up starving myself, stress vomiting, heaving, shaking intensely, feeling cold and my chest aching. When I did finally see snickers... I cried hard when I woke up. I had finally gotten to say good bye to her the way that I never had the chance to when she was alive. Since then there's been nothing. No matter how much I cry and miss her.

I understand why death happens, if we lived forever we'd have no need to reproduce. People would grow bored of living, and want to die. With death, comes life. Death makes room for new life to grow. With Snickers death, came a lot of pain but if she had never died we would've never adopted Princess; Sometimes with Princess it's like Snickers never left they act so much alike. I think they would've liked each other. If Snickers never died im not sure we would've taken in Mushie when her owners neglected her and killed her kittens. If we never took in Mushie, her next litter would've been killed with the same story of oh they were malformed, she was acting weird, she ate them. When, if she had been eating the first ones they would've had almost nothing to bury. Surely not a decent sized chicken box. She would've been pregnant again and if they killed the kittens then there would be nothing left of Rossi in this world seeing as he was hit by a car. Or Mushie would've been dead like the rest of her companions that she used to live with. If Snickers had lived, im not sure that even if we saved Mushie and her kittens if we would've kept them. Like we did. In her death alone she saved seven cats. We weren't able to keep them all, but we did keep Mushie and two of her female kittens. My sister adopted the female orange kitten and the black kitten who grew to look so much like his deceased father.

I feel bad for Rossi no sooner had he gone into the ground, did they forget about him. There's no marker, no one visits him. All they did was get more cats, finally gaining a brain did they decided to keep these ones in. Rossi was a good tom-cat, he was friendly and loveable. Most everyone loved him, the people that didn't never hurt him. He was fed by three different people, even the cabin people I discovered. So much love for one cat, but the people that owned him neglected him so much they lead him to his death. It wasn't something that was reasonable, he just needed to be fixed, fed and wormed. It wasn't that much money, and his death could've been prevented.... just like the poor kitten that was pancaked a few weeks before him.

When I start thinking about losing my best friend I think about what else I am losing; My heart. My humanity. My compassion. She's been with me through everything, more then any human being ever could be. Every time I cried she was there like a fluffy tissue wiping my tears, being close to me. I'll have to face everything alone again, I wont have someone concerned about how I feel or to be close to me when I sleep. I wont feel her claws on my face as I try to sleep. When im sick I wont have her sleeping with me. I don't know where were even going to bury her. But what will I become? Will I become a sick animal with little care about others, because I have lost everything I have ever cared about? Will I just become a walking corpse? I want to live, I want to survive but what is the point if everything I love withers and dies leaving me alone. When it comes to me, I've nearly drowned. It was peaceful just floating in the golden chocolate waters until my instincts kicked in to survive. But my thoughts were... is this how im going to die? Have I really done everything in this life that I could do? Did I help? Did I make a difference? When I think about my own death I wanna do more, I wanna see more, I want to be free. Like really free to feed my adventurous personality. When I sleep I become frightened and cry, because one day I wont wake up. It maybe sooner, or later then what I think.

This world I don't want to leave, it is so cruel but it is also so very beautiful. That often people forget about that, I appreciate the wonder and splendor of it as well as the dark side. Without death there can be no life. But I think I would give up reproduction to save the life of my best friend. I had always thought that she'd be right there with me when I died. It was a pleasant thought. Maybe even a lonely thought. It scares me that one day it all ends, for them it's a very short time depending on how well you care for them. For us, it's years that fly by too quickly. That you forget to appreciate what you have until its gone for what you know as forever. I just wish we knew something even just a little bit about what happens to us on a conscious level. It would make it easier for me to sleep at night, it would be easier to not burst into tears and dry heave until all the contents leave me. It'd be easier to live without all this pain eating at me.

I don't sleep well, if I sleep more then a few hours or sleep most of the day. My mother tells me I need to move on, but I cant forget it. I cant forget that my indecisiveness and submissiveness cause me not to try to save her. I forgot her face, it's hard to remember her as she was alive without looking at the few pictures we had. My mother she wanted to find another cat the same color as her, but I didn't want another cat especially not one the same color. It made me feel like she was trying to replace her, and that wasn't something I was willing to do. Even as I saw all the kittens I quickly moved away from the orange kitten and played with the male black tabby. Then to the others. While my mother clung to the orange one, she made it clear that she would only take that one. I begrudgingly gave in, and cried when the kitten reminded me of Snickers. Sometimes I still do, there's some hope in me that maybe some part of her is in Princess.

I just wish I wasn't so vulnerable to this, most people just go on living glancing back once in awhile. But i'm emotionally crippled by it to the point that I don't work on living my own life, make things better, etch out my own existence. My biggest strength being hope and my biggest weakness being fear. I most likely feel this way since I haven't had any recent expiriences with the dead. Last time, it was when I visited my boyfriend (at the time). There were three confimed, however the hound never showed while I was there. The woman in the woods must've been watching me as I got a drink at night. The grandmother or something walked around in the kitchen stopping just a few feet from where we slept. But the cat was very sick, and I didn't feel it was normal. If I was alone with the cat in the cellar I felt a more aggressive and unsafe feeling, I didn't like leaving her in the cellar. I didn't like being down there at night, someone even turned off the light while I was down there. But... I feel that whatever was down there wasn't friendly. A week after I left the cat died. That is now over a year ago. I kind of miss being where strange happenings occur, it made me feel like ghosts were entirely a possibility. Good or bad, it was comforting. I miss it. I miss being able to just hear my thoughts and feelings outloud.