This Friday Is For Remembering The One Who Came Before

Payton with Daddy

Here is something that Mommy and Daddy have had a heavy heart over. Their beloved Payton, One Who Came Before, is buried in Kansas City, at our home. We will have to leave her physical remains in Kansas City. The other Ones Who Came Before are remembered differently, T-Gray has a lock of his hair in Mommys jewelery box, Jordan the woofie has his collar and tags attached to Daddys favorite photo of him. When we leave Kansas City, Payton's physical remains will stay at our old home. She will stay with so many good memories, holidays, milestones, struggles and so much laughter. Mommy and Daddy only had to look near the lilac bush in the yard and see her memorial - there she was. Soon, this won't be the case. Mommy took Payton's passing particularly hard. No one knew why she died, she passed while Mommy and Daddy were out to dinner. They came home and she was gone. The vet said heart trouble. She was barely 3 years old. Daddy buried Payton while Mommy was in mourning, neither one of them were thinking clearly enough to "save" something of her. There is no lock of fur, not many photos, just wonderful memories of her being the opinionated, mouthy kitty that she was. Mommy and Daddy have felt so bad about leaving her, they have struggled about taking her memorial with us to O Hi O and placing it by the lilac bush in our new yard. Today Mommy found a poem she had saved on her computer a long time ago and took it as a sign that Payton will be OK with us taking her memorial to O Hi O. The decision has now been made, the memorial comes with the family and will go by the O Hi O lilac bush. Payton always lives in Mommy and Daddies heart. The poem was written a long time ago, but still holds true today. Here it is, for those of you who have lost beloved family members, may it bring you peace like it finally has to my Mommy and Daddy.

Where to Bury A Cat
There are various places within which a cat may be buried. We are thinking now of a tabby cat, a striped cat, whose coat was like watered silk, and who, so far as we are aware, never entertained a mean or an unworthy thought. This cat is buried beneath a cherry tree, under four feet of garden loam, and at its proper season the cherry strews petals on the green lawn of his grave. Beneath a cherry tree, or an apple, or any flowering shrub of the garden, is an excellent place to bury a good cat. For beneath such trees, such shrubs, he slept in the drowsy summer, or chased bees, or lifted head to challenge some winged intruder. These are good places, in life or in death.
For if the cat be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, questing, asking, laughing, begging, it matters not at all where that cat sleeps at long and at last. On a hill where the wind is unrebuked and the trees are roaring, or beside a stream he knew in kittenhood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture land, where the most exhilarating moles burrow. It is all one to the cat, and all one to you, and nothing is gained, and nothing lost -- if memory lives. But there is one best place to bury a cat. One place that is best of all.
If you bury him in this spot, the secret of which you must already have guessed, he will come to you when you call -- come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death, and down the well-remembered path, and to your side again. And though you call a dozen living cats, they shall not hiss at him, nor resent his coming, for he is yours and he belongs there.
People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no mew pitched too fine for mere audition, people who may never really have had a cat. Smile at them then, for you shall know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth the knowing.
The one best place to bury a good cat is in the heart of his owner.
by Ben Hur Lampman, Portland Oregonian, 1921

We will always love you Payton-Pie. Come on with us and stay in our hearts!

~We're all great here, just very, very busy with planning the move! Hope you kitties have a super weekend. Mommy is in cuddle mode and we're loving it!