I came in early to work, and the co-worker I was relieving and I waited for our friends to arrive. My co-worker had to euthanize his 15 year-old pet cat only a month prior, due to kidney problems. My brother Vincenzo is facing a similar situation with his beloved 18-year old marmalade cat, Orange Juice. We are all cat people, so there was a melancholy mood to our sendoff to Fred. Petting Fred, my friend Ali noted that he 'looks fat, but feels skinny'... he's bloated from the medicine as well as the tumor, but his spine stands out. I took one last picture of my beloved sibling feline comedy team:
This picture really catches the essence of the two cats- there's Fred, looking regal and composed as he sits on the ground, while Ginger is a blur of motion. My friends took a few pictures of me with the cat, mementos of our final night together. Our friends stayed with us for a good two-hours, commiserating with me and fussing over Fred. I am fortunate to have such good friends, both two-legged and four. Thank you for the outpouring of sympathy, sharing the sadness makes it more bearable.
4 comments:
I am sorry for the loss of Fred--he was a beautiful boy, and I am sure Ginger will miss him. From the little I know of cat society, we only think of them as solitary because many households are one-cat houses--but cats are social, just not like we are or like dogs are. It might be good if another kitty is found to let Ginger share her domain with, since she's used to a kind of company.
Thanks, VS, Fred was always a one-in-a-million cat, he was like a Lab trapped in a cat's body. The weird thing is going to be talking about Ginger as a singular entity, because it's been 'Fred and Ginger' since we got these litter mates.
I sure hope management decides to get another cat, we actually have a need for rodent control. My friends, cat people all, were discussing this- knowing Ginger, they were speculating about how she, a dominant presence to be sure, would deal with a 'strange' cat. When Moses was still around, she would always tease him mercilessly, trying to ascertain whether she could be top of the heap.
Oddly enough, there was a grey-and-black striped tabby snooping around outside our main building, but it was a bit shy, so I couldn't ascertain if it belongs to a neighbor. At any rate, I have a friend who is involved in cat rescue, so she is always looking for homes for felines... as I said, I hope upper management approves of getting a second cat, and that we can find a cat which can put up with our resident diva.
I don't think dealing with a strange cat will be too weird if it is a young one--I had a friend with two more or less middle-aged housecats who fostered a stray who was, it turned out, pregnant, and those old boys found their fathering side. They tolerated kittens, even if they might not have liked weird stranger cats. (I called stray girl "Trojan" because she ran away another time before the family was going to have her fixed and brought home another litter--turning a two-cat house into pretty much a multi-gen cat nursery. They adapt to one another. They carve out their boundaries. Cats are definitely social.
These two have always been extremely close, with Fred being deferential to his sister, who is a handful. It's a good thing she's so pretty, because she has a mile-wide naughty streak... and I'm saying that as someone who's never had his lunch stolen by her.
I sure hope that Upper Management decides to take on another mouser.
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