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Old Grey

Old grey kitty came by today. A good thing too, it’s been brutally cold out, and she’s a feral.

Life hasn’t been easy for her. Originally she and old black were constant companions, sparring with young black.
 
Someone poisoned old black with antifreeze a few years ago, and we found him cold, in one of the safe spaces we’d built for them.
 
We brought him to be cremated, and then it was old grey and young black, joined by young grey. Nobody got along, really, though eventually young black and old grey stopped fighting as much. Then young black got sick a few times, then vanished. We know what that means.
 
Old grey and young grey actively dislike each other, and they fight enough that they come back limping at times. We still feed them both.
 
At this point old grey has used our yard as home base for .. 3 years now? We’ve had a few heartbreaking moments early on where we saw her sitting covered in snow.. and we started supplying homes. There’s .. 3 wooden cat houses (with foam insulation), 2 insulated boxes packed with shredded paper, an insulated popup cat house, and a cat tower outside — with hopes that these will provide enough chances for survival.
 
I hadn’t seen old grey much for the last few days though, and the last time she’d come by it was just to have a little water — no food.
Today she stayed longer, and ate some food.  It wasn’t as much as I’d hoped, but it was something.
Feral cats have a hard, short life on average.  We are doing a little to make those lives longer, and maybe a bit less harsh.
Tomorrow I’m going to see if we can’t get her to eat a bit more. Maybe something warm?  I added more padding to one of the houses today as well, and I saw her check it out.
I hope this helps.
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A moment of mortality

I’ve been pondering the end.  Not the end of all things, but my own personal end.

I’m not considering ending things before their time (or perhaps before life simply can’t continue).  I have read a few existentialist writings recently, which have me imagining the last moment, and then the moment after.

People have documented their near death experiences, and ignoring for a moment the ones where misfiring synapses caused hallucinations, the rest seem to generally agree that there’s nothing.

Not ‘oh I’m alone in a dark place‘.  No.  Nothing.  A complete absence not only of things, but of thought, of awareness.  I can liken this to the last time I had to go in for surgery.

I was there breathing, they were counting down, then it was hours later.  I remember nothing.  I dreamt nothing.  I thought nothing.  I’d say that I wasn’t .. anything, for that period of time.  I can only imagine the end is like that.  Nothing to miss, because there’s nothing at all, not even me.

This has me wondering now about several things.  My mind reels considering billions of lights just like mine, but going out all the time; their lives as important to them as my own, their endings also vanishing into silence.

I wonder about my own end.  I wonder if I’ll have the strength to say ‘this is enough’ when the machine fails, and to step off into the dark.  I honestly don’t know if I’m more afraid of going, or being gone.

I wonder if I’m using this time well enough.  How do I quantify that? Who judges?  I already know I’m going to leave precious little behind, and I don’t know how I’d change that.  I don’t know if I want to, or if I even should want to.  I wonder if I should be more upset that we leave no children behind, or glad that we’re not adding to a generation which might not survive to full term.

I’ll admit the fear comes back from time to time.  It returns now and takes up residence in the animal part of my brain, demanding an answer – anything to stem the flow of days and prevent the end.  I am reminded again why people believe in impossible things against all proof.  A beautiful lie is often more palatable than a painful truth.

I’ll make peace with this.  Somehow.  I’ll continue to enjoy what I have, and try not to let the end spoil the middle.

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It’s been a few months

September was hard.

We lived with the quiet for a little while, until catching a dark shadow out of the corner of our eye and finding it to be .. just a shadow became intolerable.

We reached out to the rescue society who brought us Shamus and Bongo so many years ago.  They had two kittens we chose and got (extremely rapidly), Atlas and Ophelia.

They had a rough start as well, with stomach issues that persisted for .. longer than we wanted.  We managed to work through them just in time for their spay/neuter appointments, so really, it was sometime in november before things stopped being completely insane.

Bundles of joy, that’s what they are.  Atlas is a gentle giant, and at 8 months old is bigger than Shamus was at full growth, and I suspect he has some more growing to do.  His sister Ophelia is much smaller, she was the runt.  She makes up for it with a very dominant personality.

Her favorite position is ‘tree branch’, where she’s draped across one of my arms as I pack her around.  I’ve somehow managed to become her favorite (I’m not complaining), just as Atlas has chosen Christina.

We also had a number of tasks pop up in rapid succession this winter.

Our washer started acting up, so we replaced both washer and dryer.  (The dryer ended up needing service as it was installed off center and was knocking, but that ended up working out)

We replaced our hot water tank.  The old one was showing some rust in places that made us uncomfortable.  The new one installed relatively easily.  It’s much bigger.  We haven’t run out of hot water since.  The installation job was ugly however, and we received no satisfaction from even the CEO of the company who did the work… we won’t be using them again.

We had the tree in our front yard trimmed.  Big heavy branches, and it was getting uncomfortably close to the power lines.  The tree trimmers did what they could, but it’s still a bit funky looking.  Not their fault.  Our timing was great as there have been several large windstorms since.

We finally got tired of our kitchen sink, with the rotting out countertop which made the faucet wiggle and impossible to tighten.  We had the countertop and sink replaced, the counter with quartz , and the double basin sink with a single (huge) basin.  That hit a little snag as well, some of the trim pieces didn’t ship out of Quebec in time for our install, so next week the work completes.  No complaints however, as the company doing this was amazingly responsive and the installers were the most professional I’ve seen.

We still have bathroom renovations pending.  A complete replacement downstairs, a new sink and shower in the main bath, and a new sink in the ensuite.  Crazy money, but I keep reminding myself we’ll only do this once more, so we may as well make it count.

After this we’ll only have a garage door to replace, a retaining wall to get rebuilt, and an ensuite bathtub to replace.  Those’ll be in the next 5 years or so.  Everything else is just maintenance – repairing a tap, getting the house professionally washed, etc.

I’m keeping ahead of some of the worst bits of winter.  I don’t think I’ll ever deal with it well, even with regular doses of vitamin d (which are helping).  How many years did I not realize this?  A lot of hard years that could’ve been easier.  They’re in the rear view now, can’t change them.

 

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Next day, through the gauntlet.

We spent today busy. Rightly so, yesterday was a bad day. Today we painted the inside of the new shed. White. Christina had already given it a coat with some paint we had left over, but she didn’t have quite enough. This time we both went to town on it, and .. well, it’s white now!
She also painted the door (red). We have been cleaning up .. mementos as part of getting through that ‘punched in the gut’ feeling you get when you find an object that triggers a memory. Mostly that’s all cleaned up.
We’ve also both agreed that hell no, it’s too lonely just us. We’re going to see if we can’t adopt another pair of kittens. Turns out the rescue society we found Shamus and Bongo at still exists, and they’re still rescuing cats in need. We’ll go that route again.
That gives us something to look forward to, which is a heck of a lot better than sitting here looking backward and second guessing signs and clues, and regretting our losses.
That doesn’t mean regret doesn’t still happen, but at least it’s not the only thing.
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My poor Bongo.

I’m glad this is a long weekend, I don’t expect I’ll be good for much for a few days
Tomorrow afternoon we bring Boo back to the vet. Final trip. I am witness to how accurate the vet was. He said weeks, but in just a few days Boo has started limping more, drooling, and yowling. These are new things, and they highlight how goddamn fast this is moving.
Weeks, maybe. Horrible weeks.
It’s been 13 years and 3 homes. Of the 7 animals we started with, he’s the last. Our final bright spark. So much bigger than the tiny kitten who hid behind the toilet shaking in fear when we brought him home.
I will miss him.
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2020 is the worst year ever.

WordPress is being junky with this post.

It’s helping to replace my grief with rage.

Bongo has cancer.  We brought him in to get checked for rapid weight loss, but now we are looking at at most weeks before he dies of this shit.

We’re bringing him back on friday so they can euthanize him, which is a damn sight better than dying in agony, which is apparently the only other option.  He’s already been too sick for surgery, he probably wouldn’t make it through this, and if he did his immune system is suppressed (intentionally due to an autoimmune disorder), so the first infection he got would do him in.

I hate this.

I hate it.

My poor cat.

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I have to write something, so that Rosey isn’t the first story I see.

I haven’t written in a while, and coming back to discover my grief when Rosey died is a quiet punch in the gut.

I know this post isn’t much better, I’m still referencing it, but what can you expect?  It’s still raw.  I still walk into the room and expect her to be there.  I make a noise and turn to see if it woke her.

I’ll get past it.  I don’t think I’ll get over it.  It’s almost Bongo’s time as well, he’s getting thinner pretty rapidly, and he doesn’t eat much at all.  All of the steroids in his system (that prevent the autoimmune disorder from eating him alive) have consequences that are inevitable.

I’m hoping we take in 2021 with him, but I’m not certain.  I find myself wondering “How bad will he need to be before we bring him in?”.

Leaving him to eventually expire is not an option.  I shouldn’t have left Rosey to that fate.  I won’t leave Bongo to fight for one more breath.  It was agonizing to watch, I can’t bear to subject our Boo to that as well.

That does of course lead to the thought that I’ll probably want to find a similar service for *me* when everything finally breaks down.  There’s no victory in trying to fight inevitability.

I still have a long time before I need to consider that.  If I’m lucky, maybe 40 years?  That’ll be enough time I think.

 

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Roseybug has died.

Oh god, I have to write something here.  I’ll try to get through it, preferably without bursting into tears again.

This morning Rosey moved from her play space back into her cage, near her water.  She wasn’t very alert, and wasn’t always aware when I touched her.

She found a comfortable position braced against a corner of the cage, and spent most of the day dozing.  Around 2 though she was fully sprawled out.  She started seizing.  I hope she wasn’t conscious by this point.  I called Christina, and she came over and sat with Rosey.

I won’t lie, I couldn’t do it this time.  I had to walk away, and tears were streaming down my face.

It took about 30 minutes from first seizure until her last breath.  If there’s any mercy in the world at all, I pray she didn’t feel any of it.  It was horrifying though, her body struggling to last just one more moment.. and failing to.

It took some time for me to be able to speak without my voice breaking uncontrollably.  I finally managed to call the vet, and we took her in for cremation.  I couldn’t bear to leave her there untended for a single moment.

When we came back we spent time taking down her cage and removing her pen.  Nobody else will ever use those things now that she’s gone.  If we ever have another rabbit, they’ll get a new environment.

Now my space is uncomfortably empty.  The space she occupied … she’s been there since we moved here in 2014.  There’s never been a moment there wasn’t a rabbit in that space, and it breaks my heart that now the space stands vacant.

I’ve made it this far with just a few tears. I’m stopping while I can.

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My sweet Roseybug.

Roseybug is in her final days. She’s still drinking water, but she’s stopped eating. Even her favorite foods. She’s developed that razor back that comes with age or sickness, and she’s little more than skin and bones.
 
She spends most of her time sleeping. She’s barely aware of us, and sometimes doesn’t even wake up when we touch her. She’s still breathing normally, but really that’s about all she can do. There are no last minute cures or fixes, this is the end approaching.
 
I know it’ll be probably days at most until I look at her and find out she’s gone. Poor brave bunny, she’s outlasted almost everyone else. It’s heartbreaking to watch her just run out of moments. It’s painful to even write about.
 
I grieve not only for her eventual loss, but for the loss now of all of those things that made her such a great joy.  Her personality, the way she’d be interested in things.  How she’d spend hours decorating her space.
 
A dozen years is a long time, and it’s much longer than her breed lives on average.  I take no comfort in how she’s beaten the normal.  She’ll be gone soon.  That’s the part I can’t get past.
 
I hate this part.
 
I won’t lie.  I wept.  Today.  Now.  Again soon.
 
 
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Time will take us all.

Rosiebug rabbit is getting thinner each week. She’s .. 13? 14? at this point, which for a rabbit of her size is incredibly old. She’s reached the point where she doesn’t run anymore, and turning doesn’t always work out, she slips sometimes. She sleeps a lot.
 
Recently she stopped eating the lettuce and carrot bits we’d bring her, and she pays little attention to the contents of her food bowl, even the stuff she used to be quite enthusiastic about.
 
Today while we were outside I picked a bit of clover and some buttercups and dropped them in her space. She came over right away and started eating them!
 
I forsee a lot more of that .. soon. I know our remaining time together is short, but I intensely wish for those moments to be filled with happiness.
 
There are quiet stirrings of grief impending, I keep them at bay with bright moments and simple kindnesses.. as well as I can.