At day's end...

She is beautiful.

It is sunday, the 11th of august, 2013, 11.31 (starting to write this blog entry... we will see how long it will take me to finish...).

I created her during the last days. I started at saturday and finished her the saturday after (yesterday). I made her out of polymer clay (this time a mixture of fimo classic and cernit, because I had it at hand). Originally it was white polymer clay and yes, I loved the matt white look. But it was not perfect somehow. Like with my doll head with the flowers I made some time ago (still not painted), I was afraid of ruining her by adding paint. But I needed to make her. I used the swellegant paints from Christie Friesen. Several layers of brass, all oxidation fluids (I wanted different shades and colours), a lot of different colour patines (don't ask me which ones... I am just going, trying, adding more, that is an ongoing process) and in the end the clear matt sealant. If you try this I have to add that even of the sealant is clear and matt, it still changes the brightness and shades of the colours! You need to seal it but maybe try it first with not to important objects to get a feeling.

I will make a picture wearing the necklace but not now.  I attached the same beads from the front at the end. The fall down the back. This is a little detail that I love to include in my designs. 

I started creating her after Bisu had another crisis. Bisu is the last one of my little ones, my cats. He was getting more stable and better but just one too warm and humid day was all needed to get to another crisis. There are no reserves left in his body. I was standing before my partner (Rumpel), crying and saying, he is dying. Even if the crisis at that day was not too serious, something inside me felt like this. He was getting better again until tuesday night. Again, a crisis. Wednesday morning we went to his doctor and he was telling me the same. Bisu got another infusion, vitamins, anabolika, a lot of other medicaments, like in the last months... The doctor also said, he will get a little bit better again but I will have think about when I will be able to let him go. This is just the short version of this conversation and all the ones we had before. Maybe just to you, this is the best vetmed in leipzig (and in my work I got in contact with a lot of vetmeds and the vet clinic here), I know him for the last ten years and I deeply trust him (I would love to have a doc like this for me!). He said it would be okay to go with another infusion, but also that for him it would also be okay to let him go now.

My former flat mate, those mother brought my little ones 12 years ago to us (just 4 weeks old, nearly dead, skin and bones, pneumonia, worms... the vetmed at that time didn't believed they would survive), was still in holiday and I wanted him to be able to say good bye. We all thought it could and would maybe take another week or two or even a little bit more before it was really time. Then I was hoping he would be okay until next friday, so I could take the day off and spent some time with him. But no... yesterday I knew it has to be the next days, not the next week. Yesterday I finished her. After this I just knew what was the right decision. Even if Bisu is still fighting, even if he is still curious and wants to cuddle, even if he still reacts to me... his body is failing him. Most cats and dogs with cni are not dying from the toxics or so, they are dying due to starvation. It is no gentle death waiting for a cni cat or dogs. I can see now that his body started to feed from all the leftover muscles not only his hind legs. He is also afraid of everything strange and foreign again, also very agitated and anxious.

I have to wait until monday to phone Bisus doc (he is not here this weekend). But this one or two days will be okay. I don't want him to endure the stress of an unknown person. His doc is one of the few vetmeds where most cats and dogs are not afraid to go to. He is a special person and I think that in all that past months when we went to him nearly every days, I just saw two times a dog being afraid and nervous, says it all.

I am already mourning even thought Bisu is still here. It such a strange emotion knowing that your beloved cat will only be alive a day or two. I try to be relaxed, to be calm, because he is reacting after my emotions. It is hard. Also to have everything at a normal routine.

I am rambling, I know, please bare with me. My blog is something very personal for me and writing in my blog makes things real.

It all adds somehow. I love the colour of these beads and they were perfect for this project. The size, the surface, the shading. I bought them from Rebeccas The Curious Bead Shop.

In little parts we fell apart. Death may be the final piece but already before, if the process was going a long way, every day, there is a little bit more gone. I saw this with my mother when she got cancer. She was my mother until the end, the feelings were always the same, but her memory was already breaking down and with it the person I knew was gone even before I lost her completely.

Glas beads (quite cheap ones from Rco design) in bronze. I bought them because I loved the matt metallic colour, the rough lloking surface and the irregularity on the beads. 

I see it also with Bisu. His eyes, this bright looking eyes, always keeping his gaze on me, are still the same. But the strong, fearless, bold and quite often so impertinent cat is gone. Please, don't misunderstand me. He is still my Bisu. But with humans as well as with animals there is always to every time point in our lives something special that we should enjoy and value at that moment. Because we all change and sometimes along the way, may it be just to illness, we lose parts that we can never gain back.

I thread single strains of the glas beads with crochet beading thread before putting the necklace together. There are four rows in every strain because I really wanted the necklace to be sturdy in the end.

Yes, now in this moment I am mourning this. But it is nothing I want to mourn. Just to remember to live life now. Never wait like... when I will have time for this... oh, maybe next year... Also never let others decide for your life. The responsibility, no matter what bad things already happened, the responsibility what to make out of it right here and now, that lays only by oneself. That is sometimes overwhelming and heavy but also at the same time really great.

Just hands with tentacles. I love there shape and feeling. I thought of using them as earrings but not for this necklace. That would somehow not fit (just too much) and would take away from her face. So now there are waiting on my desc until I know what to make with them. Or maybe single pendants?

She is really beautiful in my eyes. She is pain. She is love. At day's end she is holding my tears. 

Sometimes the pain goes deep

I know I didn't write anything for a long time now. I just couldn't. Sometimes it needs all the energy to go on, to keep oneself together...

Most people can't understand what I was and still am feeling. One of my little ones, of my black cats died while I am still here in korea. Dean. He was perfectly healthy and it was just some kind of accident. What really happened we will never know. Just that he was in pain, he even bite Rumpel and then he was not really moving anymore. Rumpel and sun-lost (my former flatmate, it was his mother who brought the cats as little lost 4 week old nearly dead babies to us 12 years ago) took him to the doctor (the best one around Leipzig, even if he was helpless this time he already saved so many beloved animals from friends as well as mine... even from mistakes other doctors or even the clinic made). He said there is nothing he could do anymore, just to end the pain.

I was not there.

There is not much more to say. I know that we saved their life so many years ago and he had a good life. Still I feel guilty like... I should have played more with him, pet him more, especially because all of our cats were stressed due to moving into a new apartment over new year.

But I know that the day before the accident happened he was cuddling with Rumpel (even if Rumpel is allergic), lying next to him on the sofa. Dean was the one who recovered quite fast from the move, the one who finally got on the top of the food chain of my three cats. Normally he was at the bottom.

Just writing this sends me back to tears.

I had to read about his death in an email. It was not really possible to get me at the phone here in korea and Rumpel had to go to the hospital because Dean bite him in the hand. They had to operate his hand therefore he had to stay several days in the hospital and they don't have internet access there. Not the best time for him, for me or for us. I was so worried about him and so sad about the loss of Dean.

They say time heals all pain. I am sorry to say that this is not true. It is just that it is not at the front anymore. You don't think so often anymore of the reason for the pain. You also can smile at the good memories again. But in the moments you remember, the pain is back with all force. My mother died about ten years ago. It was cancer. And still, just hearing a certain song and all the memory of her as well as the pain is back.

A lot of people can't understand how deeply I love my cats. For them there are just pets. Some people are even shocked by the idea that you could love an animal so much. I fought for their lives so long ago and somehow along the way they also saved me. During all the really hard times in the last years, during the times when the wall between me and the rest of the world made me speechless, they were there. Bisu, Grusel and of course Dean. (some of my pictures from them: Dean, Grusel, Bisu) It may sound a little bit hard, but nobody is allowed to judge me on how and how deep I should feel. How much of pain and how many tears are okay and what is "too much" regarding to a pet. Dean was one of my little ones, my little beloved black ones.

It will be so strange coming back home and Dean won't be there to welcome me.