Stuart, R.I.P. 2003-2007

 

It's with a heavy heart that I post these pictures. Silas and Mommy are in the bedroom right now crying over the loss of our cat. We had called for him several times, but he never came in. Usually when I leave the house in the morning to go to work or jog he's right there ready to come in and eat, but today he was nowhere to be seen. So a few hours ago I decided to go out and look for him. I thought maybe he was hurt or hiding under the house because of the rain and cold...I found him where he usually lay, but he was definitely dead. He was doing the cartoon tongue hanging out and eyes rolled in different directions thing. At least he wasn't hit by a car or just lost forever.

Joy and I decided that we would tell Silas and Fiona and just deal with whatever happened. Fiona was fine. "He's dead? Awwww." Silas was very sad. He started crying the moment he realized he wouldn't be able to see him anymore.

I suggested we draw a picture of Stuart and write down some things we remembered about him. This really seemed to help in the 5 year old grieving process (of which I have no experience). It seemed like it helped though. Before we went to bed tonight Silas asked several questions about death and heaven. I'm not sure if I have any real theological footing for the explanations I gave, but I assured him that he would Stuart was happy in heaven. Silas wanted to know what he would eat. I told him that Jesus would give him really good cat food. Silas wanted to make sure that Jesus got him the RIGHT cat food. I told him that Jesus knew exactly the kind of cat food Stuart ate. After a few more minutes talking about heaven, hearts stopping, souls, blood, and angels and flying, we ended with some prayer. We thanked God for the times we had with Stuart and we remembered some of the silly things he had done.

Stuart LOVED to drink out of the bathtub, toilet, or any puddle of stagnant water in the yard. NEVER out of the cat's water bowl. We found Stuart as a stray cat in our backyard when Silas was 1 or 2. He got along with Cher (our other cat) and was very gentle and let Silas tug on him without protesting, so we kept him. If you could see how skinny Stuart was when we first got him you would not believe it. He's GIGANTIC. Our neighbor kids all called him Garfield. Silas named him "Stuart" because he'd been watching a lot of Stuart Little.

Stuart waddled. Yeah. He was big. He was loved.

Stuart, we'll miss you.

Love,

The Guiles Family