firecat

I had to let my kitty Tomoe go today. I knew it was coming since she was diagnosed with blood cancer at the beginning of September. The drugs helped for about three and a half months and then she started declining again.

Last night after I made the appointment for euthanasia, I lay in my recliner and she meowed to be picked up (she had lost the ability to jump). I picked her up and she purred and cuddled with me for a long time before falling asleep. So I feel like I had a chance to say goodbye.

Aahz and I got her in 2013 from the animal shelter. She was in a room with a lot of other cats, and she was shy, so they bossed her and kept her away from the food. I know, because I was in the room and the big boss cat came over and claimed me, and while he was occupied with me, she snuck nervously to the food bowl and ate. So she was a little underweight. When I took her into another room, she hid under the chair for a bit and then rolled over and let me pet her belly.

When we got her home, we opened her carrier in the kitchen and showed her her food. She looked at us and looked at the food. I said "it's GOOD FOOD and it's ALL for you." She ran over and ate. The whole time I had her, if I said "it's GOOD FOOD," she would try it.

She had the softest fur of any cat I've ever touched.

She obviously liked us right away, but it took her months to get comfortable being cuddled. At first, she would only let me touch her if I had first played with her long enough that she was lying on the floor panting for breath. (She especially liked jumping and running for the feather-onna-stick.) Then there was the time she was sitting a few feet away from me on the couch, and she told me she wanted attention by rearing back and then putting her open mouth on my arm in a slow-motion strike. I remember the night I was lying in the recliner reading, and she came over, and got on the arm of the recliner, and then as I froze, scarcely breathing, she slowly crept into my arms.

In the house we used to live in, mourning doves would build nests just outside her favorite window to look out of. At nest building time she loved to stare out the window and ch-ch-ch-ch-ch at them.

After we moved, we never unpacked most of our moving boxes; they were in a big pile in the front room and she liked lying on top of them. She also liked the sunbeam that came through the door from my study into the yard.

She loved lying on pizza boxes, especially when they were full of warm pizza, but also afterward.