My beautiful Maine Coon kitty is gone.
I named her Miss Kitty. My daughter had Mr. Kitty. He's gone too.
I had to put her down last week after she suddenly became lethargic, disoriented and stopped eating. She was a vibrant kitty of a little over 15 years just a few short weeks ago....
This picture was taken when Miss Kitty finally came upstairs after hibernating in the basement for two weeks. She did that every now and then but this time I was fearful she was sick because of her age. During that time she only came out from on top of the duct work long enough to eat, so my husband was the only one to see her.
You see, 15 years ago he surprised me at Christmas with the most adorable kitten I had ever seen, and I have had cats all of my life. He said that he would take care of her by feeding her and taking care of her litter for the rest of her life.
And he did. She would run upstairs every morning around 6:30 a.m. to have her scratching time with him.
When it came time to take her to the vet, knowing she was dying, I was the one to do that.
She spent the last month of her life upstairs everyday and was the most cuddly, loving kitty. She seemed to want to be with us! It did cross my mind at the time to take note of this because she could be gone at anytime. As I look back, I am so happy for that extra time with her. It was too cold to go outside so she spent all day and night inside with us, occasionally gazing out the parlor windows.
I always thought of her antics as her being just a silly kitty. But I think most kitties are silly and do weird things. Like if there is even just a corner of something to sit on, she will.
Or if she sees an open computer, and especially with paper on it, she's there!
I told the story in a recent post of how she just had to lay on any box that was around. It was her favorite thing to do.
One year I decided to bring all the boxes of Christmas decorations up at the same time. She was in her glory!
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She was the typical aloof, couldn't care a bit cat, but she had to be in on the action wherever it was taking place. The baby doll is one my son had to take care of for a weekend as part of a Health class project. We were all avoiding it because it was so annoying, but she was right there with it. Sitting on a piece of paper on the floor no less. Did she want to be near the doll and the action or did the piece of paper just happen to be near the doll??!!
She only hung out in my work packing station once! I had to get a picture before I chased her away!
How can I stay mad at this kitty?
I had a scare a few years ago when she disappeared for almost two weeks in November and it just happened to be the year when we had unusually cold temperatures. I looked everywhere for her but living in a village, it was too much ground to cover. I finally put a flyer up in a local gas station and I got a call from a girl who thought she saw her. Across Main St. behind some apartments is an area where a lot of kitties hang out, mostly because this girl feeds them. I never got to talk to the girl, it was all through phone messages and we kept missing each other because she worked odd hours. I went looking for my kitty behind those buildings and although there were a lot of cats, none were Miss Kitty. At least I hoped she was being fed. I wanted to give the girl some money for feeding the cats and to encourage her to keep doing it since mine was one of them, but I never connected with her. I tried to get her to try and catch my cat and call me but after a while of not hearing anything I kind of lost hope.
Then one warmer day, I was getting ready to go out when I heard a car drive up outside, the door opened and then shut and the car drove away. I went to the door and there she was! Miss Kitty was home and not in bad shape at all. I didn't even see a car drive off down the street. To this day I believe an angel brought my kitty home! I don't remember giving the girl my address, yet she was dropped off in front of my house. She didn't stray too far from our yard from then on.
Miss Kitty had her cat friends too. She was the queen cat and the others were her subjects. Two or three cats would hang out on the lawn around the chair she was perched on. They would all just sit there and .....sit there! It was the funniest thing!
If she wasn't outside she would keep track of her friends through the windows on the side of the house facing the yard and front porch. She would run back and forth from one end to the other to see where they were.
For several nights after she was gone, her Tabby kitty friend stood outside our windows on the porch meowing very sorrowfully. Somehow she knew.
Her favorite Summer lounging spot...
It is too soon to get another kitty or two (one for me, one for my husband!) but maybe by this Fall.
I have to think about Miss Kitty and let the memories play around in my mind a little longer.
AnnMarie xoxo
I am linking up with these fine blog parties:
Pink Saturday
Best of the Weekend
