Another loss

[Goforth860]

Well it's another heartbreak 💔.  Today I realized my fish Fred was acting funny. He's kinda been sick since the day after I brought him home. I could've taken him back to the store and gotten another one but I had chosen him. He was mine. I took him to love cherish and to take care of. I have gotten him better and then he'd get worse again. Tail rot. I've treated him on and off since I got him. John told me when we moved to the new apt that I should get me another betta. Charlie my last one survived in a 3.5 gln take with nothing but water water conditioner and food for almost 3 years. No heater filter or aerator.  Nothing. Fred on the other hand has been high maintenance. I bought him a 5 gln take filter heater thermometer aerator hammocks for him to chill on. I enjoyed his company.  I got him right after I moved in here. I promised John that I would better my life. I told him when we moved down here that there would be no smoking in the house and I was going to quit. I sounded horrible  (after John passed was diagnosed with lung disease). Well the day I slept in here for my first night was the last day I had a cig. That was July 5th night and I have been smoke free since July 6th 22. I am bettering my life like I promised John I would do before he was taken away so unexpected.  I always thought there'd be tom. Well tom never came. Anyway I had my neighbor come over as I was bawling and asked her to put him out of his misery. That the disease he had he could live for mths slowly and very painfully suffocating to death. He was jerking and seemed to be convulsing to a point due to lack of oxygen.  So she took him to her house. I cried like a baby for over an hour for my friend Fred's the fish. When I care or love I give it all. I leave nothing behind.  If I love or care for someone I am there through thick and thin. I put forth every oz of my being. And Fred was my friend I enjoyed watching him play in his tank and go around over under between be pushed down by the filters current and be pushed up by the bubble of the aerator.  I loved him with all my heart and now he's gone. Another loss I'm not prepared to deal or coup with. I dont do loss/death well. I lost John the beginning of the year and my life has been a roller coaster of bad more bad and good mixed in here and there. I did make it through Thanksgiving and Christmas without John.  I honestly don't know how but I did. My life was altered the day I lost John and it's like I'm in another dimension in time. I won't say I'm all alone but I don't mention John as much anymore.  I realized after the first week everyone was tired of hearing about how much I miss him or love him or what my life isn't without him. Before long it'll be a year. It seems like I found him 5 mins ago but it also seems like a lifetime without him being here with me. I've missed him and his presence in and on my life. Now Fred. Poor Fred. 

[foreverhis]

1 hour ago, Goforth860 said:

When I care or love I give it all. I leave nothing behind.  If I love or care for someone I am there through thick and thin.

I'm so sorry you lost Fred (great name for a Betta, BTW).  You did your best for him and released him from suffering when you knew it was time.  That's always so very hard.

I'm like you in regards to what I quoted above.  Even with the cats I've been visiting at the shelters who aren't mine and end up not going home with me because I'm not quite ready.  When a sweet tabby I had spent time with over multiple days and who blossomed with me was adopted before I could go get her, I cried.  That was yesterday and I cried again today--even though I'm so happy that she found a loving forever home. 

The unfortunate result of giving our whole hearts is that the grief and pain we feel with loss is that much deeper as well.  That you are still so early in your grief journey after losing your John (my husband was John too) makes this loss all the more painful. 

There's little I can say to ease your pain right now, but please know you are not alone.((HUGS))

This is a poem one of our members posted recently.  I found it so apropos that I copied and saved it.

 

Blessing for the Brokenhearted by Jan Richardson

There is no remedy for love but to love more.
– Henry David Thoreau

Let us agree
for now
that we will not say
the breaking
makes us stronger
or that it is better
to have this pain
than to have done
without this love.

Let us promise
we will not
tell ourselves
time will heal
the wound,
when every day
our waking
opens it anew.

Perhaps for now
it can be enough
to simply marvel
at the mystery
of how a heart
so broken
can go on beating,
as if it were made
for precisely this—

as if it knows
the only cure for love
is more of it,

as if it sees
the heart’s sole remedy
for breaking
is to love still,

as if it trusts
that its own
persistent pulse
is the rhythm
of a blessing
we cannot
begin to fathom
but will save us
nonetheless.

[KayC]

This forum is FOR us to voice ourselves, so I hope you don't feel that way here...

I am so sorry about your Fred.  

[Anawilliam850]

I'm so sorry for your lose Fred, our pets are part of the family and its hurts when they leave