apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

The beta I had for around 3 years, Betty, passed away and I buried her in a little box by a palm tree in the backyard.

Oh this post comes right when I was just pining for my old cat Fellini. Very long story, but she was the sweetest little cat ever and my family had her callously put to sleep when I was out of town, when they didn't want to take care of her anymore and the pound didn't have room for her. (Believe it or not, this was one of the LEAST obnoxious things they've done.)

ANYhoo ... I pined for her for years and then when I was in product development for a large retailer, I used to sneak her pic onto just about anything cat related (calendars, stationery) so whenever I walked around the stores I could see her there. ;-)

The best ever was when I was sitting on the N train on a really bad morning and I looked up at the woman across from me and she was writing in a Fellini day planner ...

My parents dog's killed a possum while they were on holiday. My boyfriend tried to act macho and bury the poor little creature; "tried" being the operative word. In the end it came down to me.

I know now that if one of our beloved pets passed on, I would have the task of burying them. I don't think I'm going to be able to deal with that. :(

How do you "put down" a fish?

I had to put my 13 year old kitty to sleep on May 3 this year.
It's very unceremonious but I'm not really a keep the ashes kind of person.

Since I live in the city, I opted for the vet to dispose of the remains. My childhood cat is buried in my parents' flower garden in Maryland. We had a little stone marker made with a paw print on it.

Ridge! What a cute story (well.. the post kitty passing part). :)

Well, I'm afraid I haven't been so respectful of my fish. They get a burial at sea, so to speak. My darling little Jack Russell Terrier is buried under a tree at my parents' cottage. They will own it forever and pass it on to my brother and I someday, so I can visit her anytime I want.

Private cremations for each kitty. I keep their ashes in a plain, unobtrusive cedar box on a bookshelf. This makes me a poor atheist-bhuddist. But it's an attachment where I find sweetness and fond memories. I can't think of a good reason why I shouldn't "have them around" if it makes me feel good. Sometimes I talk to them. This reveals that I'm also a little nuts.

My vet came to the house both times for an at-home euthanization and let me bring them to the office later when I was ready.

oh boy i dont even want to think about it, myboyz are quite young (knock on wood).
but my mom had the most catastrofic year ever last year she saw her 2 beloved dogs pass, actually she had to put them both down, and her 16 yo cat as well. this last is buried in the garden cuz he died at home of nautla causes but the dogs had to be put to sleep and the remains were burned.

i hate this part of having pets.

My precious Lili was dying at the vet. They wanted to put her down, but I had to wait for my husband to arrive. He and Lili had a special bond, and they needed to say goodbye. I laid her on my chest, and waited for him to arrive. She was breathing very slowing and was completely limp. When he called to say he was leaving, the phone was beside her head. When she heard his voice, she sat up, 'talked' to him for quite a bit, and then I handed off the phone. She put her head down on my chest, and drew her last breath. She had said her good byes.

We buried her overlooking the lake in our backyard. We both came back with the scissors we had taken to the burial, each thinking we would cut off the white hair on her tail. Neither of us could do it. She was a wonderful cat.

I also want to know how a fish is put down. I had a gerbil put down once and I had no idea how they were going to do it. The vet put the gerbil in a shoebox size box and gave it gas until it was unconscious, then followed up with a second type of gas which stopped it heart/breathing. Poor little thing.
Over the years gerbil and 2 cats put down - body left with vets for mass cremation.

I have a bird buried under a clematis in my backyard. Ok, it's a pigeon that hit the window, but I wanted to share.

Our amazing warrior of a kitty, Spazzo, passed away last weekend on Memorial Day. We had him privately cremated. We may or may not spread his ashes over his favorite haunts. In the meantime, I'll be happy to have his ashes at home.

Good for you, ridge.

well, now i miss lili, what a sweet story!

Unfortunately, my pet Oscar (daschund) passed away December 12, 2008 from heart failure at the vet while I was on vacation in San Francisco. This was five days after I had just taken him for a check up with the vet. The doctor did not detect that his heart had grown three times a normal dog's size and blamed the coughing on kennel cough. It was heart wrenching to sit on the phone and hear hist heart monitor go monotone and have absolutely no way of getting to him in time. My family made the decision that since he had died so suddenly, the best thing was to have the doctors take him. I'm not sure if it would have helped or hurt me to see him again, but to this day I still miss his happy face when I come home.

We once had a gerbil who died during the winter. My mom wrapped it in tinfoil and put it in the freezer --with the intension of burying it in the springtime.

One night, while sorting through the freezer looking for something to serve us for dinner, an unprepared babysitter came upon it! YIKES

losing a beloved pet is so traumatic.
Twit, our crazy lovable Cornish Rex had several near death experiences in his lifetime but finally had to be euthanized when he lost his fight with cancer. this was in 2003 and i still miss him. i had him cremated and he is in a tin on my bookcase in the living room as he did like to know everything that was going on in the world.
about 6 months after his death, the Buddhist temple in Chicago had a memorial service for any pet lost in the past year. it was a beautiful service and a wonderful way to honor these beings that bring us so much joy.

our beloved goldfish, mr jones, passed away recently, and he had a "burial at sea"...when our pets died when i was growing up, my dad would read a verse from the bible...we did this for mr jones, a special fish who would do a trick for food (swim in a circle)...

Oh shit, that reminds me. My parakeet Lojack is still in the freezer. I should do something about that.

My poor little Philip (betta fish) died a couple months ago. Since I live in the city and don't have any plants around, he got a lovely "burial at sea." I like to think that he's much happier there. :)

Two years ago I lost two beloved dogs a year apart from each other. Their ashes are in my bedroom and would like to be buried with them. My friends think I lost it.

I also lived in a small apartment (still do), when my little beta fish - both pet and company mascot - died. At midnight, I took him down to a nearby lake and said a few words. "he was a good fish, and I loved him as only a designer can love a fish..."

I adopted 2 cats when I lived in England (right after Sept 2001), I had just moved there with my new husband, didn't know anyone and was pining for a cat. I ended up adopting Duke (a massive black and white mix) and Toddy (who eerily looks like Christopher Walken, no joke!). They are now going to be 13, I got them when they were 6 and had been dropped off at the shelter with about 25 other kitties who, for their whole lives, had lived a cat food plant (as testers!) until it shut down. They flew back with me last year from the UK, safe and sound thank goodness!

The thought of them passing breaks my heart. When they do pass, I'm going to have them both cremated and put in the same urn. They love being around each other, cuddling, grooming each other, etc. I couldn't imagine them not being together...

The last gift my mom gave me, just before she died, was my pet cockatiel. Little did I know, that Albert would turn out to be a fairly cranky, maladjusted bird. I tried training him, I'd give him special snacks and treats—hey, I even tried giving him away, in the hopes that someone else would have better luck. Everybody always gave him back.

So we settled into our little routine—he'd be cranky and screechy and so I'd whistle to him and he'd whistle back. He like to whistle and was fine as long as nobody got too close (he particularly hated hands).

Then one day last winter he died. I was pretty sad. He'd been a constant presence for 15 or so years, though not an overly pleasant one. The ground was too hard to bury him in the park, so I took him to a local shelter to be cremated. It cost $125.00! More than mom had paid for him alive! It would've been extra if I wanted to keep the ashes, so I passed.

How is this related to the original AT mission? I love reading AT but constantly consider giving it up because its simply too much content to cover in a day when you dont actually work in a design related field (and can thus write the time off as relevant).

Since the beginning of the year we've lost 3 of our pets. Kitty (the cat), Felipe (the betta fish) and one of the shiny brothers (neon fish). By far, Kitty's death was the most traumatic of them all, and we still miss her whenever her memory lingers in comments, in little routines she'd make for us (begging for milk and having sit-ins in front of the fridge, etc)...

Here's a photo of kitty: http://a441.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/6/l_10488c32a66b4e00920f930346c9bd18.jpg and one of the videos she starred in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q22Wy5FvceI

After 6 months of total peace, Felipe killed one of the neon brothers (1 out of 5) and ate him , so we had to give him away (after 3 years of adventures and fun)... we replaced him with Paris, Nichole, Wonder, Bread, and another neon brother. Now everyone's much happier, and Felipe has a new home.

A few people asked how you put a pet down so I thought I'd let you know how I did it with Kirk. First of all, I talked to a fish expert. He told me that the best way to do it is to simply remove them from the water. He told me flushing them was a bad idea because they can get pretty "beat up" before they finally pass. It was very difficult to do. :(

On May 9th, my 17 year old cat Argentina died while I was in the month-long process of moving into a new apartment. She died just a few days before I had planned to move her into my new place. She was strictly an indoor cat and spent a great deal of time (especially over the last few years) sitting in a window and watching the "outside world". It occurred to me that, while I had Tina I lived in a whopping total of 10 different places, so I decided to have her cremated and scatter a bit of her ashes in the grass outside each place, starting at the most recent and moving backwards to the apartment I was living in when I got her as a kitten. And I'll keep a little bit of the ash in a vial at my new place too.
For the last couple years of her life, I could tell she was slowing down and knew that the end was coming, so every morning before I left, I shook a little crunchy treat out of the can and kissed her on the head. The day she died, I was in a hurry to move some clothes before I went to work so I didn't observe this little ritual. When I got home and she was gone...well, let's just say I didn't handle it very well. So, I hung her picture at eye level next to the front door of my new apartment so her face is the last thing I see before I leave every day.
Crap. Now I'm going to go cry.

Aww, these stories are so sad.

When our guinea pigs died, we had no place outside to bury them, so we called L.A. City "animal pick-up" to take them.

Thanks, Laura and Wig. I always hated that I didn't have a proper goodbye or a place to put her, etc., so I guess it was my way of keeping little Fellini alive. Now that I think of it, I believe I will dig out one of those photos and put it up on my flickr page this weekend as a memorial ... sigh. She was actually a good little kitty (snuggled under my chin every day that I was laid up after a near-death car accident), to the point that I'm sort of afraid of getting another one, since cats are so hit or miss with their personalities. (Don't worry ... the family will be banned from this one, if I do get another kitty.)

That said, I actually have a much more awful story about a childhood cat and what happened to him (after sneaking out on Christmas eve and getting frostbite) but as it's traumatized me since childhood, I won't repeat it here ... ;-)

p.s. I never thought about that regarding flushing fish down the toilet and them suffering through the beating. That's so awful.

By the way, wig ... what were his favorite haunts? Do tell ;-)

Wow, this post is really timely. We had to have our very senior "hobo dog" (she just showed up at our front door one day 3.5 years ago) put to sleep in mid-April and finally picked up her ashes and beautiful urn from the vet last week. I was sort of dreading doing it because it was really upsetting. She's just sitting in our garage right now waiting for us to find out what to do with her. We were planning to put the urn in one of the hedges in our backyard, as she loved that backyard so much, but we're really not sure. It was very cathartic to hear everyone's stories though, thanks:)

I gave my hamster a viking burial when he died, as it was winter here and the ground was too frozen to bury him. I put him in a little box, set it ablaze, and it floated down to Thames out of sight.

I would have flushed it down the toilet.

We had to put our beloved cat to sleep 3 years ago and the vet cremated him for us. After a year or so I mixed his ashes in with a make-your-own-stepping-stone kit I got from the craft store, and decorated it with glass marbles in a fun pattern and his initial in tiny print in a corner. It's in our backyard. I plan on doing that with all of our pets when I have to. This way if we ever move we can take them with us without them looking like headstones. :P

omg, I read Team Decor's story, and started sobbing and couldn't read any other stories after that. We lost our dear sweet old Janie last November and I miss her so much. We got her as a kitten, along with my kitty boy Stuntman - he died of liver cancer about 7 years ago, and I still miss him as well.

I think I am finally ready to have another kitty in my life, but man.....losing them is so difficult. It's worth it for all they gave me though. Still crying.

My little dog Hilda passed a few months ago. The vet put her down, and then sent her out for a private cremation. I was going to spread the ashes over a few of her favorite places, but I have been unable to part with them yet. I will probably hold onto them until her buddy Bennie passes. Then I don't know. The little dog slept with me for 9 years, and I just miss her greatly now.

Oh yes, and to answer the question - I have Stuntman's ashes in small box on the bookshelf behind a picture of him. Janie got buried in my mother-in-law's backyard. We wrote some things to her on some rocks and marked the spot with them.

I held Stuntman while they injected him, but wasn't home when Janie died......she looked peaceful when we found her though. :(

Our beloved St Bernard is in the TV console next to the DVDs. We meant to do something with her but for the longest time it was "too soon" until one day it was just not a priority.
Eh- What can ya do?

My dog Tigger was there when I came home from the Hospital and was there when I graduated from elementary school. He drove with me when I got my learners permit. The following summer his health declined quite rapidly. By August, it was clear what we had to do, he'd stopped eating and could no longer walk without assistance. It was the longest drive of my life, I stood by his side while the vet came into the room, he looked me in the eye, and went to sleep. We took his ashes to the river mouth where he spent his younger days running in the water, chasing tennis balls in the surf and doing all the things dogs love. We stood with the water up to our ankles and spread his ashes into the surf. To this day I like to imagine him playing in the surf, chasing endless tennis balls, rolling in the sand, and doing all the things he loved in life.

Oh dear, oh dear. I've been lurking on Apartment Therapy, but I had to finally register just to correct a few misconceptions about, well, hospice fish care. I hope you guys will take this in the spirit it's meant, since it sounds like many people are fellow betta owners (well, no wonder - they have such great personalities, and they're perfect for apartments!).

1) Please, please, NEVER flush a fish - or any other small pet - down the toilet, living or dead. Besides what sally said about them getting beaten up in the pipes, which is very true, water treatment plants are not equipped to handle fish pathogens. If your fish is carrying a disease, parasites, or similar yuck (and hey, it just DIED, it's not exactly blooming with health), then any or all of that can be transferred through the water to local native fish which are not going to be adapted to deal with that. If anyone here lives near the Great Lakes, you might be aware of all the problems local fish species are having from exactly this sort of thing! So again, please don't flush.

2) Sadly, taking a fish out of the water is not a humane way to put down a fish (I'm sorry, Sally - if it makes you feel better, I'm sure it was still more comfortable than whatever he was suffering from). That just suffocates them. Neither is putting the fish in the freezer, which is another common method you hear about. Fish are cold-blooded, so unlike people, when they freeze to death, they feel everything.

My preferred method of at home euthanasia is clove oil and vodka. The basic principle is that you put the betta in a cup with some tank water, and mix in a few drops of clove oil. That acts as an anaesthetic and puts them to sleep. Then, you slosh in the vodka. They don't feel a thing. Just google "fish euthanasia clove oil" if you need to know more - I hope you don't. Sadly, my betta girl Tiamat has a terminal kidney condition, and I'm going to have to use it soon...

Anyway, now that I'm registered, I hope to make more cheerful comments soon, but I hope this information is useful to people.

Has anyone seen that show about the crazy celebrity designer who put a little bit of her first dog's ashes in the food of her new dogs so they have a little bit of the first dog in them?? So derranged.

I don't know what my mom's going to do when my dog (family dog, I don't like there anymore) dies... scatter the ashes in the woods, maybe? : (

I'm not even going to think about what I'll do with my cats, they're only a year and a half.

* not like, live... freudian slip ha

My dog just turned 16 today, and my close friend Al's just put his 16 year old dog down. My wife and I have not discussed what we will do when Karogoz passes away.

A friend of the family put her cat's ashes in the soil in Gramercy Park where they were planting new rose bushes.

My beloved childhood pet, Toodle the Poodle, was notorious for digging under the fence and escaping for a day of glee, racing around the neighborhood.

When he died of kidney failure (after we had him on dialysis for a few months), we wrapped him in my childhood blankie and buried him on the other side of the fence, just where he always wanted to be.

when my first cat, Shadow, died an untimely death almost exactly two years ago, I had him cremated and took a tiny pinch of ashes to my favorite tattoo parlour and designed a tattoo of the little black cat I considered to be my son. the artist mixed the (sterile) ashes into some of the black ink. now Shadow is part of me forever. The rest of his ashes went into his favorite stuffed animal, after I pulled all the stuffing out.

I had to have my Siamese cat, Skye, euthanized on 5/20. Her kidneys failed and my poor vet did everything she could to save her. We had Skye cremated and her ashes are in a little tin.

Skye wasn't a particularly affectionate or friendly cat but she was with me for 10 years. I couldn't figure out what to do with her ashes but I love the idea of mixing them in a stepping stone. Zoo Askew - that's such a great idea.

Last week I too had to say goodbye to my goldfish. Moby was from a carnival ping pong ball toss. This fish was really special to us and its difficult to say why exactly but after a year he got sick and suffered for days till he finally gave up. Moby was burried in the sand under a climbing Hydrangea. Last night I had a dream that I put his lifeless body back in the tank and he came back to life.

Our first dog was cremated and still resides on our bookshelf in a little wooden box. We also had my grandfather up there, in a nicer metal box. When my dad was dying, he said he'd take his father (in his burial), if mom would take the dogs. I didn't like that decision since Duncan was always more fond of dad than mom, but then again, George was HIS father.

when my pet mouse died one winter when i was in high school we put him in the freezer to bury at our summer cabin the following spring... 11 years later when my parents moved from the house i grew up in we rediscovered my beloved petrie! and so, since it was winter... it took us 2 more years to remember to bring him to the cabin to bury. he is now nestled beside various dogs and fish (and a beloved pair of shoes... don't ask) in a patch of ferns that has become known as the pet cemetary. it's a lovely spot.

When my childhood dog was finally put to sleep, after years of incontinence and blindness, my parents had opted to get the ashes back from creamation. The box of ashes was about the size of a shoebox, and quite heavy (she was a pudgy doggie). That box sat in my mother's closet for several years before they figured out what they wanted to do with the ashes. It would creep me out to look into their closet and see the box with my dead dog's name imprinted on it, stacked along with all the shoeboxes on the shelf.

It was after that experience, that I've decided that when it came to my own pets, I did not want the ashes back. I have my pictures and my memories to comfort me, and I do not need a box of ashes cluttering up the place....especially since I've had a lot of pets who have died over the years and I wouldn't have the space for all those boxes of ashes.

Growing up, various pets (dogs, fish, birds) were burried in the same corner of our yard and a flower bed eventually planted there. Well a few years after we moved, the neighbors saw the new owners digging up the flower bed to rehab it and rushed over to warn them not to dig too deep or risk finding some bones! (just in case though I'm sure my dad dug deep enough)

My mom has a video taken of her first dog's last day that she still hasn't watched 25 years later. My current dogs are getting older and while I have lots of pictures of them, no video so I'm thinking of investing in a video camera so I have some memories of them.

Because of the poison pet food, some still being sold today, I have had to put down 4 pets in the last 18 months.
Because I found out that euthanized pets are rendered down and put back into pet food (yes, nasty) I had my pets cremated and buried the cremains under trees I planted in the yard. Well watered with tears, the trees are doing fine.

When I grieve, for a human, for a pet, for any loss, I plant things. I don't know why. Years ago when I had no place to plant a tree and had the need to do so, a friend let me buy and plant and tend a tree in her yard. The real estate agent told her, when she sold the house, that the tree, now a magnificent sight, added at least 10K to her sale price.

tomahto - that was beautiful!

I'm crying here- all thse stories.

My beloved Satine- a kitty who i adopted from the steets died a year and 2 months ago. I still think about her- I have her ashes in a cat shaped urn close to where she used to like and and watch me put on my make up- I miss my glamourous Lady!

Well gee, this is a cheerful morning. I just got a puppy 4 months ago and now I'm thinking about his demise and crying. Anyway, it's nice to read everyone's stories, regardless.

Back in October my boyfriend and I had to put down our fresh little cat Ms. Jackson. She was a stray the vet estimated was at least 14 years old and tiny from malnutrition. She was diagnosed with advanced kidney failure and given 6 months to live....we ended up having a good 2.5 years after that.

We wanted to keep the ashes, but the vet wouldn't allow us to take them unless we purchased a $150 urn. We have another cat, but Ms. Jackson was one of a kind.

My dogs have been cremated and their ashes are in wooden boxes on a shelf. My niece is under orders that when I go, she's to have their ashes mixed with mine and we'll all get buried in the family plot.

My dog (also Oscar the dachshund) is 16 and I've been dreading when he will pass. He's seen me through all those horrible teenage years.

This is a sad thread. I lost my little cat last October to lymphoma. I've never lost my own pet before, so it was really hard. I still miss her; I don't think that feeling ever goes away.
I rescued her off the street and I only had her for three years, but she was a really sweet, affectionate cat. She always wanted to be near me.
I had her cremated and I keep her ashes in a simple chest on a closet shelf. I put all the little stuffed animals she used to carry around in her mouth in there, too. (Sometimes in the morning, there would be a little pyramid of stuffed animals right outside my bedroom door!) I guess if I ever have my own house, I will bury the chest there. I don't know if I would do cremation again.
Thankfully, I still have my big cat. She is 7 years old and a brat, but I've had her since she was a kitten, so she's my girl. I've been thinking about getting a second cat, but I haven't done it yet.

Sad to say, a lot of pets who were THOUGHT to have survived the poisons in the pet foods are now dying from
lymphoma and kidney failure.
It is beginning to look like even one dose of the toxins, one meal, is enough to damage the kidneys in cats and with the other toxin, the dogs die from lymphoma a year or 18 months down the line.

Nothing you can do but love them while they live and learn not to trust "certain" pet food companies with the life of your pet.
Some of the pet food that tests out as deadly has never been recalled.

http://www.petfoodrecallfacts.com/

has links and test results, if anyone cares.

ive had some bad luck with the passing of pets over the years, but a semi crazy one came when i was just 8 years old. I had a huge Rabbit named flapjack. my parents would frequently set his cage out by the side of the house for short periods of time to let him enjoy the summer air. one day i came home from elementery school to find that my mom had left his cage outside over night and through the persuing day. the pore thing died of heat stroke and i balled for days. long story short we buried him beside a shed in our back yard. Right before he died tho our white german shepard had a litter of 7 pups.
flash forward 12 years later and im sitting with my extended family for chrismas dinner and my drunken uncle starts talking about these puppies for whatever reason. While laughing he starts to tell the story of how a few weeks after flapjack died the puppies dug him up. the whole time my mother is shooting daggers at my uncle and looking at me very nervously. This was all news to me but apparently while my mother was in the kitchen she glanced out the window to see 7 chipper puppies tossing the dead body of the rabbit around like a toy. Needless to say as my uncle is telling this story im slowly starting to tear up. Moral of the story: Family secrets! they are always spilled by the drunkn uncle during christmas dinner!

All these stories are making me tear up! I'm not going to go into much depth about my dead pets (it'll probably make me cry), but most of my pets have been buried in a nice little shady spot in our yard. I refuse to flush fish, as I personally feel it's degrading to the animal. I'm big on burial, and will bury the small animals my cats catch.

Recently I've been having my pets privately cremated. I keep two of my cats in beautiful little urns on my bookshelf, and while some people might think it morbid, they remind me of the happy times I had with my cats. When I die, I plan on having my pets ashes cremated with me.

My beloved Calico cat Ginger, whom I rescued from the street after my nextdoor neighbor abandoned her, died two years ago in winter at an estimated age 16. She was the happiest, most affectionate and intelligent cat I have ever met. I loved that cat and she loved me. Fortunately she died of natural causes at home so I was spared having to arrange to have her put down at a vet's office.

In burying her, I lined a plastic container with pillow cases, and laid her inside. Unfortunately, the ground was too hard to dig a grave so I stored her body in the container in the garage until spring. She is buried beneath the intertwined canopies of a magnolia and crabapple tree, surrounded by a bed of crocuses on a friend's property in the country. A large stone marks her grave. Each spring the flowering of the trees and plants is a beautiful reminder of my beloved friend.

I had a betta fish named Sven through most of college; he finally died just after I graduated. I buried him in my mother's potted rosebush and it bloomed twice as many flowers that year.

Now I have guinea pigs - Twee is about 5 and Nori is at least 5 and a half. I've had them through most of my post-college life, and I can't stand to think about losing them. I would have to bury them in the back yard and plant something lovely over them, though I'd have to leave them when I move (I rent) and somehow make sure nothing dug them up. I think you can legally put small animals in the trash here but that sounds horrible to me.

I was a bridesmaid in my best friend's wedding this weekend and I took an entire week to travel. When I got home Tuesday night, I found my poor little Baby dead in her kennel. I have two roommates and for a whole week, they neglected to give her the food I left, fresh water and forget about affection. They didn't even let her out of the kennel ONCE, they heard her crying for days, shut my door and ignored her.

I've had my cat for 15 years, since I was 10 years old and she was just a kitten. I took her to college with me, brought her to New York... she's been my companion, my child for 15 YEARS and I left her in the "care" of two supposed friends for ONE WEEK. She'd been through so much (tail amputation, poisoning, hyper-thyroid), yet soldiered on each time... to think that her death was so avoidable. WATER, FOOD- these are basic things! And she must have suffered so much... I doted on her constantly so the fact that she died of neglect... I'm still in shock, frankly.

She's being cremated, but I don't know if I should take her ashes back to our childhood home for burial or keep her with me. Also, how do I continue to live with these people who killed my child?! Ugh, I'm sorry for the rant, but this was the first morning I had to wake up without her... but I swear I felt her walking on my legs bright and early as usual :(