9 years ago...
...and a little more, actually...I hadn't been a widow but a few months, and I was having trouble coping well. Or coping, at all. Funny, since Harris was 18 years older and had been sick for some time, I thought I was prepared...but I wasn't.
I'd been a caretaker for so long, and a wife so long, that I didn't know what to do with myself. I was lost, and truthfully, depressed. Very much at loose ends.
Then one summer day this little calico ball of fur came creeping out from under my canoe by the back porch, yelling her head off. Her eyes were barely open, and her mother, a stray, had died of unknown causes; I hadn't even known they were there. I could tell she was afraid, that little calico, but by God she was going to see that her survival needs were met, one way or the other. She led her siblings forth into the world, for all the world like a scout on a mission, so that became her name.
They were more shy than she, but with her example, one by one, they emerged from their den and came wobbling toward me--toward care and love.
One died almost immediately, too weak to survive; the little yellow male, so full of energy, a few months later.
And Scoutie died last night, at my beloved vet's. Pete had called me around 10 to tell me he didn't think she was going to make it. He had her on an IV, antibiotics, liquid, nourishment, and had put her in an incubator to keep her warm, but she just kept going downhill. He sat by her side, and she passed sometime around 11:30--about the time I had an emotional meltdown.
Funny, that silly, bossy little animal that led her siblings out from under that canoe led ME out of depression, too. They all kept me busy, gave me something Out There to think about, and made me laugh with their kitten-antics. I'll miss her terribly, and so will Rags, her one remaining sibling--the original Scaredy-cat to Scout's cocky little trailblazer.
I'd been a caretaker for so long, and a wife so long, that I didn't know what to do with myself. I was lost, and truthfully, depressed. Very much at loose ends.
Then one summer day this little calico ball of fur came creeping out from under my canoe by the back porch, yelling her head off. Her eyes were barely open, and her mother, a stray, had died of unknown causes; I hadn't even known they were there. I could tell she was afraid, that little calico, but by God she was going to see that her survival needs were met, one way or the other. She led her siblings forth into the world, for all the world like a scout on a mission, so that became her name.
They were more shy than she, but with her example, one by one, they emerged from their den and came wobbling toward me--toward care and love.
One died almost immediately, too weak to survive; the little yellow male, so full of energy, a few months later.
And Scoutie died last night, at my beloved vet's. Pete had called me around 10 to tell me he didn't think she was going to make it. He had her on an IV, antibiotics, liquid, nourishment, and had put her in an incubator to keep her warm, but she just kept going downhill. He sat by her side, and she passed sometime around 11:30--about the time I had an emotional meltdown.
Funny, that silly, bossy little animal that led her siblings out from under that canoe led ME out of depression, too. They all kept me busy, gave me something Out There to think about, and made me laugh with their kitten-antics. I'll miss her terribly, and so will Rags, her one remaining sibling--the original Scaredy-cat to Scout's cocky little trailblazer.