Time to go a little off topic here.

I know this is Duncan's blog but I just finished Cat Daddy and, although I knew from the beginning Benny wouldn't make it through the whole book, it still caught me off guard when Jackson had to have his "frenemy" put down.  It always does.  Some of my favorite books, "A Cat's Life/Dulci's Story", "The Cat Who Came For Christmas" series and others, have all had that affect on me.  I have Cleveland Amory's final book about Polar Bear, "The Best Cat Ever", but have never been able to bring myself to read it because I just can't bear to read about his loss. 

When the time came and Jackson wrote about his last moments with Benny, I felt the loss of my Gus, Sybil and Esa all over again as if the wounds were ripped wide open again and just sat here sobbing.  My precious Gus took that final decision out of my hands but his loss was the first and the most painful, partly because of its suddeness but mostly because he truly was my soulmate.  I remember sitting in shock in my living room, knowing that I'd never again be able to hold my angel, saying "How does anyone survive the loss of a child.  He was my cat, not a child, but I don't know how I'm going to live through this."  But there was Sybil.  Her grief at the loss of her brother was so overwhelming that I knew I had to survive to help her.  She became my best friend and my constant shadow.  I brought Esa home hoping he would help ease the pain for both of us.  He was such a sweet little boy and I was head over heels in love with him.  Sybil, on the other hand, knew this was NOT her brother and wanted nothing to do with him.  But as time went on, we all learned to live together and I truly believe he was, at the very least, company for her while I was at work. 

When Sybil got sick, she was just over 15 years old and her arthritis was so bad that I knew it was time.  And in her own way, she told me she was ready to go to the Rainbow Bridge and be with her beloved Gus and her cousin Harley.  This was the first time I had to conciously make that choice, to watch her suffer or give her release.  It took 3 days before I could actually make the phone call to make an appointment.  Every time the phone would start to ring, I'd start to cry and have to hang up.  Our last day together was a microcosm of our life together -- we did all the things we always did, just in a few short hours.  Thankfully, I have the world's best vet.  As we were talking about what would happen, Sybbie managed to give him a little hiss and we both laughed.  Even as bad as she was, she still had that spitfire in her and wanted him to know she wouldn't take any shit from him or anyone else!

With Esa, like with Gus, it was sudden.  One day he seemed fine and then he wasn't.  He stopped eating.  He stayed in bed all day.  He had been fighting kidney failure for a couple years and was winning that battle but what none of us knew was that his liver was being consumed -- whether by tumors or cysts, the vet couldn't tell me, just that he had a very short time to live and I needed to make a decision:  wait for the inevitable which would involve daily medication to battle the continued lack of appetite, subcutaenous injections every few days, vomiting and pain or let him go peacefully.  Sounds like an easy decision.  Who would want to subject their precious furbaby to that kind of life?  And I was due to return to work soon.  I had been home on disability for about 4 weeks at that point and would be going back to work in a week so I wouldn't be home to monitor him.  How could I possibly go back to work and live through the day wondering if I'd find my little boy alive or not when I got home?  But it still hurt just as much having to choose.  And, unlike Sybil, Esa didn't seem ready.  He was only a little over 13 years old and still seemed like a baby even though he was a senior kitty at that point.

There is no way to describe the emotions of holding your furbaby while the injections are applied.  The first is an anesthetic so they seem to be asleep and they are still breathing.  The second is the one where the breathing stops and they slip from this life.  I held both of them as the injections were done.  That instant when the second injection goes in and you feel them leave you is beyond anything I've ever lived through.  My heart felt as if it would burst with the pain.  I knew my furbabies were at peace and that I'd made the right choice but still the questions linger -- did I do the right thing?  Was there anything else I could have/should have done?  I knew Gus and Harley were there for Sybil, I could feel them in the room with us, but Esa seemed to be all on his own that day.  And I still feel that he didn't know or understand what was happening, that it was some kind of betrayal.  Again, I knew it was the right decision, intellectually, but emotionally, it just seemed all wrong.

So, here I sit, weeping for my lost loves.  My life is wonderful these days.  I love retirement and being home with Duncan but I miss my angels every single day.  Little things Duncan will do will remind me of one of them and make me smile at the memories they left in my heart.  He is my constant joy and my life and I treasure every second I have with him but there's a part of me that looks forward to the day I head to that Bridge and find my Gus, Sybil and Esa, whole again and racing through the fields to join me and never, ever again leave my side.  And then my heart will be whole again, filled with the pieces they took with them when they left.