Farewell, Space Monkey

If I know you offline, chances are pretty good that I've mentioned my cats and told you silly stories about one or more of them. Yesterday morning, Shado (our eldest cat and the one that I sometimes referred to as our "Radically Altered" male) passed from this world. It was not an unexpected event and we'd spent quite a bit of time over the last couple of months trying to prepare Sprout for the inevitable.

Shado was 14 years old, which is not particularly ancient in the world of domestic cats, but which was a miracle considering that he had complete renal failure 3 times when he was 4 years old. In the course of a 6 month period, Shado had to be taken to the emergency vet and placed in feline ICU twice. The third time that his urinary tract became blocked and his kidneys shut down was actually the day that we were supposed to pick him up from his 2nd ICU stay. We walked in and the vet told us that he felt Shado needed surgery. The procedure, called Perineal Urethrostomy, was done that same day and his recovery was amazingly fast.

His medical misadventures left him with some loss of kidney function (he recovered to about 80%) and a heart murmur. These are health problems which we have managed for the last 10 years with minimal problem. I will never forget bringing him home, after the surgery, with his abdomen shaved from just below his ribs to the base of his tail and down the backs of his legs. Shado was an amazingly agile cat and to prevent him from disturbing his incision, the vet extended the standard white plastic funnel collar with a 3 inch band of silver duct tape, to add to the effect, we were instructed to apply a zinc-oxide cream to the area around the incision to prevent irritation. As a result, he looked less like a cat and more like... Well, that's probably obvious from the title.

Sprout is handling the loss well, mostly. She's having some trouble wrapping her head around it and is alternately sad that he's gone and curious about when he'll be back. When I told her that he had died, she wanted me to take him to the vet so that they could make him better. When we talked about how much we were going to miss him, she suggested that we get another cat who looked just like him so that we wouldn't.

Mr. Andi is ready to bury the cat. I'm not quite there yet. I feel like putting him in a box in the ground is not the closure that I need. I'm still trying to figure it out. This isn't the first time that I've lost a pet, but it's the first time that I've guided my daughter through the loss of one and I want to do right by both her and Shado.

IMAGE: Original caption: "Fig. 75. '''Schädel der Wildkatze,''' ''Felis catus'; in halber natürlicher Größe" Translation (partly): "Skull of ''Felis silvestris'', 1/2 of natural size" Size: 2.2 x 1.4 in² (5.5 x 3.5 cm²) Originator: Hubert Ludwig Source

Wandering mind

It is amazing what I find myself thinking about as I work in the studio by myself at night. The world outside the studio is darkness and thick with sounds of crickets and night birds while, inside my little glass box, a cd plays softly and I go through the repetitive process of making the same bead 100 times before moving on to make 100 of the next bead.

My friend Heather lost her beloved cat last month after a prolonged battle to save him. I was thinking about what a great cat Loki was, and that (if I were a cat) I could only hope to be so loved. Heather and I have talked about the idea of a vessel of some sort to hold part of Loki's ashes. In that way, she can have a part of him with her always and still scatter the ashes at her parents' home.

I saw my friend Helena yesterday and talked to her about this idea of making funerary jewelry. She immediately found herself thinking that this might be something that she'd be interested when her beloved cat eventually passes. This is not as abstract a consideration as it might be as the cat in question is quite elderly and has mostly lost interest in her food.

I also contacted someone from the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab forum in response to a post that they had made looking for information about crematory jewelry. They were specifically looking for a lampwork artist who incorporates ash into her work to create a beautiful and lasting memento of a deceased loved-one. I'm not sure the one that I just found was the one that they were looking for. At the time, I just posted to say that, if they couldn't find what they were looking for, I would be honored to work with them on something suitable.

The more that I think about it, the more that I like the idea of being involved with the process of preserving the connection to a loved one who has passed. When I talked to Helena about this whole thing, she was saying that one of her biggest regrets was that, when her father passed, she didn't keep some of his ashes with her. Once the ashes were scattered, she lost that connection to him. Perhaps I could help someone.

After a while, however, my wandering mind turned away from funerary art toward something a bit more directly related to the work at hand. That being, my desire to have a selection of fragrances at the bead shows for my buyers to become familiar with the concept of artisan fragrance. I think that I want to post a swap request on the BPAL forum saying that I will trade a pair of beads for each imp of fragrance which someone sends me. It seems like a reasonable trade to me... I wonder what sort of response I'll get.