lavendertook

Tuxie died on Aug 30th after having a cluster of 3 seizures last month and having difficulty recovering from them and adjusting to anti-seizure drugs. I was not happy with most of the emergency vets we went to and will always wonder that if he had better care, might he have lived longer, or if it was just his time and he was already in decline, but he had struggled enough and his body was failing and his blood glucose was yo-yoing crazily that early Wednesday morning, so I agreed to his euthanizing but regret I didn’t get to hold him at the end like all my other cats. I’m so glad, though, that I insisted on going in back to say goodbye and pet and kiss him before I left the vets before he died. They said he was unresponsive but I saw his toes curl and felt movement in his face as I pet and spoke to him. The emergency vet called shortly after I got home to ask to euthanize him and he would have sufferd more if we made him wait until I got back there, so I didn’t get to be with him. I brought home his body Friday night to give the meezers a chance to say their goodbyes and to bury him Saturday, and he was still sleek and beautiful. I put a bouquet of blooming catnip between his paws and buried him in the backyard 6 feet from where I buried his momma Mooshka 4 years ago under the apricot sapling. Moo is watching over Tuxie again and Tuxie is watching over the house he loved. I met him following his momma just a few blocks from where I live now, so it feels appropriate to have him and his mom compost the soil they came from.

That was a week ago Saturday. He was almost 17 and a half years old, 3 more years than his mom got and a few months more than his beloved Saki. He lived with diabetes and seizure disorder the last 9 years and pancreatitis the last few. Starting out feral and choosing to move in with me at 6 months even though he wasn’t ready to be pet yet, he lost the need to hide form strangers in his home his last few years. He was a toggle kitty--one who would purr for pets one minute and bite at your hand the next, but could be quite the sweetheart when he was in the mood and crawl into my arms demanding to be held tight and get pets and kisses. If he had siblings, they were removed from him early, and he never learned how to play well with others. He would corner and beat up Moo and Saki, who he adored and would cuddle up to afterwards. I’m glad he had aged out of doing that when the young meezers came along. They adored him, and he accepted it to varying degrees. The Sunday night before he died, after I brought him home from the emergency vet after his afternoon seizure, he was more affectionate than ever, headbonking me every time I woke to ask for more pets and kisses. He was always affectionate after seizures, and having been treated with valium and their letting him wolf down a post seizure meal he was moreso. And maybe he was saying a very loving goodbye.

I knew Purrsimmon would have the hardest time of the 3 cats, as she loved Tuxie most, and she didn’t eat well and threw up each day for a week after her last goodbye to him, but has thankfully made it through that stage of mourning and his been keeping things down and eating well since Saturday. She still sits near his feeding station looking mournful at times. We are grieving together and I love her up every chance she gives me. She just settled down next to me again. I miss my big, beautiful Tuxie boy.

Moo/Mooshka/Mooshkin
Moo Brandybuck Breakstone
PriMoola Brandybuck
Princess Holstein the Winsome

April 1, 2005 (approx) - Dec 2, 2019

Moo was fading. She wouldn't eat any of the dozens of foods I set before her, and though the rugs I put down everywhere and padded steps helped her getting around better to get to her closer water and litter box stations, her front legs were beginning to go. I was giving her subcutaneous fluids at home over the weekend, and though they make them feel better over all, she was always weaker for hours after injection of them until the imbalance of the fluid bulge dispersed.

In the middle of the night last night, her breathing started to be more labored and she peed her little bed because she didn't have the strength to get up. So in the morning I determined it was time--I was afraid she was suffering with the labored breathing. And I was getting less able to get up and help her in the middle of the night after slipping on one the rugs and falling T-Day night. I took care of Tuxie's food and insulin and loved her up some more and took her to go. Tuxie didn't want to say goodbye--her breathing scared him and he turned his back on us and looked scared when I brought her to him to say goodbye.

I sat with her a couple of hours at the vet, as it turned out, because she was busy in surgery. Moo seemed stronger, her breathing back to normal, and more alert than she had been--she meowed, and made clear she wanted something. I asked for a litterbox and a cup of water brought--it was the water she wanted and she drank a lot. The strength was all probably due to the adrenaline surge of going to the vet. Otherwise I sat with her in my arms and lap, petting her, blinking love to each other as she rested. I had second thoughts as she seemed stronger, but Dr. S told me she's probably feeling worse than weak--kidney failure makes you feel lousy and nauseous.

I had a week to love her up and she blinked it back, and laid her head in my hand and paw on my lap, and seemed comforted by being carried as she always loved, but also cleaned up. She was so willing to accept help, letting me help her position her struggling legs in walking and sitting up by her water bowls and getting her tail out of the way in the litter box and purred at being cleaned up with wipes and fluffed with towels. I don't think my Saki or most other cats I know would have accepted this much help and be comforted by it. But all I needed was for her to have a fall and injure herself further or go into respiratory arrest and go in a painful and scary way. So it was time.

I held Moo in my arms, petting her and loving her as she looked back with tired love, and the Dr gave her the drugs through a catheter as she slipped away gently and was gone before I knew it.

Moo hunted me down outside my old apartment. She'd follow me down to the town center and the gym and I'd carry her back in my arms--she'd be full of delighted purrs at this--it was always her favorite thing, along with sitting in the sun. And Tuxie, her little feral shadow kitten, would cautiously but tenaciously follow behind us. I never aspired to have a black and white cow kitty--I'm imprinted for siamese cats but tabbies and calicoes have always turned my head, too. But now I'll always feel that special affection for cow kitties.

She hunted me down and I took her in my arms and carried her and loved her and then she was gone. That was Mooshka.

I hope to be able to dig a hole deep enough in the yard to plant the apricot tree and bury her beneath it. I don't know if I have the strength to get through that much clay--I may need to find someone to hire to help. But the vet is holding her body for now until I work this out. And now I need to love up Tuxie, because his relationship with his mom was complicated, and I think he knows she was dying and is gone, but we'll get through this together.

I came across this sweet song vid yesterday by Meghan Trainor, and I have to say I really did love my Saki like I was going to lose her and was often brought to tears by something sweet she would do. She came to me 4 years after I lost petite meezer Stormie terribly when she was only 9, and my world came crashing down. It did take a couple of years for me to stop comparing Saki with Stormie and fully love all her similar, but not quite the same ways, as well as her different ways. She got to live out the full lifespan Storm did not, and I was constantly aware of Saki's eventual loss, and fearing it. I thought in some ways it was a wounded way to love and a sign of my brokenness, but maybe it is just a way of maturely loving in full understanding of our mortality. I never took my Saki for granted, and am grateful for all the cherished moments, and I do not regret wasted time not loving her the best I could. But 4 weeks ago, I learned the real reason why Sunday nights are so sad.


My high spirited girl on her lookout tower, about to fling her toys about.

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