14 Years is a Long Time

Well, I've been wanting to write another installment of Things That Aggravate Me for a while, but life got in the way, and, as life goes, stuff happened since my last post and I just didn't get around to it. Actually, I haven't really felt like writing about aggravations, because, to be honest, I've been through a rough two months.

As much as I like to keep this blog humorous, and try to use it to make fun of myself and other people (ok, mostly other people), sometimes my emotions get in the way of my rants. This post will not be funny, so if you were looking for a good laugh, skip this one and come back in a few weeks, as I'm sure I won't be able to stop bitching for very long. This post is, I guess, my way of getting closure and paying a last homage to very dear and very old friends to whom I have had to say good-bye this summer.

As the post title implies, these friends had been in my life for 14 long years. 14 years filled with moments of pure joy, as well as frustration and aggravation at times, but mostly happy and loving years. They have been in my life but, more importantly perhaps, they were part of each other's lives as well, and as much as they loved me (or so I like to think), their love for each other was something that only true soul mates will ever know.

For those of you who know me, even remotely, you probably have guessed who those friends were. For those of you who don't, you're about to find out. But before I begin, before I go any further with my sad but somehow beautiful tale, I want to make sure that everyone reading this remembers one thing. Remember that losing one was losing the other, that one could not survive without the other's companionship, and that anyone who ever tried or will ever try to tell me that true love doesn't exist is fucking ignorant.

Love and devotion of the kind Hobbes and Bagheera had for each other is something everyone, human or otherwise, should dream of and aspire to. Something those who have should recognize, cherish and not take for granted. Something that I believe lives on beyond the grave, in the memories and lives of those who witnessed it and marveled before it.

Hobbes was a beautiful, loving, orange tabby couch potato. Bagheera was a sleek, elegant, petite and skittish black ninja goddess. I met both of them when they were three months old and they took to each other like eggs and bacon. Hmm...mebby not the best analogy but I'm hungry. What I mean to say is that from the very start they stuck together like fly to fly paper. Hobbes being the fly paper, obviously. They took a little longer to take to ME, but after a few months of feeding them and cleaning their litter box I think they came to tolerate me well enough. I of course was in love with both of them. Loki came a few years later, then Milano, and they upset the pack a bit, but Hobbes and Bagheera were always sweethearts. Milano died a few years ago, Loki is still sticking around (and please heaven he stays for a while still, I know I've had enough heartache for a while) and there's a bit more to him in this story, but the main characters here are Hobbes and Bagheera anyway, so I'll leave it at that for now.

A few months ago, I wrote a piece on Litmocracy about how I came to find Bagheera. You can read it here, if you are so inclined, and see one of the last pictures I took of her here. I intended to write more, and made this the first installment of what I thought should be four: finding her, bringing her home, the big move, and the last chapter. I never thought the last chapter would come before I could even think of the second installment. Now I'm not sure I want to finish the story, although I imagine I will get around to it some day. My pain is still too deep to go back to happier times, and I need time to heal. Hence this post.

Over the years, Hobbes gained quite a bit of weight. This often brought about nicknames from my friends, the kids, or most everybody who saw him. From 'Chubs' to 'Garfield', Hobbes, aka Bibi or Hobby as I knew him, must have heard them all. I wasn't a big fan, especially not of Garfield, although I have to admit he looked like him and would probably have eaten lasagna if I had let him. He didn't need it though - he got pretty obese on good old cat food - well his and half of whatever was in the other cats' bowls.

He was a fat, happy cat, who loved to cuddle and purr and sleep and, well, eat.

Bagheera on the other hand was really slim and not so much of a cuddler. Hubby took to calling her 'batman', because she would hang out on the pipes lining the ceiling of the basement, and 'Ninja' because her unbelievably green eyes would spook us in the darkness from seemingly nowhere as we turned the corner. I mean her eyes were level with ours, because, well, she hung out at higher than normal altitudes. Hobbes and Bagheera didn't hang out as much after the big move, because Hobbes enjoyed company and hung out upstairs with the kids and their friends, while Bagheera, being shy and skittish, preferred the quiet and calm of the basement. She hung out (when not up in the ceiling somewhere) with our three pet bunnies, and seemed quite content. Once in a while she would venture upstairs, mostly at night when things had calmed down, and curl up with her beau.

Then sometime in May I started to notice that Hobbes wasn't quite as chubby as he used to be. He still ate, and ran down the stairs at the sound of food being poured into bowls, but he was just a bit slower, a bit older. I noticed but didn't take alarm right away. He was 14 after all, and had battled with obesity all his life (ok, I was doing the battling for him, but he had to bear the weight), and what I was seeing wasn't much out of the ordinary given the circumstances.

Over the next few weeks, things went south fast. There was nothing we could do. Hobbes was just getting old, and really tired, and I tried to spend as much time with him as I could. I knew in my heart he was slowly helping me to prepare for the inevitable, as much as I didn't want to consider of believe it. Over 3 or four weeks, my lovely once 20 pounds cat lost over 10 pounds. Then in a short, painfully quick week, he slowly stopped eating, getting around, and almost walking altogether. I knew it was no use, but I tried to finger feed him some wet cat food. I stroked his skeletal body and took him on my lap, noticing that for the first time I could remember, my legs didn't fall asleep after 10 minutes. My big boy was dying.

On the night of June 5, Hobbes could barely hold himself up. He walked like a drunken, emaciated, and oh so tired old man. We took him down to the basement so he wouldn't have to negotiate stairs. We laid him on a chair between us and he went to sleep. Then he woke up, walked with great effort onto my lap, and took a loong, looong nap. I wish he would have gone in his sleep right then and there. He didn't. I think he was helping me cope with the fact that he probably wouldn't be there the next day. I took him up on the offer. Before going to bed, I took him outside, under the tree, because he loved the outdoors. We stayed there, I don't know how long, him laying next to me in the grass, me leaning against the tree, both of us looking up at the stars. Then I took him back in the basement and went to bed with a heavy heart and tears in my eyes.

Hubby found him the next morning, in the little cubby under the upper stair of the basement staircase. He had somehow managed to walk all the way to the stairs, climb all of them up, and curl up in there. He was still alive, and his face was all crusty and matted with hair and whatever else had fallen down there. He took him down and got his face cleaned, then turned to get some water for him to drink. When he walked back, Hobbes was gone.

I knew it was coming, but I wasn't prepared for the ugly bolt of pain that hit me when he told me. I had just woken up, and hubby stroked my hair and said 'Swea Pea, he's gone'. I remember saying 'how?', and he explained, and then the tears came. The kids were off to school, so I could let go, and god help me, I don't know if I could have prevented it either way. My little boy was gone, my little sweet, loving kitten, the orange fur ball who had given me so many happy years.

We buried him in the backyard, close to the tree, with his favorite toy and his food bowl. We added a sprinkle of catnip for good measure, and said our good byes. I planted some flowers on the grave, but the dog dug them out in an effort to figure out why the cat was underground. We put a slab of concrete over the grave, and planted some daisies right next to it. I don't think Hobbes suffered much. I think the last week was more painful for me than it was for him. He seemed really peaceful, resolute almost. And I miss him so very, very much.

After Hobbes died, things changed with the cat clan. Loki tried to take the Alpha cat place, not realizing the dog is about 10 times his size. He bullied everyone around, and Bagheera rarely came out of the basement anymore. That's when she started spending ALL of her time on the pipes, on top of the fridge in the basement, and, to my horror, in the crawl space between the drop ceiling of the office and the floor above. I wish now I would have paid more attention, drawn her out more, but I think it would have made no difference. Bagheera was in pain, she was depressed, she missed Hobbes, and she secluded herself in her little world of loneliness. I think she became half feral. On the few occasions when she came to me for comfort, she promptly peed right on my lap and ran away. She stopped using the litter box. She hardly ate. It was painful to see her like that, but I was at a loss as to how to help her. I told hubby that I didn't think she had long, that she missed Hobbes too much and would just die of grief. And, in a way, I think that's exactly what she did.

I got used to not seeing Bagheera very often, but I made a point to seek her out every day, or at least to ask hubby if he had seen her. It was like having a known stranger in the house, a dear friend who just shut doors and the world around her. She started spending more and more time in the ceiling crawl space, which there is no way of closing up, and I was worried she'd never come out, and just die up there. As it turns out, she gave her life trying to do just that - get out.

We've had a flea problem for a while, and so we fitted all the critters in the house (short of the kids) with flea collars. I will never buy one again. Last Sunday, August 14, hubby came to me and said he needed help. Bagheera was hurt badly. As I went down the stairs, not really knowing what to expect, I found my little ninja in pretty bad shape. Her flea collar had caught somewhere in the crawl space, and trying to get it off, she got an entire front leg through it, choking herself and cutting a huge gash below her elbow. She also had a pretty nasty scab around her neck and on her shoulder, and could barely stand. She drank something like 4 cups of water, and had some moist food. We think she must have been stuck up there somewhere between 35 and 40 hours, based on the last time we had seen her.

Her usually clean and pristine fur was all matted and stuck to her in an ugly, sick way. She smelled of death. I can't imagine how much of a painful and scary ordeal it must have been for her to even get out of there - and alive. I have nightmares about it. I can't sleep because I keep imagining her terror, her pain, her thirst, her mad determination. When hubby found her, she couldn't stand. Her collar was still stuck around her like a vice, and he had to cut it off, and she took a huge gasp of air, then let out this chilling scream...one I would unfortunately hear again, and several times, as she strained to vomit the little food she had managed to eat. We took her to the vet. There was no choice in the matter. She was in unbelievable pain, and if there was even a chance of saving her, I was taking it.

Turns out the fucking fleas did it. Stuck in the ceiling, unable to scratch, move or clean herself, Bagheera was assaulted by a battalion of relentless blood eaters. The vet said she was so anemic he didn't even know if a blood transfusion would save her. He would not give her an anesthetic in her condition for fear of killing her, and the gash under her arm needed to be mended. My little girl was in bad shape, and suffering.

After much, much consideration, I finally decided it was time for me to let her go. Even if she had survived the blood transfusion and operation, I would have brought her right back to finding places to hide, to being sad and depressed at losing Hobbes, to a life of self-seclusion and despair. I chose to end her suffering, both physical and emotional, and we had her put to sleep. She went in my arms, wrapped in a towel, and I didn't want to let her go. I finally did, after asking that she be wrapped in her blankie (this I had to turn to hubby and ask because I was crying so much I couldn't articulate and no one else would have understood me). She was returned to us neatly wrapped up in said blankie and laid out in her carrier.

I want to mention here how caring, compassionate and understanding the staff at the clinic were to us. Obviously, losing a dear pet is a difficult thing for anybody, and these people probably see a lot of this kind of thing (especially being an emergency vet clinic), but their concern and understanding were evidently genuine. They treated us, and most of all Bagheera, with such patience, respect and devotion that I feel compelled to give them four thumbs and paws up. From handing me a tissue to gently, softly cradling my deceased friend and wrapping her in her blankie, these vets and technicians were truly remarkable and deserve a huge kudos.

We took Bagheera home and buried her next to Hobbes, with her catnip mice and her food bowl. To have to dig earth that wasn't even hard yet was the most difficult thing I've had to do in a long time. I put some fresh flowers on her body, and on top of her grave, which we promptly covered with a concrete slab, too. I hope I made the right decision, I hope she is happy being reunited with Hobbes, or at least not feeling the loss anymore. I like to slip out at night and talk to them, about just stuff - what Loki's up to, what the kids did, how the day went. Seems crazy maybe, but it helps. I always say good night, too. Maybe in time I won't have to do that anymore, and maybe I will. I don't know. All I know is I miss them dearly, and it brings me some comfort to know that they're close, if even just in my mind. I keep ducking not to be hit in the face by Bagheera's tail hanging from the pipe, and I always want to dish out more than one scoop of food into bowls that aren't there anymore. The one remaining bowl really looks lonely...as does Loki.

I thought Loki would be ok with all of this, seeing as he always wanted all the attention. But no. Loki looks lost. With no cat pack, with no one to annoy, or cuddle with, he just looks lonely. I try to pet him more, and spend time with him, and I think he'll be ok. He wasn't in love after all, and I think the dog will keep him company enough, as will we and the kids. And as much as it pains me to find the house somewhat empty, and to see Loki looking for mischievous fun with his departed mates, I've made myself a promise. No more. No more cats, at least for a while. As much as I love them, it hurts too much to see them go.

And I think this is the end of my sad (and wow, LONG) story. Please remember what I said in the beginning. As much as it hurts to have lost them, the truly important thing is to remember how much they loved each other, and how true love never really dies.

Hobbes, Bagheera, I love you very much. May you find peace and a catnip heaven filled with food and leather mice. Good night my little ones. Sleep tight. And don't let the fleas bite.