Sunday Selfie with Angel Rosie

Today is Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day.

As I mentioned yesterday, the special meaning of this day was initiated by Deb Barnes of Zee and Zoey's Cat Chronicles, after she lost her kitty Jazz on August 28, 2013. To learn more about this day, please click here.

There are multiple angels of mine over at the Rainbow Bridge, all of whom will always be remembered. In honor of all of them, for yesterday's Caturday Art blog hop I created a drawing more or less illustrating myself with the furry angels from my childhood. One of those angels was my dear Rosie, who just passed away in May of last year.

As many of you may know, I was blessed enough to share over 21 years with my sweet girl Rosie. My parents adopted her when I was 4 years old, and she was my best friend and confidant until we had to say goodbye when she was 21 and myself 26. As I'm sure you can all guess, that one hit me hard.

But, as I know Rosie would prefer, I try not to have sadness in my heart when I think of her. Instead, I always do my best to remember all of the good times. And there were lots and lots of those. How could there not be? 21 years is a blessedly long time to make memories.

One of my favorite memories with Rosie occurred just three years before she passed away. I know I've shared this memory at least once before on this blog, so I apologize if this is not a new story for some of you. But, I'll be retelling it now for those who don't know the story or who might not remember it.

Back in May of 2013, when Rosie was 19, already diagnosed with renal disease and on quite the daily regimen of treatments, my parents, sister, and I all decided to take a family trip to Michigan to visit my uncle. That was a 9 hour drive, and we would be gone for a couple of days. The problem was that Rosie was honestly doing great, kicking renal disease in the rear end, her appetite great, and her renal values staying stunningly stable on her daily regimen of treatments. Add to that the fact that she would not eat, drink, or take meds for anyone but us, we didn't know what to with her during the duration of our trip. If we left her in someone else's care, she would more than likely go off food and water and refuse to take all of the medications that were keeping her renal disease at bay. After going back and forth, deliberating, weighing our options, we finally made the decision to, well, take Rosie with us! Sounds like quite the plan, huh?

Long story short, though, Rosie did wonderfully on the trip. She didn't seem to mind being in the car one bit, she owned that hotel room of hers, and she ate and drank, took her meds, used her litter box (yes, we brought it with us), and did all of her normal daily activities even while away from home. The only kink was that she was only happy (albeit very happy!) in the car if she was riding on a lap. She didn't want to be in the safety of her carrier, no siree. So, of course, we let her have her way. Although admittedly not the safest method of traveling with a kitty, Rosie got to sleep on a lap for all 18 hours of the drive.

During one of the times that she was resting on my sister's lap, my mom snapped a candid shot of me giving Rosie a smooch on the head. (I'll admit that I am not much of a touchy-feely kind of person. Except, that is, when it comes to my furbabies. Then I'm like a giant teddy bear full of wet and slobbery kisses.)

The picture that my mom snapped from the front seat of the car on that day is one of my absolute most favorite ones memorializing the relationship Rosie and I had. Although I am not usually one to share photos of myself online (call me paranoid, but I am, well, paranoid), I've decided to share that selfie on this special day commemorating furry angels like Rosie. (Thanks for the help with this non-selfie selfie, Mom!)

This is, therefore, our entry for today's always anticipated Sunday Selfies blog hop, hosted by our good buddies over at The Cat on My Head. Our wonderful host is also partaking in Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day, so be sure to head that way to meet their furry angels, and to see the selfies of all of the other lovely participants.

We are wishing all of our furiends a beautiful Rainbow Bridge Remembrance Day! We hope all of you can enjoy a day full of happy memories of your furry angels.

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Our Tip of the Day:

Everyone copes differently with the death of a furbaby, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. We are all unique, and for that reason we may wish to remember or angel furbabies in our own unique ways. There are a number of things you can do to help you remember a lost furbaby. For example, you can have your furry angel cremated, and you can select an urn that might have special meaning. You can choose to create even just a small shrine for your furry angel, in your home or in your garden. You can hang photographs of them, create photo albums or scrapbooks, or have artwork of them created and displayed. There are also headstones or memorial stones, which can be customized, that you can display either in your home or in your garden in honor of your angel furbaby. Some people like to carry their furry angels with them in the form of lockets or other jewelry, or even tattoos. These and many other options are just some of the ways to remember a lost furbaby, and none of them are wrong. As I mentioned yesterday, though, please always remember your furbaby fondly, as they would want you to always remember the good times!