Rest in Peace Little Blonde Cat

Our little blonde cat (variously named Sugar Cookie, Bastett, and, much more frequently, just called “blonde cat”) has finally passed away, after 20 years – she’s been around nearly the whole length of our almost-21-year marriage, surviving three other cats and fifteen moves,, making her a more constant companion than most. She was down from her regular 9 pound weight to just five pounds (for comparison, our other cat is seventeen pounds of fluff.) She had been unable to keep down food, had stopped meowing, stopped being interested in treats or getting combed or petted, and had started falling a lot over the last few months, also getting progressively more blind and deaf. I wondered if I had done the right thing in trying to keep her around as long as I did. This morning at the vet she didn’t squirm or meow in protest, she didn’t cry in the carrier on the way to the vet. She was very peaceful at the end. But it was still sad. (This vet had recommended we have her put down two years ago, when she had perfect blood work but couldn’t seem to keep down food and drank water all the time, and it was conjectured that she had a blockage somewhere. Glenn squished all her food up (and we switched her food to easy-to-swallow food, rotating canned turkey and tuna for humans, even) for her every day for two years so she could swallow it.)
 
Pet deaths are a reminder that the things we love don’t last forever. I was thinking yesterday, I grew up on a farm and saw death all the time, but it didn’t insure that I don’t feel sad every time I lose a little animal friend. My husband and I both shed a few tears this morning, played sad songs, and cuddled our seven-year old remaining kitty, Shakespeare, extra. We will sprinkle her ashes on our little garden plot.

I usually give people a hard time about cat and dog poems, which tend towards the sentimental, but today, here’s a link to three cat poems by one of my favorite (and mostly unsentimental, except, it seems, for cats) poets, Margaret Atwood:

https://marg09.wordpress.com/2011/01/16/three-poems-about-cats/