Simon is gone....not forgotten....and God has been teaching me through it all!

My last post was about Simon and his downhill plunge.  Sadly, two weeks and one day ago, we had to make the EXTREMELY hard decision to put him to sleep.  

The morning we took him to the vet, he awoke and came out to the kitchen and drank water...the first in 4 days...and he didn't throw it up.  I began to have second thoughts about putting him down, but the reality of what his life would be like post hospitalization convinced me that he would be miserable, and so would we.  

The gift I got at the vet was to be able to say goodbye to him with my hubby Paul right beside me.  The greater gift was to be able to hold him when they injected him with the "sleeping" medicine.  You see, Simon was a cat who hardly ever let me hold him.  On rare occasions he would let me pick him up, but within about 15 seconds, he was squirming to get out of my arms.  So, when I held him for the last time at the vet's office, and he fell limp in my arms, I wept.  The vet asked me if I wanted to put him back in his carrier, and I said, "No, Simon never let me hold him longer than 30 seconds his whole life; now I am going to hold him all the way home."  And I did.  I held his lifeless body in my arms, stroked his soft fur and enjoyed every second of it.  

I miss my little boy so much, and in the days following his passing, I asked the Lord many questions.  

"God, why did you take Toby (my other cat and my favorite) before Simon?"

Answer:  "I took him first because you had to learn how to love Simon as much as you loved Toby."

Of course I broke down weeping hearing this because indeed, I had loved Toby more, but in the last two years, I'd absolutely fallen in love with Simon and had grown to appreciate all his quirkiness.  

"God, why didn't you just take Simon in his sleep?"

Answer:  "I wanted you to make the hard decision to let him go yourself, to do the unselfish thing, even though it would break your heart.  You had to learn to say goodbye to one you had grown to love so deeply."

As I write this, I am weeping almost as hard as I did when I first heard the Lord say these words two weeks ago.  

"God, how does this apply to me and life?"

Answer:  "You had to learn to love Simon, who was difficult to love at times.  (He really was challenging to love....I have lots of stories)  I'm bringing people into your life who will be very difficult to love, and you are called to love them...to learn to love them...just as you learned to love Simon."

Sobered is the only word that captures how I felt when I heard the Lord speak these words to my spirit.  God uses EVERYTHING to shape and form us and prepare us.  

I love my little buddy and always will.  Of course he and his brother, Toby, are memorialized in my book, Walking Forward-Discoveries in Freedom and Forgiveness.  

So long for now, Simon....I wonder if Toby was there to greet you when you passed....I sure hope so!