August 2017 Solar Eclipse, final blow (I hope)

MuMu on the left, and his Mama, Dreamy
He's just missed her, so much.
Her death left a huge hole in our family life.

Our MuMu is dying. 

He is very close, now. He will survive his mama, Dreamy by just a hair over 8 months. MuMu fell into a deep, inconsolable depression when his mama died on November 28, 2017. 
The loss of my job and immediately after that- Dreamy's death, 18 years my Familiar and spiritual companion. Just some of the loss and death we have experienced. 
We really believed that MuMu would pull through it. But he spent the past 8 months, meowing almost constantly, searching the apartment and outside. 
It has been so grief inducing, for me and my son. 

My son... MuMu was in the room when I gave birth to my son, and he has been a force of Love and Comfort for my son throughout his entire life. Now, just weeks from 17, my boy is about to lose his boy. I can't stop crying. 

This MuMu saved me, comforted me, when I started to refuse to go to bed at night with my son's father, all those years ago when I began to pull away from the abuse and was trying to save myself and my son. I would lie down on the futon in our old apartment with MuMu, and hold him all night, while my son's father yelled obscenities at me from the bedroom, and I prayed that he wouldn't come out and try to hurt me.

April 12, 2018
My boy, with his boy

It has always been just us- a mom and a son, and a mom-cat and son-cat. We were everything to each other. And now it's all changing. Through bouts of grief, my son said to me, "I fully acknowledge that this signifies the end of my childhood." He said that he sees this as one chapter of his life coming to a close and the next one beginning. I agree, my chapter here is ending as well- but I do not want to acknowledge it, or accept it. I'm just going to cry until I can't breathe, mourn the loss of everything that has been dear and precious to me, in all of these years that I have loved, so much, with my son and our cats and our little Family.

Probably something beautiful is on the way for us, but I don't give a shit right now. I don't care about the weather, I don't care about anything except Grief. We're going to cry our way though it, all of it, unto the grave digging, body preparation and burial. We both know we are standing on the threshold of some big change. I pray that the changes are gentle and subtle and comfortable, for both myself and my son. We've been through a lot. I have to cry, now... and keep praying. 
Love and Comfort in these times of transition.