I Miss My Little Kitty, grieving Options

[aepva]

This is the third full day I've spent without my little Cinnamon. She was such a wonderful cat, always ready to play, always interested in going outside (I have a cat-proof fence and the cats always go outside with me), and always eager to sit on my lap about 2 minutes before I was ready to get up. I'm so sad to lose her...

Cinnamon had CRF, we discovered it last July when she developed a bad kidney infection. It took 5 days at the vet for her to recover, and at one point I thought I had lost her. I went home crying, determined to end her suffering in the morning after seeing her in such a bad state. But I left the shirt I slept in with her, because she had crawled on top of it and was purring away. The next morning when I arrived she was obviously feeling much better, and indeed two days later she was home. I like to think it was the shirt but I know it was probably just one little thing that helped out of many larger things (like good medical care...)

Amazingly, when she recovered she recovered fully - until about a week ago. Her kidney values were healthy for 11 months, with almost no medical intervention. I'm grateful for that - that she could lounge outside, play, eat, and be herself for so long, feeling so good.

But just over a week ago, during the night on Saturday, she threw up food for the first time in months. And she wouldn't eat and got much less active. She still wanted to do her kitty things, like go outside, but I could tell she was not comfortable. A trip to the vet on Monday revealed sky-high kidney levels - so high the machine could not read them. After two days of fluids and other treatment, they were still just as high and had even gotten worse. But she was still fighting, had begun eating again, and she was so happy to have the catheter out.

I brought her home Thursday - amazingly she was still interested in keeping her old routine, but her heart wasn't in it like it used to be. After seeing her start to hide in the bathroom, and occasionally lose her balance when cleaning or getting up, I knew it was going to be her last sunset, and her last sunrise. She confirmed it for me when I took her outside - after a few minutes of sitting on the patio, she turned and asked to go back in. She has never done that in all her life that I've had her.

So, I tried to make her last few hours good ones. Even though it was steaming hot outside, I opened her favorite window so she could watch and smell things all night - one of her favorite things to do - and she stayed there for a while. I held her and petted her. I carried her to bed so she wouldn't have to try to jump up (she had slept with me every night since her kidney infection last year). And that night and again in the morning I brought her outside and carried her to all her favorite places one last time.

We even visited the spot where she had nearly caught a blue jay, the night before she vomited. I saw the feathers were still there, and she got very animated when she smelled them, and even bit one half-heartedly. I decided to collect them all...in the morning before we went to the vet, I showed them to her again. She smelled them again, very alert, and tried to eat one - a flash of her old self. It was funny and heartbreaking all at the same time.

I am fortunate to have a good vet - it's a large practice, but they are very empathetic and caring. They put her in a room with a window, and I'm happy to say that her last moments Friday morning were spent watching the birds, people, and cars outside. She slipped away quietly and peacefully with the birds in her eyes.

I buried her in one of her recent napping spots in the garden, wrapped in her favorite blanket with the blue jay feathers between her front paws. It's near some tall shrubs in part shade. Next year maybe I'll grow some catnip nearby.

I let my other cat, Oscar, be in the yard while I did this - and he did smell her quickly before settling on the patio to wait. I don't know if he understands. He has lingered by her grave several times since then, and that first day he laid down on the ground near it for about 10 minutes - I think that was significant because normally Oscar does not like to sit under plants like Cinnamon did. But I have caught him looking for her in the house, at moments when she'd usually appear to interrupt his routines. And he has gotten weird about eating since she went to the vet last Monday. Sometimes I have to sit with him or he won't eat.

My poor little kitty. I know I did the best I could for her, but it hurts nonetheless. I want to see her again, to hug her one more time, to see her standing on the bench in the living room, looking out the window for the feral cat who visits my front yard. There's a little smudge on the sill where she'd put her front paws. I think I'm going to let it stay there.

I hope I see her again someday, somehow. The thought of her being buried outside, where it's hot and cold and rains and snows, is very hard to get through. I know she can't feel it, but I worry that she feels alone or scared somewhere. Yesterday I fretted about leaving the gate to the front yard open when I was working (Oscar was inside) because I wondered if her spirit left and could not get back in, that would be horrible. It's silly but I keep thinking these things.

I try to tell myself that she loved to be outdoors and would go out even in the rain, and that now she can enjoy nature fully without any cares - and without having to come inside. But I also know she would always, eventually, want to come in because she loved to be combed and petted and to fall asleep in her window.

Thank you for having this website, and for all of you wonderful people who have been posting. It's been very helpful to read about what you all are going through, and in a way cathartic. Maybe in time I'll worry less about my little kitty...but I know I will always miss her.

[Brigid]

How I cried reading your posting; I so exactly mirrored everything about Ryd's last days on earth and her passing (exactly a week tonight; I feel like I am going insane with grief).
I also carried Ryd up to bed on a pillow at the end. Before she would have protested wildly, but the poor old girl simply didn't have the strength to fight in the end. I am so glad she spent her last night on earth right next to my head on a pillow.
And don't dismiss the shirt; these things are powerful for our little ones and they always gravitate towards things rich with the odour of the humans they own.
Ryd ALSO hid in the downstairs bathroom and looked up at me with such a forlorn look when I found her in there that I think when I found her there I knew deep inside me that the end was near. I just wish, wish, wish I had listened to this instinct more and then I wouldn't be feeling so utterly dreadful for all the things I did and didn't do at the end.
One week ago today, I carried Ryd outside on the pillow and set her down, hoping that the sun and fresh air would reinvigorate her. She walked very falteringly over to her water bowl and had a few half-hearted sips of water and then walked falteringly over to one of her favourite spots in the sunshine under the bush (under which she is now buried). I sat on a bench a few feet away from her and just cried and cried.
And now that she is buried under her favourite bush, wrapped in my fleecey jacket and with yellow roses between her paws and notes from us, (you are not alone in this respect either), I too worry so much about her little body getting wet and have gone so far as to cover her grave to prevent this happening. I also know its silly; where they are now your little Cinnamon and my RiddleyPid and all our other furries will never have to worry about being wet or thirsty or hungry, but we worry anyway, don't we? I also leave the French doors open so that she can 'get in', but now she can get in anywhere she wants. And I have lit a candle at her grave every night since she died just in case she needs to have the way lit for her. You can imagine just how distressed I am because in less than two weeks I leave this house, so the thought of being away from her is killing me. It really is. I don''t know how I am going to do it.
Oh and like your Oscar, Bertie has been lying on Ryd's grave since she died. Moreso, I think, than Oscar by the sounds of it, (Bertie spends most of the day there) but I think that the furry friends left behind definitely DO feel the loss.
Anyway, just wanted to let you know that you are not alone in any respect in terms of all you are going through. How awful, how sad. There's nothing else to be said. It's just sad and like Janet said, we must just try and be happy that they are all playing together and waiting for us, and happy that they all gave us such incredible joy, love and affection during the time that they owned us here on earth.
Love to you
B
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