Ok, so maybe you've been following along, if not let me get you up to speed. My best friend Ginger Rogers Kitty died in February. It's difficult to mourn her loss because I can't find comfort in friends since I'm quarantining with COVID out in the world. All I do is go to work, go food shopping, and go home. The evenings are the worst because that's when she would hang out with me and sit on my lap non-stop. She'd even sit on my lap while I ate dinner. Not because she wanted food, just because she liked it there. I miss her daily. I've read you can find comfort in making a tribute to anyone that has passed. So get ready to see my Ginger Shrine!
It started with four shelves in my front room dedicated to The Teenie Weens aka Ginger. The bottom shelf has a wood box with her ashes inside (they came in a black baggie), and a whisker catcher. We didn't know whisker catchers existed until she passed, otherwise we would have collected them all along. After she was gone we frantically scoured our house for any sign of a Ginger whisker. We even moved around furniture, rugs, and dug a little through the vacuum bag just to keep a tiny piece of her.
The next shelf has my favorite picture of her with an envelope of all the cards we received when she passed. The picture is close to life-size but still a little too big to be her.
The second from the top shelf has her paw print that was given to us by the vet and a picture of her curled up.
The top shelf has a picture of her holding my finger and one of the last pictures of us together.
But it doesn't end there. My mother in law commissioned a local artist to paint Ginger on a rock. We have the rock in her cat bed on the floor near where she used to sit on the couch. I've cried over this rock more than once. Even the rock is bigger than how big Ginger was in real life.
Then unexpectedly Andrew's (the hubs) job sent us another memorial rock. We put it in her other bed by the back sliding door window where she liked to sleep.
Now on to jewelry. I had a necklace of her made by
Lumpy Buttons when she was sick a few years back. It hangs close to my heart. Lumpy Buttons even got her one brown cheek and one orange cheek right!
Then Andrew surprised me with a "WWGD" (What Would Ginger Do?) bracelet with beads in her fur colors. Ginger would be cute and kind, that's what she would do!
But both of us wanted something that we could carry a piece of her in. Andrew ordered a simple gold necklace that had engravings on all four sides that you could put ashes in through the bottom, but after a couple weeks he decided it was too hard to read and gave it to me. I added a gold chain and he got the same necklace with a different font. Below is the one that's now mine.
In the meantime, before he gave me his necklace, I ordered one for myself with a "G" charm you can put ashes in along with a heart ring where they take some of your ashes and make a stone out of it and I had mine set in sterling silver. It's from
Jessica Dennis Designs. I had planned to do this when I thought she was going to pass a few years ago. I'm not going to lie, these things are nice quality but took what seemed like forever to get back. I think it was about eight weeks when I received them in the mail.
At this point ordering these things seems to bring me more comfort than actually getting them in the mail. One thing that sometimes makes me feel crazy is this Ginger pillow we ordered on etsy from
aurespaces. Again the pillow is too big to be little Ginger but it feels like her. I move it around throughout the day to where in the house she would be sitting at that time. I talk to it too. It helps me feel her presence even though it's just a pillow. Here she is sitting in her favorite spot on the couch.
Even
Vicktor likes Ginger's new size.
Most recently a friend gave me an ornament of Ginger and I. I can't tell you how much it means that a friend knows how much Ginger meant to me.
It's been almost three months since her passing and some days are better than others. She will always be my baby and if buying Ginger "stuff" makes me feel better. I'm going to do it.
