So Long, Baby

A year ago today, I was sitting and waiting for Baby to die. She had been heavily sedated after her second successive heart attack and she eventually passed away a little after midnight. She stopped breathing without ever really recovering consciousness though I think she knew we were there. She’d suffered kidney failure the day before and we knew there was no real hope when she went into convulsions that morning.

Despite all the warnings, despite the knowledge, it hurt when it ended.

It still hurts. I still go numb when I think of her, which is everyday. There are the other two; I love them and Tiggy I think, certainly loved her as well. He was there at her side, quietly waiting through that evening. I don’t think Pantha understood what happened though she picked up on the fact that we were down for weeks afterward.

Anyway, life goes on. I promised myself that I would not publicly mourn her or get maudlin. She wouldn’t have understood. If either of us were under the weather, she just got into bed and did her best to offer comfort. Like all cats though, she was practical and unsentimental, and mourning is not a concept that felines understand.

I have ten years worth of memories to run through. Quite often, she‘s there in my dreams – a construct of my memories of course, but very real. I wake, hearing her voice, processing the good, the bad, the little everyday details:

A little kitten with a triangular tail standing on the palm of my hand with her throat vibrating, saying “Peenh!”

A stately, beautiful matron, demanding primary rights to us and all round us

Always, a fierce little thing that spat cross-eyed when anything threatened her, or us

Farewell, Marabelle, my little lioness, my loyal, loving little one.