Nov 8th - In Memory of Pumpkin
Gerri = not good with loss.
It's bizarre in a world seemingly full of much more important things that one could absolutely mourn the passing of a mere cat. One of ten, even. Hell, I could go to work and find a dozen of them hanging out around the Verizon building or Rite Aid. So if you are of a mindset that "it's only just a cat" I suppose you can skip the rest of this entry and move onto something else and just be informed that one of many has died.
________________________________________
Otherwise:
He hadn't been my first or even second choice at the pet store where they were holding animal adoptions. I didn't even name him. I had to fill out an adoption form for him which included the ambiguous question "where is the cat going to sleep?". I thought it a trick question; having had one cat I already knew he'd sleep wherever he darn well wanted to.
An expert at what we'd called "the paw" he would creep into bed with you at night and use just the tip of his claws to wake you up for attention, until you did one of two things, throw the bum out or cuddle with him like he was a stuffed animal under the blanket. He was known to scale refrigerators vertically and to seriously test the phrase "curiosity killed the cat"; he was extremely fond of catnip and weird when he got high on it. He would let his sister Bastet lay on him as he stretched out on my recliner and he had a no nonsense way of planting himself on mid chest to position himself most advantageously for stroking. He was a mighty hunter and feared no bug, large or small.
The tumor which felled him was half the size of my fist before it started bothering him. Up until yesterday he seemed normal except for the occasional upchucking. Today he was yowling so loudly we had no idea what was up. By mid afternoon he was lethargic in front of the dryer and cool to the touch, in shock I found out later. I picked him up, brought him upstairs at which point he began to yowl again and I knew whatever it was, it was serious. The first animal hospital I brought him to there was no doctor even though they were open. I had to go all the way out to Plymouth Meeting and got the bad news there. On a younger cat without his complications of serious anemia, unbalanced salts and probable kidney dysfunction the prognosis would be a bit better but he was 13, old for a cat, with only a 20% chance of survival and perhaps a couple years ahead of him in pain or not himself even if he did survive the surgery. They would have had to take almost heroic measures just to get him into surgery with one or more transfusions. The final decision wasn't money. I could have lived with paying off the money. Putting him to sleep seemed like a betrayal of our friendship. I still feel horribly guilty. Catie keeps asking me where he is. Ken and I tell her he is with Nana and the angels, but she keeps asking and every time I start crying all over again.
Goodbye, Pumpkin.
365 day Challenge Song of the Day:
How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (Al Green)
I can think of younger days when living for my life
Was everything a man could want to do
I could never see tomorrow, but I was never told about the sorrow
And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
How can you mend a this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again
I can still feel the breeze that rustles through the trees
And misty memories of days gone by
We could never see tomorrow, no one said a word about the sorrow
And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
How can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again
It's bizarre in a world seemingly full of much more important things that one could absolutely mourn the passing of a mere cat. One of ten, even. Hell, I could go to work and find a dozen of them hanging out around the Verizon building or Rite Aid. So if you are of a mindset that "it's only just a cat" I suppose you can skip the rest of this entry and move onto something else and just be informed that one of many has died.
________________________________________
Otherwise:
He hadn't been my first or even second choice at the pet store where they were holding animal adoptions. I didn't even name him. I had to fill out an adoption form for him which included the ambiguous question "where is the cat going to sleep?". I thought it a trick question; having had one cat I already knew he'd sleep wherever he darn well wanted to.
An expert at what we'd called "the paw" he would creep into bed with you at night and use just the tip of his claws to wake you up for attention, until you did one of two things, throw the bum out or cuddle with him like he was a stuffed animal under the blanket. He was known to scale refrigerators vertically and to seriously test the phrase "curiosity killed the cat"; he was extremely fond of catnip and weird when he got high on it. He would let his sister Bastet lay on him as he stretched out on my recliner and he had a no nonsense way of planting himself on mid chest to position himself most advantageously for stroking. He was a mighty hunter and feared no bug, large or small.
The tumor which felled him was half the size of my fist before it started bothering him. Up until yesterday he seemed normal except for the occasional upchucking. Today he was yowling so loudly we had no idea what was up. By mid afternoon he was lethargic in front of the dryer and cool to the touch, in shock I found out later. I picked him up, brought him upstairs at which point he began to yowl again and I knew whatever it was, it was serious. The first animal hospital I brought him to there was no doctor even though they were open. I had to go all the way out to Plymouth Meeting and got the bad news there. On a younger cat without his complications of serious anemia, unbalanced salts and probable kidney dysfunction the prognosis would be a bit better but he was 13, old for a cat, with only a 20% chance of survival and perhaps a couple years ahead of him in pain or not himself even if he did survive the surgery. They would have had to take almost heroic measures just to get him into surgery with one or more transfusions. The final decision wasn't money. I could have lived with paying off the money. Putting him to sleep seemed like a betrayal of our friendship. I still feel horribly guilty. Catie keeps asking me where he is. Ken and I tell her he is with Nana and the angels, but she keeps asking and every time I start crying all over again.
Goodbye, Pumpkin.
365 day Challenge Song of the Day:
How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (Al Green)
I can think of younger days when living for my life
Was everything a man could want to do
I could never see tomorrow, but I was never told about the sorrow
And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
How can you mend a this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again
I can still feel the breeze that rustles through the trees
And misty memories of days gone by
We could never see tomorrow, no one said a word about the sorrow
And how can you mend a broken heart?
How can you stop the rain from falling down?
How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?
How can you mend this broken man?
How can a loser ever win?
Please help me mend my broken heart and let me live again