Ten Years After

It was ten years ago today that Her Emilyness went over the rainbow bridge.

Three tigers and a tuxedo moggie all got their ears rubbed by me this morning.

Emily, the Queen

The Way Of Cats Blog describes Her Departed Emilyness quite nicely.

Emily had Katherine very well trained, in fact.

Photo Extra: Emily's Last Year

The single most important event at our kitten farm this past year was the passing of her Emilyness. But we have our memories of her, and of course photographs such as her relaxing on the bed during her final springtime with us.



Rest well, our elder kitten.

For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her

Today would have been Emily's 17^th birthday. l miss our departed queen.

Not often, but I do.

Happy birthday Emily, wherever you are.

Emily At Rest

We mixed Emily's ashes with the soil for the climbing rose this afternoon. I hope it has enough sun to make her feel warm.

While we've mostly moved on, it was still a sad time for Katherine and me.

The boys did not attend, but immediately after coming in the house we we summoned them, fed them kitty treats, and petted them.

Rest in peace, our little calico.

Our Dainty Departed Emily

Another Emily quirk we don't miss (much): No one ever explained to her the difference between sinks and fountains.

Emily used to mostly hang around upstairs, an orbit for her final months that mostly consisted of the bed, Katherine's desk and futon, the sun deck in my office, the litter-box, and the bedroom water fountain. In particular, she tended for some reason to use the litter-box, and then head immediately for the fountain, wiping her paws on the edge before drinking.

No wonder the upstairs fountain always seemed dirtier.

I blew off washing the fountains over the past month, and when I got around to them, they were still cleaner than after a couple of weeks of Emily use.

(At the same time, while I wrote this my third monitor has had a picture of Emily asleep on the office futon. Pity I can't rub her ears for her...)

Canned Emily

Katherine picked up Emily's ashes from the Stoneham Animal Hospital. They were shipped in a boring brown box via UPS. Inside the boring box was a white six inch canister, with various sizes of black paw prints all over it, and a black label with Emily's name on the lid.

Rather than being depressed, the cute canister made me smile.

Katherine noted that this looks far nicer than what we saw on their web site for containers.

Katherine rolled her eyes when I weighted the actual remains (in a bag in the canister) and discovered that Emily now weighs 9 and 3/4 oz.

The Cat is in the Mail

I am told the remains of Her Emilyness are neatly packaged and waiting to be shipped back to the Stoneham Animal Hospital sometime next week. Katherine, keeper of all things flowering including the memorial climbing rose, says the bush was fed last week.

It occurs to me the boys should attend her memorial service (all 15 seconds of it). It occurs to me more that they should stay safely inside. I suspect we'll go with the latter.

All Choked Up

I'm not sure we mentioned this before, but Emily will be cremated. We plan to scatter her ashes around the climbing rose under the the sun deck window. She'll get lots of sun there.

Pet Memorial Park down in Foxboro is handling the actual cremation. They have a four week backlog for private cremations, which isn't great but falls under the "we rather do it right than fast" department. (Both they and the vet have cold storage.)

I called them today to sort out the container we want her remains sent back to us in. The conversation went fine until the representive mentioned to me that Emily was now there, having been picked up from Stoneham Animal Hospital on June 29^th.

It was a simple status update, but the reference to her reminded me of how she looked when she passed away, and made me start to choke up. I wanted to drive down to Foxboro (almost an hour away) and pet her, but of course she's gone. What's left is an empty cold furry shell.

I need to hug a tiger or two when I get home tonight.

(Writing this was hard, too.)

The Great Litter Box in the Sky

On the Road Again ... we were off see Bluegrass Mama this week.

While driving from New England to the Bluegrass State, it rained. And then it rained some more. Then it rained harder, usually when approaching an important interchange with lots of traffic.

Then I figured out why. Our Emily was now in the heavens, and she wasn't happy at the timing or that her litter box misses had anything to do with our decisions.

Litter box problems? I'll show you litter box problems.
(and it rains harder)

Seriously, that we can joke about it says we're moving on.

The Last Supper Lunch

Emily's last day was not all gloom.

We cleaned up various items from her residency when we got back from the vet. This included retrieving her upstairs food dish.

Now, Emily's food has been coveted by Billy and Whitey since they were kittens (long before Emily changed diets). The boys were on the prowl every time she snacked in one of the offices. As for her more formal meals in the master bedroom, Whitey in particular upon hearing the door open could sprint all the way from downstairs to sneak in. Then he would slink under the bed until the coast was clear for him to raid her dish.

As a bequest from Emily to the boys, I gave them each a small serving of her dry prescription food in their normal bowls before I dumped the rest back in the bag. Billy chowed down. Whitey, however, checked it out and then walked away, leaving it in the bowl.

I guess it just didn't taste as good if he didn't have to hunt for it.

A Song for Emily

"... A dragon lives forever but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys.
One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more
And Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar...."-- Lipton/Yarrow

Compared to little cats, humans live forever. Things will be grey for a while, even with the boys to lighten our mood.

References for Pet Euthanasia

I found a couple of articles that might be helpful to people struggling with a pet's terminal illness. This one is about the euthanasia decision, and this one is about the euthanasia procedure and the grieving process.

Photo Friday: Emily's Last Day

I took several shots of Emily this week, including her back on her sun deck in my office yesterday morning, less than a couple of hours before she went to the vet. As usual, she was grumpy with me for pointing a flash camera at her.



I noticed lately that Emily's fur no longer laid as flat. She was still regularly grooming, but we wonder if her illness affected the make up of her fur, or perhaps she wasn't as quite as complete in taking care of herself as she once was.

This morning, at the hour of Emily's usual visit, both boys were at my office window watching and listening to the birds. Whitey is still here after an hour. I don't know if Emily would approve, but I do.

I miss her.

Requiem For Emily

It is with great sadness we announce that Emily was put to sleep today at ~ 9:35 AM at Stoneham Animal Hospital. Katherine and I were both with Emily as she slipped away.

While Emily had regained much of her former energy in the past two days, her recent illness reminded us how close to the edge she was with kidney disease and her almost 17 years (~84 human years) of age.

We don't know if we acted too soon; we only know we hope she finds the heaven of her dreams wherever she has gone on to.

Rest in peace, our lovely calico.

Into the Sunset?

Short of being a parent, adopting a pet is one of the most humbling responsibilities a human can accept. You're promising another living creature that you'll be there, that you'll make sure it has food, water, shelter, and affection for the rest of its life. That doesn't seem like so much -- the needs of most household pets are really pretty simple -- but it still makes you think. Or should, though the number of abandoned pets suggests that many people don't.

Pet owners also face an even more humbling responsibility, one that few parents are unfortunate enough to experience. Household pets get old and sick, and eventually their humans have to decide whether and when to help them into the next life. That's where Emily is now. The antibiotic she got Friday seems to have wreaked havoc with her digestion -- causing massive diarrhea -- without actually curing the low grade infection that she went to the vet for in the first place. We took her off the antibiotic last night and her digestion seems to have settled down, but that only brings us back from "really sick" to "kind of sick," not all the way back to "Emily norm," much less truly "well."

Let's just say playing God isn't a whole lot of fun.

Emily Under the Weather

We took a long weekend to join MINIs on Top of Mt Washington, NH. It was almost cut short before it started because Emily lost control of her bowels Friday morning, and left a multi-part mess on the bed.

We got the bedroom cleaned up, and Katherine scooted off to the vet with our queen. They got back with a prescription for Emily in time for us to leave for a convoy (which I had organized) to NH. So off we went, returning Sunday afternoon.

Unfortunately, that's not the end of the story. Emily was hiding from the cat sitter by end of the weekend. More importantly, since the weekend she has gotten worse. She's still got a very loose stool, and she is going by (not in) the litterbox ~ 50% of the time.

We have a call into the vet as our next steps.

Photo Tuesday: Sundeck, Interrupted

Emily wants a bodyguard; someone needs to keep those pesky photographers away when she's enjoying a nap while sunbathing.

Photo Friday: Portrait of a Lady

Lousy photo quality (the camera phone was handy again), but great subject.

Photo Friday: Emily's Morning Bask

I mentioned a few weeks ago I wanted to get pictures of Emily on the sun deck. Need I say more?