I did not expect tonight to end as it did. After a week of finding our little 12 year old kitty, Baby, hanging out in odd places around the house, tonight was the night the traveled over the Rainbow Bridge.
Baby was an odd kitty from the very start. She was a munchkin kitty, with all four legs about half the length of a normal cat's limbs. But don't think for a minute that stopped her- she ran, jumped and played just like a regular cat. She was once mistaken for a squirrel when she was very young by a friend's toddler visiting our home.
And she was beautiful- long silver fur, tipped in dark grey, soulful crystal clear blue eyes. Her tail was almost bigger than she was- very long and full. Baby was the softest kitty I'd ever had.
She was skittish, especially around strangers. Most of our friends didn't know we had more than one cat- our big old mama cat, Sweetie (my girls named both of them when they were about 2 and 4 years old), is a rescue cat. She's about 17 years old now, and while she's moving slower she's still getting around OK. Sweetie isn't shy about people, but Baby took some time to warm up to people. She hated going outdoors, while her older sister does so every day. Baby was not happy when we brought home our dog- a rescue English Setter, skinny as all and in need of a good grooming and a decent bed. She avoided the dog, until she figured out that he was more afraid of her than she was of him. It was good to watch her stand her ground, and be the kitty royalty she wanted to be.
Over the last week, all of us have been finding Baby in odd places around the house. First, I found her sitting in the dark on top of the heater vent in the downstairs bathroom. Then, twice during the week, my girls found her laying in their bathtub- not drinking the water, but just laying in the tub. My husband noticed she'd been drinking out of the dog's bowl a lot more than usual. Last night, I came into the office, and Baby was perched on my desk, wedged between two stacking files, just laying there like she owned the place. None of this was normal for Baby. She was strictly a chair-couch-kitty bed sort of kitty.
I got home late tonight, after a long day of back-and-forth to various meetings. At my last meeting, my crew had a birthday cake for me- the big day isn't until Friday, but we wouldn't all be together again for a couple of weeks. We sat down to dinner, and the dog started whining at us, and then whining at the laundry room where his bowl is. I asked my husband if anyone had fed the dog yet, and he said no, but he's not whining AT us, he's whining AT something else. He got up to check it out, and there was our little Baby, sitting immobilized in front of the dog's water dish, in a puddle of kitty pee. She couldn't move. She didn't cry or meow. She just sat there, unable to move.
My husband got the cat carrier out of the garage while I marshaled our teenage daughters. We'd had Baby since the girls were really little, so this was the first pet they'd be losing. Off to the emergency vet, where the kind and caring staff told us Baby had severe kidney failure and needed to be put down.
It's a terrible decision to have to make, but none of us wanted to see her in anymore pain. She'd lost a lot of weight, and her eyes weren't bright blue anymore. She was just exhausted and so weak- that's why she couldn't move. I have no idea how long she was in there like that at the dog's bowl. I feel so bad about that. That she could have been parked there for hours, with no one noticing because we're all out of the house, or focused on other things when we were in the house. No one knew what she was going through.
They brought her in to us so we could all say our goodbyes. We shared our favorite memories of her, and petted her little head, and prayed her into the Great Beyond.
We walked out with our empty cat carrier into a waiting room that had been empty upon our arrival, but now contained two families with dogs- one with a bandaged tail and the other, well I just don't know what was wrong with him, but he looked OK to us. They all looked at us, our tear-stained faces, our empty carrier, and they knew what had happened.
Now we're home, and my girls have gone to their rooms in their grief. Our mama cat is asleep on her bed upstairs and doesn't seem to realize what's happened. Our dog, well he looks sort of sad all the time, but that's just his face. Give him bacon, now there's a smile!
We are one less kitty tonight. No more watching Baby chitter-chatter at birds outside the back window. No more of Baby sitting on my husband's chest while he naps in his favorite chair. No more funny standoffs between our little bitty kitty and our big, gangly dog.
You will be missed, Baby. Thank you for making the last 12 years more fun, interesting and loving.