Member-only story
Love, Loss, Leo & Letting Go
Respecting the choice made by another
Leo’s gone.
This time I’m not going to look for him.
He chose to leave, going over the fence sometime the evening of the 22nd between 5 and 5:30 pm.
When Leo was lost the first time, eleven weeks ago, I thought I was going to dissolve into a puddle of extreme sadness and despair. Nine days after he disappeared, we were reunited through the power of social media. He stuck to my side like glue when he was first back; mostly sleeping, waking briefly to eat and be sure I was right there, then sleeping more. His favorite place to sleep was on my bed, snugged up next to my pillow, smelling of me.
After a two year journey to find a new home, we had finally moved out of state; we’d only been in our new/old home for six weeks. We came from an idyllic country place. We lived for 21 years in a small summer cottage community on a 350-acre spring-fed glacial pot-hole beautiful lake. Nine months of the year our neighbors were mostly gone. We lived on a very small street that dead ended at an oak woodland, that bordered on a marsh that fed into the lake. It was a perfect place to raise wild children, lots of cats, plants, live and love. When I was home — which was a LOT — my doors were always open a kitty crack. My fur boys were always free to come and go. Leo had a…
