#animal death tw 6635

[altaieu]

please refrain from reb/0gging

as im watching the dark skies shift to blues, the sun is rising on a household with one less kitten in it today. i can see no stars out.

amber died yesterday.

we took her home on friday, neck tube in and accompanied by medicine, after a 9 day stay in the hospital. we were going to try our hardest to help her get get better. we’d been making plans the entire time what we’d do with her when she was healthy again; that we’d definitely let them out next more next summer and make certain the garden had no places for pests, that i’d play with them even more than i did now, that we’d get them all health insurance. we bought her the cat bed we’d been lingering over at the store to make sure she had a very comfy spot to recover in. i’d woken up late on friday but i helped my sister with feeding her, giving her medicine. i was prepared to stay up all day saturday to help.

but she hadn’t closed here eyes since she’d come home, and what my sister thought was her sleeping - nictitating membranes half closed, paws twitching like she was dreaming - maybe have been a seizure in retrospect. though she took everything well, at 7 am she was having breathing problems. she was laying sideways on the floor with her little tongue sticking out, eyes half closed. we woke everyone up. we rushed her back to the hospital immediately. we talked about putting her down, and i’m sad we didn’t in retrospect, but we had never lost a cat before and we were so hopeful she could still turn around - twice while she was at the hospital she’d perked up and looked for all intents and purposes that she was recovering. she was such a strong, healthy cat before all this happened, it was hard to think she could just go like that, but as it happened it was just complication after complication that hit her. so we held off to give her the weekend, said if she didn’t look better, we’d be back to sign the papers.

it was not even 5 hours after we’d left her there that we got the call, around 1:30 pm. she’d nosedived suddenly and they tried to resuscitate her to no success - something my sister had said yes to out of reflex, but was going to phone tomorrow to say not to do, to just let her go. we went back and saw her little body. my sister cradled her in her arms, and every time she shifted in her seat amber’s fuzzy ears swayed just a bit and i kept expecting her to shake it off, wake up, blink up at us with those big, warm, adoring eyes she always had. her head was as cold as the wind outside when i pet her and i feel as if the chill hasn’t left my hand.

now my brain keeps playing that still face against those late night/early morning memories of her jumping up on my bed and my desk, smiling at me with that big wide happy mouth, bumping her head against mine and against the curtain until i’d open it and she could look out and she’d wiggle her big fluffy butt right between me and my monitor. her tail would always be straight up as she watched the shifting shadows beyond the glass and she purred like an orchestra. then she’d sit on my lap and make the cutest face at me, and i’d pet her a little, but because she always seemed to do this when i was absorbed in writing or art i’d pat her butt until she got annoyed and leapt off, skittering out of my room and down the stairs with the noise of a horse. i’d always felt a little guilty after that, and last time, in damn november, i’d made the promise to myself that next time she came to visit i’d let her sit on me and cuddle up as long as she wanted. it’s been barely 15 hours and already i miss seeing that fuzzy face pop up from behind my desk, that fluffy butt jogging out of my room. amber, i’m so sorry i booted you away when you were lonely in the mornings and just wanted to give and receive love from me.

there’s so many things i wish we did in retrospect (in retrospect, in retrospect). i wish i had pushed harder for a vet appointment when i first saw her so listless, but i always differ to my sister and she said she had no money for it. i wish we’d gotten all our cats health insurance so it wouldn’t have been as big of a cost as it was, that we wouldn’t have been so hesitant about a vet appointment in the first place. i wish i had convinced my sis to put her down when we were there in the mornning so she could have passed away in the arms of someone she loved surrounded by people she cared about instead of laying her head against the side of a small metal cage because we were too scared to let go of her. i’m so sorry amber, we did you so wrong.

when we were there in the morning a man came in after us, an old old man who looked to be in his eighties or so. he was there about a cremation for his african grey parrot who’d passed away the night before. he had a south african accent, and i heard him talking about how he’d been with the bird for forty seven years, that he’d found it abandoned by someone else. i saw him and an old woman bawling in the parking lot afterwards. looking back i should have taken it as an omen.

when we got back to the house the first time, around 11:30 in the morning, the cats were going crazy. all three were trying to get into my room. i wanted nora to stay out so she could comfort my sister, but maggie stood on my desk for 15 minutes staring with that kitty love face and headbutting me before she fell asleep on the bed by my feet. sassy, meanwhile, was absolutely losing it, running around the house and yelling with her unique, loud “mryow” sounding vocalization, eyes wide. should have taken it as an omen.

its weird to wake up at 3 am today to three cats. a time in the morning when i know amber would’ve come to visit, given her health back. its weird to walk down and not see her stretch her big fuzzy yellow belly into a croissant shape. i miss running around the house with the knotted shoelace and having her run after me at top speed, catching it and then running along with me as its in her mouth. i miss her closing eyes as you brushed her mane. i miss that little orange spot she wore on her head like a jewel.

i don’t think i can do anything downstairs without getting choked up about how she’d lie across my legs as i did anything. i don’t think i can get back to playing spyro or watching xfiles since she was there like that the whole time for those. i don’t think i can pick up arkham knight or aco again since i’d sit out in the middle of the floor for those and she’d come up behind me and bump my back, sit on my blanket, lay across one of my legs as i played.

i worry about my sister who cannot even lie in her bed without remembering amber there, sleeping on a pillow beside her, hugging her with all her legs. that cat got her through an abusive relationship and countless depressive episodes and the inherent trauma of being trans in a world that really doesn’t want you to live.

but like whether she’s in kitty heaven as my parents would prefer to think, or she’s my sister’s little spirit guardian now, or if there’s a kitten born on this day that might cross our paths again and bump our legs and look up, i hope she’s doing good. she deserves that at least, she was the sweetest cat i ever met and she should have got more than we could give her.

i feel bad for the hospital staff too. in her stay there she charmed everyone who crossed her path and they were all rooting so hard for her to pull through. one of the vets had her out in her office walking around for exercise on one of the days she was very perky, seemingly recovering. the one we interacted with yesterday was too kind, waiving the fees for the resuscitation attempts and refunding us the 700 we put down for the next few days of care that wouldn’t come to pass. i mean, we’d already dropped 9k on her and were fully prepared to spend 1k more for that fighting chance of a weekend - and of all the things we regret that is not one of them, even if i know a thousand people who’d call us fucking idiots for it. no cent spent trying to keep her alive was a waste. between all of us, even if we had to go into debt, it was the least we could do. we put aside those hopeful dreams of actually owning a house for her, and all my daydreams of introducing them to the new place.

but that 9k could have been reduced to 4.5k (over the 8 years, putting into it each month) if we’d had health insurance on her. as much as that is, it’s tiny compared to what we just spent and would have given us the reassurance to take her to the vet the moment she got sick instead of worrying about money. please, if you have pets you care about, get them health insurance. here it’s 50 a month but that is nothing compared to the cost of vet bills even for routine checkups which it will cover 90% of, and it will give you the peace of mind that you can go to the vet whenever. the moment a pet starts acting unusual you should take them. even if its nothing, its better safe than sorry. complications can hit so fast and pile up.

i’ll be watching the other cats much more closely after this and - after i have my energy back, hopefully - i’ll follow through on that promise and pay them even more attention and get them even more toys. we’re gping to get them health insurance in january and we’re gonna spent the spring cleaning up the backyard to make it safer for the cats, just in case. when they get into the backyard in the summer, oh, its gonna be real fuckin strange not to see amber’s cute sandy coloured face under the lilac tree by the little pond. i still have photos of her from last summer and remember vividly making myself stupid in the grass to get those upward shots of her.

goodnight little lion. you had all the colours of the desert in you and all the love of the sweetest little earth angel, eager to share it. i wish we could have given you so many more years of care, eight was not enough and eleven is much too young for a kitty to go, but i hope you are warm and basking in sunlight wherever you are.

i could see no stars out until i looked behind the house. there, despite the heavy cloud cover on this overcast day, there is a single star shining brighter than i’ve ever seen before, right above us, right at the door.