in memory of gabby

It has been a wretched few weeks. Today we lost our dear Gabby.

Some thoughts....

I wish my tears could heal the wounds of time. Her spirit and soul were just as sweet, but her body was tired. I seriously, honestly, truly had to have a conversation with her. I had to tell her I loved her, and ask her forgiveness for this. I was literally ending her life. It was the toughest decision I've ever had to make. When I was a kid, we had cats but they always got run over by cars or in a fight with one too many dogs. It was easier that way, more selfish for me, since I didn't have to make the call -- nature did it.

I had to make this call. And it was awful. I feel like I've been crying for weeks.

~~~

We first started noticing things were going downhill about this time last year. She had some odd behaviors, like taking lots of trips to the kitty box, drinking lots of water, plus losing lots of weight. Some lab work told us her thyroid had gone bad, and we put her on some thyroid meds. A bad kitty thyroid isn't a death sentence by any means, but now I was on the hook to give her medication twice a day, um, forever. It was tough to remember it all when I was racing to get two kids fed and out of the house for 9:30 AM preschool, for example.

Turns out the thyroid meds worked. They did great! But things kept going downhill. She was having lots of problems with the kitty box. Let's leave it at this:  I cleaned up lots of poop that wasn't where it was supposed to be. Sigh. It wasn't sanitary for our kids, and that wasn't acceptable to Shane.

A physical exam and more lab work found nothing was really wrong. The doc recommended an x-ray, which we did. She hated it. I could hear her protesting from the waiting room. At that moment I said to myself, "no more of this. Not only is it money, she hates it. It's not worth it."

The x-ray said something was probably wrong with her intestines, maybe lymphoma? Maybe an abnormality causing discomfort? An ultrasound would show more. We didn't do it.

Gabby was 15.



~~~

We got her as an adult cat, she was 6. Someone posted a picture of her at my work, with the caption "ADOPT ME!" She lived with her "mother" cat who had basically turned on her and was being territorial. Gabby was more "adoptable." We got her just months after we moved to Seattle. She was our first baby. We took lots of pictures.

I feel like she was our common project. I remember some really rocky years in our early marriage, and seriously Gabby was our glue. She was ours. She helped us work it out and stay together, and gulp, have real kids.

I've always been an advocate for adult cat adoptions. But now that I've lived through losing her, the only downside is there were 6 years of her life that she spent with someone else. It would have been nice to have 6 more years with her.

~~~

Every time the tree in the backyard blooms yellow in April, Gabby, I will think of you. I was able to bring her home and bury here there. She loved to play in the backyard. She loved to roll around on the concrete. She loved sitting under a tree on a sunny day. 

~~~

My friend Shannon told me to pick three things that were always Gabby. When they were gone, I would know it was time. For awhile I struggled with this and I came up with two.... Gabby was always clean. SO CLEAN. She was a great groomer. She had stopped bathing herself, so she got really dirty. I gave her a few baths, which was the only way she got clean. So, that was gone.

Second, Gabby was always trustworthy when it came to the kitty box. She was clean in those respects, we never had to worry. And then, she stopped being trustworthy. I found kitty poo in the most awful places. We were struggling with incontinence, and it was sad and awful. I wanted to fix her, but didn't know what would, or if we could.

I couldn't come up with a third thing. I was telling Shane this and he said, "she was always fat." And it's true. Gabby was our gabby flabby tabby. She was always so big and loveable. She had wasted away to nothing. She used to be like, 20+ pounds and just a few weeks ago she was something like 8 pounds. She was skin and bones. I guess it's true, she simply wasn't herself any more. The three things were gone.



~~~

At the suggestion of dear Whimsy, we threw a cat party this weekend. It was Sunday and Monday. We made cupcakes and decorated them like cats. Seriously the whiskers were spaghetti. Wesley put on the eyes and nose.

We talked about our Gabby memories. I told Wesley we got Gabby when she was 6, and he is almost 5. Maybe he understood that. I am not sure Wesley knows what happened or what was going on. We told him Gabby needed to go to the vet because she wasn't feel well, and we didn't know what would happen. We told him today to kiss her goodbye. He gave her a sweet kiss on the head.

At our party I made construction-paper ears for paper plates, so they looked like cats. I wanted to decorate some pages with cat stickers; maybe we'll do that another time. I've got lots of cat stickers.

I took a few pictures. This was actually very important.

After Wesley went to bed, after our party, I was reviewing old pictures and video of our sweet vibrant Gabby. She was so fiesty and fun. As I was flipping I suddenly came to a picture of her taken Sunday. It was an awful stark contrast. She looked terrible. I actually deleted several of the pictures because they were just so sad. I didn't want to remember her that way. Then is when I knew it was time, I really knew I was making the right choice.

Shane had been ready for awhile, he had seen the "handwriting on the wall" for a month or more. I didn't want to believe it. I wanted to ignore it and hope it would go away. I'm not a quitter.

But, her body was tired. Time had taken its toll. We are all subject to the bounds of time, and that was made so perfectly clear to me.













~~~

I remember all the ways Gabby annoyed me. She'd wake us up in the middle of the night begging for food (back when she was a biiiig kitty). We finally bought one of those automatic kitty feeders (best $50 I ever spent!). She'd scratch on the glass door to come inside and get it filthy. She'd scratch on our bedroom doors when she'd want in. She'd sleep in my papasan chair more than I would. She'd track litter into it and we'd always have to put a crappy blanket on it to "protect" it. She'd barf. Sometimes 7 times a day.

But with every annoyance, it meant she was living, breathing, loving. I now appreciate that. I now appreciate every moment I had with her.

I hope I can use this experience to better appreciate every moment with my kids. My husband. My family. EVERY MINUTE counts, because one day.... there will be no more minutes. We are bound by time in this life.



~~~

After we buried her in the backyard, I said a prayer. I begged God for peace. I begged Gabby for forgiveness. I asked that I would be more patient and appreciative of even life's annoyances. I asked that I would remember her. I asked that God would keep her company until it was my turn to join them. I hope He  rubs her belly because she LOVES that.

I miss her purr. I read somewhere that just listening to a cat purr lowers your blood pressure. I believe it. 

~~~

One year for Christmas I insisted she be in the picture. She was part of our family! It was a pain. But it turned out OK.

I loved buying her "presents" even though she didn't care. (Well, it was cat nip she cared, haha!) We have a cute stocking that looks like a paw. I wonder what I'll do with that. 

~~~

Physically, I thought she was a beautiful cat. She was called a "target tabby" which meant when she walked, there were markings on the side of her which made a bulleye. On her forehead was an "M" which most tabbies have. There were white flecks in her M, and Shane once told me that is how he knew he could tell her apart from other cats. 

For the longest time, she had a little tuft of white hair on her right side, under her chin, that was longer than the rest. I'd always yank on it to see if it was detached and just needed to be discarded, but no, it was attached. It was there forever. I just noticed the other day it's gone. 

Her eyes were green. 

I love how her ears twitched when you brushed them. I LOVED how if you brushed her nose she'd stick out her tongue and lick it. She actually did that for me at the vet tonight, right before the end. It made me cry. I actually loved it when she licked my skin. Her sandpaper tongue was fascinating. Sometimes I'd just let her have at my Doritoes fingers or post-workout skin. 

I loved her four white paws. I loved how she'd sit all comfy and fold them under her body. 

~~~

Whimsy suggested I NOT go to the vet appointment tonight (make hubs do it), but I had read somewhere that at the end, on the table, your pet always looks for you. I really thought long and hard, and I decided I wanted to go. I loved her, I wanted to be there. She trusted me. 

They made me a little clay pawprint. The procedure has two parts, two injections. One calms them, and makes them sleepy. I was glad I was there to pet her and talk to her, soothe her and feel her as I cried. I promised her we'd be together again and her body would feel so much better. When it finally happened it was really fast and peaceful. Then I could take as much time as I wanted before they wrapped her up in the blanket I brought and we went home. 

~~~

She was WONDERFUL with our kids. WONDERFUL. She let them beat her up. I'd have to yell at her to get to higher ground, because she'd just take it sometimes. Sigh. Funny cat. 

We have lots of pictures of babies on Gabby, kids on Gabby, toddler love on Gabby. In fact, one of Laurel's first words was "cat!" She looooves cats. She loves Gabby. We would tell our kids, "soft hands, soft hands!" So they'd be kind. They weren't always kind. But Gabby NEVER swiped at them. Ever. She was such a good kitty with the little ones.

Literally our kids learned to crawl because they wanted to go mess with the cat.

It's funny how she weighed more than them for the first year of their lives! 

~~~

I love how she made me laugh. She made me relax. She loved us unconditionally. The vet tonight said sometimes its harder to lose pets than actual people because they don't judge you. There usually isn't a lot of emotional baggage.



















~~~

Some funny memories....

• When we moved into the condo her "safe place" was behind the toilet seat. She stayed there for hours. 
• When we first got her Shane invented the "blanket monster" which was his feet under our bed blanket. She'd attack his toes. It was hilarious! That cat would sleep at our feet and take up the whole bed. I hated it and loved it at the same time. 
• Shane would crumple up those postcard inserts in magazines and leave them all over the house. Gabby would bat them around. Once we discovered she was pretty good at swinging at them, like batting practice. That was a blast. 
• There's this song... Rock the Casbah by the Clash. I don't know how this started, but one day Shane made up a new song, called "Running a Cat Spa." And he would sing it to Gabby, teasing her about how we were the lap of luxury.
• She thought every can I opened with the can opener was tuna. She thought every bag of crunchy items (think croutons) was kitty treats. Once Wesley went around the house chanting, "Gabby, no tuna!" repeating after me.
• When I used to work, some days I'd be ready early and she'd sit on her "perch," looking at the window, and I'd brush her. And brush her, and brush her. We always joked we could stuff a pillow with Gabby hair. I loved how she would rub her face against the brush's bristles. That was her favorite place to be brushed.
• Once my in-laws brought their dog to our house. Gabby FREAKED. She got up on a chair and just watched him. For ages. Then one time, he was just casually walking by her and BAM. She clawed him and seriously I think she drew blood. She attacked! We laughed for a long time. Toby didn't see that one coming! He was totally fine. And he knew who was in charge.

~~~

These I took tonight. Just mere hours before our appointment at the vet. She looks so regal. So in charge. So tired. I think the first picture is funny because this is our life... baby toys and our cat.

I miss her already.

I love you, Gabby. Rest.