Place in space

fireworks, originally uploaded by Qathi.

I'm really missing Junebug. The last week has been especially hard, I'm not holding myself together well. I'm assuming she has died. That's hard to admit. I still have hope too, but... last week I was simply overcome with the feeling that she passed out of this world. I no longer feel her. Through the years whether she has gone outside or has been hanging-out in another part of the house, I could mentally place her exact location. The only times I've not been able to feel her presence was when I'd been hundreds or thousands of miles away.

It's clear she was plainly lost, not able to smell her way back and not totally familiar with the location of the house. Discombobulating sounds have been happening around the neighborhood since she left, I drive a new truck she's not familiar with and, and, and. She went out to walk off some frustration with the other cats and got lost. I have hoped that I would go out and find her, scoop her up and bring her home, failing that, I'd come home to find her waiting on the porch. I have done all of the things we're supposed to do to find a lost critter. As well I have done more unconventional things to try to find her and lead her back. To no avail. One of which was speak with animal communicators. What I gleaned from them was what I already knew, she's too lost to find her way back. We got clues, I acted on them to the best of my abilities with every available moment I have had. The place I have felt she is most likely to be, (or have been) is on the property of a woman who called to chew me out for putting a flyer in her mailbox (reminding me that it was illegal). I combed her property three or four times when I thought she wasn't home. I walk by the place calling for Junebug every night. I've "marked" a path back to the house from there over and over again. I've been down every road in the neighborhood, I've mentally tracked back to the house following every path, through every yard, through every bush in ways that I would travel and ways a kitty might travel. I've asked Shadow-Dude to show me where he last saw Junebug, and he did, good kitty, but the path fell short.

One prevailing thought I've had has been, can't I just tell her where I am? Can't I give her the coordinates? "Junebug, I'm 1/2 a block east and 1 block south." One of the things a communicator had me do was pick a spot over the house in space and "magnetize" myself pulling Junebug back to me - the communicator would meet me in that place in space and she would do her thing. This is the experience that inspired the "radar" piece of digital artwork (the sketch I'd made immediately after the experience). This morning as I went into school I thought; what if I send up a beacon and leave it there? How do I launch a mental road flare for my stubborn, bratty cat to use to get home?

I hope she's alive and trying. I fear she has given up and let go.

I've been dreading the inevitable, letting go of my baby since I realized she was old. I suppose I had expectations of seeing her through to the end, being available to offer her comfort when the time came. She is a being of free will, I can't predict her story, but this is a surprise ending I was completely unprepared for.