And Now...

[porphyry]

...just to add the icing to this illness-brother hospitalization-illness-ice storm-illness-snowstorm-disrupted classes due to cancellations-icestorm-illness-car wreck-injured child-injured mother-snowstorm-four plagiarist students this term cake--

... my cat died.

I suppose I should take the long, philosophical view. He was sixteen-years-old, almost seventeen, so he'd had a long, happy life. Three or four days ago, I noticed he'd stopped eating and drinking, never good in a cat (or dog, either). He would be tempted by nothing, and nothing is more pitiful than to watch an animal try to take a drink--want to take a drink, badly--and be unable to. He didn't appear to be in pain, but I couldn't take watching him like this anymore. Today he went to the veterinarian and we learned his kidneys were shutting down. We let him go.

He was a sweet cat--more like a dog than a cat, actually; friendly, affectionate, faithful even. We will miss him very much.

Comments

[malkhos.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much. I'm tearing up again, too, because it always amazes me how many people who adore their cats the way I did mine understand what a great loss it is to lose so beloved a pet.

I wanted Billy to just die peacefully at home, too, the way my female cats, his "siblings" had, but after four days of watching him like that, I couldn't watch it anymore. He could barely walk without toppling over, and it just broke my heart. But bless his little heart, each time I'd gently pick him up and try to comfort him, he'd perk up a little and purr.

I had a Siamese when I was a child, Ming Tai, but he only loved me... he terrorized everybody else. I wonder if that's common for Siamese cats to bond with only one person?

[filialucis]

I have no idea. I only ever had one Siamese, and she was Siamese more or less by accident (her mother was the charming black-and-white alley cat that lived next door, and the four other kittens in the litter were all black, white, or combinations of black and white), so her temperament may not be perfectly representative of the breed. She did bond most strongly with me, but loved everyone else in the family too. My father travels a lot as part of his work, and every time he came back home after a spell away, she'd go and sit on the floor in front of him and purr at him.

She was almost pathologically shy with non-family members, though, and would typically run and hide at the mere sound of an unfamiliar voice. Terrorising, no. Unsociable except to family, yes. :)