Last time I wrote, it was about a fun time we had last weekend.
This weekend is a very sad one at our house. The Angel of Death came to our house Saturday morning ... and when she left, she carried our kitty's soul with her.
Her name was Frisky. And this isn't going to be easy to write. It's hard to see the keyboard with your eyes tearing up. My emotions ... I'm just very sad. But I knew it had to happen. We got Frisky in February 1992. Sixteen years ago.
She replaced our first cat, named Princess, whom we had gotten in early 1976. She had lived with us for 16 years, but suddenly she was an old cat. She lost a lot of weight--just skin and bones. The vet tried to rehydrate her, but it didn't do much good. We told her to put Princess to sleep. And I cried so hard. We both did. Our eyes were red and raw. She was, after all, our first child. Even if she was a kitty, she was ours, and we loved her very much.
It was midwinter, there was snow all around, and there was no way we could dig a hole to bury her skinny little body. In the end, we placed her into one of those heavy old cardboard beer bottle creates (Pabst Blue Ribbon longnecks), took her into the woods and placed her on a favorite blanket under a tree, where she could hear the birds singing and feel the sun shine down on her in spring. And that's where we left Princess go for all eternity.
It was a very sad house for a month. But then we decided it was time to get a new cat. We went to the animal shelter near Iron Mountain with the kids (they were both in school then) and looked the cats over. We found this young, tawny, ticked cat with a soft meow. A slim angular head like an Abyssinian. David came up with the name. He called her Frisky because she was jumping all over the place. Very active. It seemed like a good name.
About six months later, we got a second cat. A long-haired calico kitten. Just a little thing. For a while we couldn't come up with a name. She had this odd habit--she liked to suck my oldest son's shirt. One day I was home, sick with the flu, when the lightbulb came on. "We ought to name her Maggie," after the Simpsons' baby who is forever sucking on her pacifier.
Since then, Frisky and Maggie have been members of our household. My oldest graduated, went to college and then took a job near Detroit. My youngest graduated, stayed at home for a few years and then moved into his own apartment. Frisky and Maggie stayed with us and time passed. Over 15 years.
Late last fall, I observed that Frisky (who was never a fat cat) was getting thinner. Lighter. She didn't eat that much. Sometimes she hardly ate at all. I pointed it out to my wife. Was it time to start saying goodbye? Was it time to start bracing ourselves emotionally for that inevitable day?
Around Christmas, I noticed that her fur wasn't as silky smooth as it had been all these years, and that there were places where she didn't want us to brush her. I started saying, "Our poor kitty!" when I saw her. Then her mouth started looking deformed on one side. We talked about it again. But Frisky didn't seem to be in any pain. She was jumping up onto chairs and up to the kitchen table. She wanted water, and we had to change it several times a day for her.
And she suddenly had her appetite back. She had lost some teeth, and regular cat food was too hard for her to eat. But she liked chicken. For the last couple weeks, my wife would cut up chicken breasts into little tiny chunks for her to eat off a saucer. And she was suddenly interested in milk--for the very first time. Whenever I got out milk for our supper (one of my duties), Frisky was there, demanding some. And if I wasn't fast enough, she would jump up on the chair and then the table and start lapping it up from one of the glasses that had just been poured. That happened just Thursday night, I think. She was curious about our food. "You don't want this," my wife would say. "Kitties don't eat chili."
I was having lunch Friday when I saw her sitting by her water bowl. But she was just sitting there. Like she had fallen asleep. She was there for a long time. Friday evening, she was curled up in one of the armchairs--with Maggie next to her, also curled up. My wife had put Frisky there. But she climbed upstairs on her own Friday night. When I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night, she was there on the floor, lying down. I bent down to pet her head, and she looked up a little.
But she clearly was losing strength, and I could tell the end was coming. I got up Saturday morning and went to the computer (as I usually do when I get up) to check the mail, the news and the blogs. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Frisky slowly walking to a piece of carpet located just outside the bathroom, where both the cats like to sleep at night--so they can keep tabs on us. A little later, I went over and petted her for a minute or two. She was just lying there. I went into the bathroom to shave, and when I turned on the razor, I saw her raise her head for a moment to look at me. Then she lay down again. I petted her and went to work.
That morning my wife took a shower. When she came out, she sat on the floor next to Frisky and petted her for a minute or so. She told me later that Frisky's breathing was very shallow. About 11:30 or so, I came back--we were going on a shopping trip to Rhinelander. My wife was upstairs getting ready, and I went to check on Frisky. She was lying on the same piece of carpet, very still. I put my hand on her--and discovered that the kitty spirit that lived inside for 16 years was gone. I was on all fours on the floor, petting her with my left hand, and started to cry. "I'm sorry, kittycat," I told her. "I'm sorry."
My wife went into the basement and came back with the same cardboard beer crate that once carried Princess. We put some old carpet at the bottom and I picked up Frisky's body, hugged it to my chest, sobbed for a while, petted her fur, kissed her and then put her inside.
A little later, we found a place in the pines along a road. Somewhere where the birds will be singing again in a few months and the sun will keep her spirit warm. We waded through a foot and a half of snow to a site that we thought would be nice. I put down the beer crate, picked up the blanket and that little thin cat body, hugged and petted her one last time and then placed her at the base of a small tree. We stood there for a minute or so, holding hands, trying not to cry. And then we turned around, grabbed the beer crate and trudged back through the snow to the car.
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I've taken many pictures of Frisky over the years. And I have many memories. In a few days, I will share some of them.
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