(This blog post was first published on squarepegs.overspillers.net by SusieJB and is reproduced here with the author’s kind permission)

Around about the year 2000 I needed to earn some money so I set up a little business as a home help, it was just me, I offered to do shopping, cleaning, basically anything that anyone needed doing for a few hours a week.

I received a phone call from a lady who said she had a rather strange request, she was a recluse, and wanted me to do her shopping, she would leave the money on the step, as  I was to do with the shopping on my return. I told her I fully understood her situation as my son was recovering from a very similar episode.

I talked to her on the phone a lot and gradually established a very good friendship, even taking a fully cooked Christmas dinner to her doorstep.She was very intelligent, but had a very sad life losing her parents and her only brother very close together, she had been in a car crash and was very concious of some scarring on her face, she would not look in the mirror, turn on a light, or open her curtain, she had absolutely no one, not one friend.

It eventually emerged that she had a lifelong desire to move to Polperro so I encouraged her to do so, saying that we would help, even though it is quite some distance from where we live.
Eventually she found a flat to view and much to my amazement agreed that we would take her to see it. I had never met her even thoughI had been doing her shopping for getting on for three years by now, I did wonder what sort of person we would be meeting, I was I must admit rather shocked when very smartly dressed attractive lady came out to the car, if she had bad scars she did a marvellous job of hiding them.

Well to cut the story short, she did move, it seemed to transform her, she made new friends, went out of her home and started to have a life.
We have kept in touch and I have always done her online Tesco order for her, however, I have noticed over the last year or so that she has gradually started to retreat back into her shell, not wanting to see anyone.
She has sounded very unwell on the phone and has resisted all my attempts to persuade her to go to the doctors.
She phoned me on Monday her voice very slurred, she sounded very ill, I begged her to phone the doctor and she promised to phone for an ambulance at 9.30 on the Tuesday which she did.
She is in hospital now and sent me a text yesterday to tell me that she is terminally ill and has very little time to live, she won’t allow me to visit, she has absolutely no one, I doubt if I will even be informed when she dies.

I know I could force the situation, but I know her, and I know she trusts me to respect her wish to be left alone, she says she has to build a wall and that if she saw me it would break it down and she couldn’t bear that,  she sent me a text saying ‘no sad farewells young Sue’

I don’t even know why I am writing this, I just need to, to appease my conscience maybe…because I now think I should have been more insistent that she saw the doctor although I do know her very well and know that would have been fruitless.
I suppose I feel it is really such a wasted life, she was such a lovely person, and it is quite heartbreaking to see someone so nice come to such a sad end.

This blog by Grace51 was first published on Square Pegs (http://squarepeg.overspillers.net)

I put this up in saga a couple of years ago.. 🙂

She was only a cat…how many times have I heard that in the last few days..either spoken or implied. I got her from the Cats Protection League when she was eight weeks old, a tiny ball of fluff that I could hold in the palm of my hand. I called her Fluffy..a silly frivolous name. She deserved better. No pedigree cat was she, though. A hotchpotch of four different colours, black, fawn, and white with a little rust thrown in for good measure. Her paws were one of each colour.
For the past five years she has been my friend, my companion, someone to talk to when I got home from work. As soon as I opened my front door, I would hear, without fail, her little chirrup of welcome. She slept on my bed at my feet, and although my alarm is always set for 5.30, she would wake me at around five every morning by putting one paw on each shoulder with her nose almost touching mine, or sometimes she would nibble my chin or rub her face against mine.
I, like most people, have had unhappy times in my life. Somehow, Fluffy always knew. There she would be, next to me, no matter where I was. She’d sit by me in the garden, or wherever I happened to be. I do think that animals can sense if you are feeling sad.
I went out a few days ago leaving her happily snoozing under her favourite apple tree in the garden. I came home a few hours later to find her little lifeless body, mouth agape, as though in a silent scream. I gathered her up and drove to the vet. He thought she had been poisoned. I’ve no idea how this could have happened, but the thought of her dying such a dreadful death while I wasnt there will always haunt me. Any animal lover will know how I feel. The next day, I buried her under the apple tree. Her tree.
I miss her so..I’ve had to put all her things away where I cant see them, but I keep finding things like little strands of her fur, her squeaky mouse, and my old sweater that she loved to sleep on sometimes.
Only a cat? Ahh no..so much more than that.