Truly, utterly, amazing

I will apologise before I begin for 'banging on' about this again but I can't leave it unsaid, it needs to be reiterated, or at least I need to re-iterate it even if you don't need to hear it!

I have been truly and utterly amazed by the response from friends both in the blogosphere and in the 'real' world to Poppy's recent and sad departure from our lives. This little old cat and her 'mum' seem to have been far more cared and thought about than I could ever have imagined and the support I have found myself to be the recipient of has been staggering.

Too many people mailed me or commented with their thoughts and words of support to begin to mention them all, and many I think would prefer not to be mentioned by name anyways but I genuinely don't think I would have staggered through the last few days anything like as well without everyone's kindness.

Two people in particular took the brunt of it, aside of course from PG, and listened and responded to what can only be described as my depressing emails unendingly, sometimes at almost minute by minute intervals. Not once did either of them tell me to shut up and not once were they not 'there' for me. I am a 'talker' I need to talk about stuff that is hurting me and out here in the middle of nowhere that isn't always easy, the cows are fab but their listening skills leave a little to be desired! To those two people, and I hope they know who they are, the biggest thank you, your allowing me to gabble on almost obsessively about Poppy's situation made a very real and positive difference to how I got through last week.

There were others too, one friend who made an extremely kind and thoughtful offer, something I could never have imagined anyone would do for me, and so many of you who wrote such thoughtful and profound words. Friends have called me, family have worried and cared and a colleague who reads this even warned my boss to be 'kind to me' on my return to work and explained why....and the boss was kind to me, in fact so kind he reduced me to tears again..... but hey,it's a woman thing, contrary as ever!

There are likely people who will never understand how we can feel as we do about the death of a cat and I myself felt some guilt at being so devastated when there were world events such as 'Katrina' still unfolding but if anyone thought it they were kind enough to not say it.

Things have improved some since last week, we are getting more used to Poppy's absence and the horrible initial feeling of sadness is lessening. I can look at her picture now without falling into little bits, I can talk about her and smile and I even watched a video that a friend kindly made for me a few weeks ago and delivered today, without crying....much! I still feel some guilt, I still worry that we might not have made the right decision but it is all slightly less painful than it was a few days ago. There are still one or two things I can't do, I can't blog yet some of what I want to say about her, I can't put her bowl away and I can't remove her bed from it's usual place but in the main things are easier.....and that is in no small part due to 'you lot' and your unending and kind support, whatever form it took.

So again I would like to say a massive and very genuine thank you to you all. :o)