Ichabod is dying. She can no longer breathe.
She’s an old cat, near 20 if not older, and she has been driving me crazy for 18 years, bouncing around the world like a black and white Superball.
Recently, the vet discovered that she was hyperthyroid. Aha! With medication, perhaps she will become a sedate and stately kitty! But no. Medication just seemed to unleash the full fury of her furry energy.
On the night I got her, someone had cut off part of her ears. She was bleeding and starving and shivering, and she chose me. Me. I opened my apartment door for a trick-or-treater, and there came a streak of black and white. I had been watching “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” so she became Ichabod. Later came Irving. Ichabod and Irving. 18 years. Both dying. Irving the placid. Ichabod the vibrant. They’ve canceled each other out for all of these years, I guess it’s fitting they go out close together.
Fitting, but no more fair for all of that.
Oh, Julie!
You have my thoughts and sympathy.
Thanks, Rik.
Icky is gone now. I’m tired of losses.
I am so sorry. I wish there was some phrase in my vocabulary that could help.
I’m sorry, and I understand how you feel about loss. But loss is an inevitable part of love wherever it’s directed, and who wants to do without that?
Hedgie, for right now, I feel like I could do without anything just to stop hurting. Oh, I know I don’t mean it. Much.
We’ve just been having a bad streak with the furry ones. I know you know what I’m talking about, Mary.
As do we. We lost not-our cat (our neighbour’s cat, who adopted us all, and protected each household from the packs of stray dogs — I kid you not — to a delivery van.
We still don’t know what happened. Many of her people were outside. Perhaps she was trying to visit us all at once. Somehow she got under the wheels of the van and was killed.
My husband and I buried her in the back yard of his aunt, who was her owner. It was a tearful ceremony. She wasn’t old at all — if she was five she was a lot. We’d expected her to be around, terrorizing dogs forever.
It’s still rough.
Oh damn. I’m sorry I didn’t see this before. I know what it’s like to be tired of losses.
You gave me a virtual hug earlier today when I really needed it. I offer one in return.
(((Hug)))