Cats & Dogs in the Afterlife

Hi everyone,

I just finished this one up today. It took me a while, because I needed to find a picture of my old dog, Lucy, whom I mentioned. Like I said, she died a long time ago, about 8 years ago, and we've digitized our old photo album pictures since then. So it took me a while to dig it up. I managed to put up a picture of her below.

I think this was taken back in 1999. She was in Denver at this time, as she went to live with my grandparents. I remember being really happy to see her when I would go visit them. I just loved petting her, and being happy to see her, and the fact that she was just so furry. Lucy was an Australian shepard, amd I get the feeling, looking back now, that she was probably a farm dog at heart. Like Fuzz, we adopted Lucy (I think she was from a shelter, but I do not remember how we got her). My parents say she was a nervous dog. Being couped up in an urban house with a small backyard probably made her stir-crazy. I have a feeling if we had lived on a wide-open pasture, she would have been right at home. Anyway, she was a damn good pet to have.

The week Lucy died was not a good week for me personally. There was other bad stuff going on in my life, and that came on top of it all. Unfortunately, we hadn't gotten to see her regularly in the last few years of her life. Back when we first adopted Fuzz, I wondered whether it was disrespectful to Lucy. Then I wondered what it would be like if Lucy and Fuzz had been around at the same time, whether they would get along. It seemed mismatched to own a dog, and then own a cat.

This brings me to one of the central points of this post, and this artwork. Dogs and cats, as creatures, are usually pitted against each other. People see dogs and cats as polar opposites, hence the above movie poster. "Dog people" are supposed to dislike cats, "cat people" are supposed to dislike dogs. This makes me really sad. I like to say that I like both dogs and cats, having owned one of each. It's fun to have all that outward energy and enthusiasm of a dog, like Lucy. The way she used to go after people was sometimes nervewracking for us, but she was a lot of fun for us, too.

Fuzz, on the other hand, was decidedly not a nervous, well, for lack of a better term, personality. Fuzz was not even afraid of dogs. One day, a woman who was walking a rather large dog, asked us if "that little grey cat that was following them" was ours. That was a a surprise reversal of events. Many people think of cats as being aloof, antisocial with people. Fuzz was not that way. Yes, she was solitary, as many cats are, but she would happily introduce herself to people. However, I think Lucy and Fuzz would enjoy each other's company, although they say a dog and a cat take some time to get used to each other.

That's why I got the idea to draw this. It was meant to be a representation of Lucy and Fuzz in the Animal Afterlife together. I drew it as if it were in Colorado or Utah or Wyoming, at the foot of the Rockies. I had no real specific reason for this, I just got the impulse, and I am fascinated by the topography found in these places. This was another landscape involving mountains. Mountainscapes are tricky to capture, but I really enjoy doing them, and seeing the whole thing come together.

I also did this as a late-afternoon, early-evening piece. I love playing with this quality of light. Again, it is a challenge, but I love seeing it come together. In this illustration, you can see that I had difficulty with the light on the grass. I wasn't certain of how the shadows of the grass blades were going to reflect. So I colored in the grass itself, then the light, then the shadow. It came out as an interesting blend of green, orange, and dark.

The source of light here is also particularly important. Notice the shaft of sunlight coming over the mountain. This was intended as religious symbolism. Usually, shafts of sunlight, especially coming down through the clouds, are used in images evocative of God. I have noticed this so much that I have taken to calling such shafts of light "God Beams." Below is just one sample of such an illustration.

See if you can think of any similar images you have seen. I like to use such images from time to time in my own works. I did in my illustration of the Divine Feminine figure clutching an M16 rifle. I do it to keep in touch with that deep, unitary dimension of the Unknown that connects all of us. It finds many expressions in religions, but the religions of the world have their own human flaws and moorings that hinder this expression. In my drawing and storytelling, I like to connect it back with that Spirit. I am still uncommitted on whether to call it God, in the Abrahamic sense, but this does It some justice.

My point was to show Lucy and Fuzz united together in the Great Unknown. I had wondered if they would one day be together, and now they are, and I did this as a celebration, in a way, of that fact. Not of her being dead, but her being in a Peaceful Place now. For Fuzz, I am glad, not that she left, but that she left the way that she did. Even though it was a painful surprise, with how it happened, we did enjoy all of our time together with her. We enjoyed her company up until the very last day. There wasn't a pall of dread hanging over our relationship for the last few weeks or months before she died. If nothing else, I am thankful for that.

Over these past few days, I have mellowed slightly in the emotions I have gone through. I still have flashes of sadness, but it seems to have dissipated quicker than I thought. In a way, I am concerned that I am not more troubled by Fuzz's death. Odd, but sometimes, I feel like the lack of a really potent emotion indicates apathy, even though I do not feel it. Then when the sadness does come, it is always too powerful and overwhelming, and I try to get away from it.

I hope this drawing can be a celebration of Fuzz's life, as well as my love for the pets, past and present, in my care. Even though my level of sadness has gone up and down, I still feel, on the whole, like I want to keep my life as quiet as I can, to honor Fuzz's memory. I don't know exactly why, but that's how I have felt since I learned of her passing. I do feel, however, that I am on the way to doing what I set out to, to moving my life forward, but never letting Fuzz just fade out or be forgotten. I intended this as a testament to the memory of Lucy and Fuzz, both of whom gave and received much joy in their worlds.

See ya, and keep wondering, folks!

Pet Memorials, and "Long or Short Posts?"

Hi there my peoples,

Well, today has been a little easier, so far, to deal with, than yesterday was. I guess now that Fuzz has discovered her new home in in Cat Heaven, I am a little more at ease down on Earth. Most of yesterday, I'd see some shadow in the corner of my eye around the house, and I'd think it was her, then I'd be hit anew with the shock of her being gone. Just the thought of her dying, leaving us, and being away, in the most drastic and ultimate sense, really tore at my heart.

Today, the same waves of grief that I described yesterday are still crashing (going from feeling okay about it to being totally devastated). However, today, they are less intense. I know they will never totally go from my life; I'm okay with that. Now I am grappling with the goal I set out yesterday night. I want to deal with the grief, but make sure her memory and spirit are always honored as part of my life.

One thing the great article on losing your pet that I read yesterday mentioned was to construct a memorial to the deceased critter. This is what I am working on now. Yesterday, another shocker was seeing all her food dishes and litter box out in the garage. All of Fuzz's accessories from the kitchen, but no Fuzz. They had all been layed out so methodically just one day earlier.

I decided we should give away, or donate most of the stuff. However, I will keep her milk saucer as a reminder of the wonderful effect she had on my life. Keeping that spirit and those memories present and real is my prime goal. I do not want time to diminish the importance of Fuzz.

This (Fuzz's milk saucer) will be part of our little Fuzz memorial

Anyway, on to another functional question about the blog itself. First, I read a couple of the posts to some of my family, who are my first readers. They said that the average internet reader is looking to read a short blurb, since they aren't willing to focus for very long. I understand this, although the subjects that I offer up for these posts and the way I naturally write often demands that go longer, sometimes much longer and more in depth, than I expect.

I like to introduce my subject, then talk about the issues, then lay out my view, backing up my view when necessary, and reconcile mine with those of others. Now, sometimes I include more sources and graphics, if I am talking about a big issue. Other times I like to talk about it in the context of some interaction I just had with someone. So my favorite thing to do is to tie in the big-picture issues with the little interactions I have in life.

This gives more reality to said issue, beyond it being a theoretical argument. I seldom used to find chances to connect the "micro-world" with the "macro-world," as I like to put it. This blog offers me a chance to do that. I would like to know what you think of it. Would you read this more if I wrote shorter blurbs on my drawings and others' works of art that I encounter, or can you read my longer entries without glazing over? I will wind up using both, but I would like to know what you think. Please comment on it.

Speaking of comments, I heard that some of my relatives had trouble putting a comment up. People being able to write in and respond to these entries is a key point of this blog. My dream is that someday, someone will find this blog, read an entry, and be sufficiently motivated to comment. It is that back-and-forth, the conversationality of it, that I would really love to get going. So please tell me, are you having any trouble logging in? I know Blogger is not the most up-to-date way of publishing, but it's worked for me in the past, and I already had an account with them.

Also, what do you think I should use as an opening line? All I could really think of was "Hi there," which I will likely do until I find something else that grabs me. I'd like to hear ideas from you guys though. Like I said, this is about a give and take between you and me.

See ya, and keep wondering folks!

In Memory of Fuzz: You Will Never Be Forgotten, You Will Always Be Loved

Hi there,


Well, our family got some bad news this morning. Our cat, Fuzz, had been having health problems. She had been drooling, less energetic, she ate and drank much less, and her breath really stank. She was not able to clean herself. We knew we had to take her to the vet, but we assumed that it was just a mouth infection that was bothering her. We thought that we would take her to the vet, they would get her rotted teeth worked on, and then she would get some of her spunk back.


Even yesterday, the doctor sounded semi-optimistic about her condition. He did offer the possibility that there might be a tumor in her throat, but that seemed unlikely at the time. He gave her an antibiotic (along with a fluid injection, since she was dehydrated), and when she came home, we observed that she seemed more alert, and with a little more energy. I watched her, looking at her food dish last night, expecting that she'd likely have a teeth extraction, and then we'd have her back here, somewhat healthy again.


This morning, around 8:30, the vet called. He told me that they were going to stick some apparatus in Fuzz's mouth to get the infectious stuff out. She had a tumor so swollen that they couldn't even get the machine in her throat. When I asked him he told me definitely that there was nothing they could do about the tumor at this point. This was really jarring to hear.


After all this time, Fuzz's time was essentially over. The best thing to do at this point, they told me, since she was already under anasthaesia, was to let her go to sleep. After talking with my Mom, we decided that this was for the best. Otherwise, they said, the tumor would get so bad Fuzz would choke to death slowly. At least this way, she could go peacefully and without pain.


This morning, Fuzz, a female with silver fur, passed away. We don't know exactly how old she was, but I estimated that she must have been about eight or nine years old. This is because the vet doing the tests a while back told us she was about five years old, and that was four years ago. So In her young years, she had been a stray cat. She had been abandoned in an old apartment. Our neighbor, a home repair contractor, took her in, and she lived next door until we took her in, about a year after that.


In the vet's waiting room yesterday, I said to my Dad, and to her, that I remember the first time I met Fuzz. Back then, I didn't know what her name was. We never figured out if she had had a name, or what it was, so we settled on the name "Fuzz," as in "the fuzz," or the police. Anyway, I was sitting out on the front steps one friday night in September of 2005. It was dusk, and I was waiting for Dad to arrive home from some trip. Anyway, I had some new warm-ups on, and then this little cat came up to me. She just started meowing at me, I talked to her, just hoping she wouldn't go to the bathroom on my clothes.


At that time, we were having mouse problems. Mice were getting into our food, crapping all in the kitchen, and making a mess. Fuzz kept hanging out in our front yard. Time went on, and in the early winter of 2006, around February, we began floating the idea of adopting this little cat, to take care of the mouse issue, even though I insisted on being gentle with the mice. We talked with the neighbors, and they said they would like us to take care of her. So, in March of 2006, thereabouts, she began staying at our house. A few months later, after they moved, she became "officially" ours. Fuzz caught a couple of mice, and the rest "got the message."


I have always had a soft spot in my heart for animals, but more than anything, for dogs and cats. Pets can provide you a dimension of companionship that people cannot. An animal won't give you an endless amount of drama, they won't judge you, they won't maliciously use you or manipulate you, and when you come home from an exhausting day, they will listen to you unconditionally, letting you blow your frustration away. It is well-known that a dog will display an eager, happy and enthusiatic attitude (I used to own a sheppard dog named Lucy when I was little). I used to joke that cats always look like they're annoyed or pissed at you.


However, if you spend enough time studying a cat, as I did with Fuzz, you can recognize signs of affection. For instance, if you find a cat head-butting you softly, that is their way of scent-marking you, of making you "theirs." In Fuzz's case, she was a very outgoing cat. When someone would come to the house, Fuzz would first rub her body up against them, then when they sat down, Fuzz would jump on their lap. She had this thing she would do with us, especially me, where she would jump on my lap , then kneed her paws slowly into me. Sometimes she would step on my crotch, which would really hurt.


It might seem odd that a guy in his teens and twenties would be so attached to a cat, but Fuzz was not just any cat. Over the six years that I knew her, I developed a special bond with Fuzz. In fact, some researchers have found great social benefits to having a pet. At the time we adopted her, I was fifteen. As a teenager, I was very awkward, and with my peers in high school, I was very tongue-tied, and often I would make a fool out of myself. I didn't trust myself around people my own age, since I believed that if they knew who I really was, they would think I was weird and be repulsed.

But when I came home, Fuzz would jump on my lap, and I'd just sit or lay on the couch for a while. I didn't have to edit myself, or be conscious of my word around Fuzz. I'd just lightly tell her what I felt. Fuzz was with me all through my victories in school, and running, and in my heartbreaks, trials, and periods of darkness. When I had my days where I was scared, scared to travel, scared of getting sick, scared to be with other people, scared to be alone, Fuzz was always there, listening.

All of my work had to be approved by Fuzz. Her favorite method of approval was sitting on the work.

We laughed and joked about Fuzz's antics, such as her charging at an open paper bag. She loved running along the top of the fence next to our house. A few nights, I would walk out front, and hear her meowing, not knowing where she was. Then I'd look on the roof, and she'd be calling at me. In her younger years, she was great at hunting. Any rodent, small bird, or insect was fair game for her. Many times, we would hear some ugly meow, and find Fuzz out front fighting some other neighborhood cat.

Of course, Fuzz had her own ways. The phrase "herding cats" is no exaggeration. We used to joke that we didn't own Fuzz, she owned us. It was, in fact, her house she was letting us live in. The running gag I used to do with her was talking to her, then responding in her words, with a tough-chick voice. It was our little ventriloquist act. For example, I would say "What can I do for you, Fuzz?" Then I'd answer, as her voice "Give me the food I deserve, damn it!" I loved messing with her that way, because I loved her.

Even though we liked to joke about what a prima donna she was, she was really social and outgoing to people. She was a popular fixture in this household. She would come up to you as you were working on some paper or book, sit right down on it, and then just look up at you. Even as I became more in my element with other people, I introduced them to Fuzz when they came to my home.

Today, I have cried a few times thinking about Fuzz. I think about the quizzical look on her face. It is a look of wonder, of unfettered curiosity. It struck me, now more than ever, that a cat is not bound by any of the restrictions people have. People seem to me to be doing their thing, in their habit practices, ignoring everything outside of that. Fuzz never did that.

I realized today that this has been my first deeply personal experience with grieving. This isn't my first ever loss. Two years ago, my Grandmother passed away at the age of 86, and my aforementioned dog Lucy had to be put down when I was 14. However, neither of those really hit me quite the way this one has. Today, I seem to have returned to my six-year-old self; everything seeming too big for me, making me sad inside. However, I learned that I am not alone. Research reports also show that people who own pets, children and adults alike, view the death of a pet as the death of a friend.

So, I've been experimenting with the way to grieve and honor Fuzz's memory. Over the years, I have used many modes of facing humiliation and heartbreak. I decided that I wouldmake today as quiet a day as possible, since few people would begrudge my taking a slow day to grieve a dear pet's passing. I decided to make no apologies for this, swearing off, for a moment, the feeling that I should be doing more. Then I thought, that's the way Fuzz lived all her life. She wasn't feeling like she should do more, and kicking herself for not doing it. She always did just enough for her.

I am going on so long with this entry because all the memories are coming back. All of today, I have been thinking of things I have seen Fuzz do over the years. People, it seems, have widely varied ways of grieving and honoring the passed. I, for one, get very sad, but I do not want to totally "get over it," because that would mean they would be lost, forgotten. I do not want this.

As I said, I have tried many ways of dealing with feelings of letdown or loss. When I was little, I used to cry a lot. Then, in my teen years, I used to keep soldiering on. Now, I know that there is an aspect of most things that happen that is neither bad nor good. To me, days aren't particularly bad or good, there are bad and good parts to them. As I took a walk this morning, I kept thinking of this song:

I thought of Fuzz, knocking on heaven's door now. This made me really tear up. I imagine that Fuzz is going off to some wonderful metaphysical cat afterlife, where she can chase laserpointers, hunt, nap, and claw people's laps to her heart's content. I hope she's gone on to a sort of "cat heaven." This is what I thought of, with tears in my eyes this morning, shortly after the call came from the vet. I imagined her going on up, arriving, and knocking on heaven's door, then being shown in to her new home.

The rest of today, with my family, we were not only talking about the sudden nature of this sad news. We were also remembering all the fun we had with Fuzz. We would say "Remember the time she was up on the roof, meowing down at us?" "Remember how she used to get really mad at us after we came back from our trips?" This morning, even as I was deeply sad about Fuzz's loss, I had a warm feeling in my heart about all the wonderful time we had together.

As I type this, I am between streams of tears. I find it impossible not to cry on a day like this. However, I do not think today was a bad day, or a good day. It was just another day. To Fuzz, it was just another day. It was the day she went to her Home, that she was set free, in a paradoxical way. All of today, I did not want to forget about Fuzz, even though it was painful to think about her. As I said, I did not want to forget her, to lose her memory, I want to honor and cherish that sliver of time we were given together. I find it painful to cry, but I know crying is necessary here.

So what course will this grief take for me? I don't know. Maybe I'll be sad, feel a little angry, a little guilty for not having taken better care of Fuzz's health, maybe I'll just feel like this grief is a huge, dark force that is inundating me, that I have no power to stop. I might have to face all of this. I guess I'll just have to let the grief run its course. Not that it will evaporate entirely, I would not even want that. As my Dad said, the worst part to him is that after someone dies, their life gets farther in the past, and is less prominent. I will always remember the value Fuzz had in this household.

In our family, Fuzz became a popular fixture. Despite her crazy, sometimes frustrating, antics, we kept caring for her. I considered today that we might have given her a real, caring home where before, she had none. I grieve, but at the same time, I feel a warmth from the memories, and the spirit, of Fuzz. I have felt waves today of both deep, deep sadness, and warm joy for her life.

My real hope is that even though Fuzz is physically gone, and her identity subsumed to the Great Unknown in the Universe, that the spirit, the soul, the driving forces of Fuzz remain always alive and well. This includes living without regret, without prejudice, without resentment or hatred. Living in this way is part of the Fuzz Memorial Project, of which this blog will become an integral part, effective immediately. Even though Fuzz's lifespan on Earth may have ended, we can choose to honor the spirit that she embodied. You can do that by loving, caring and living with no regret. I will have more news on the Fuzz Memorial Project to come.

See ya, and Keep Wondering, Folks!