kengr

In my sunlit bedroom on the fourth of June, I held Ticia in my arms as she fell asleep for the last time and slipped away across the Rainbow Bridge. Our little old lady cat was nineteen years old, and dying from kidney failure. I sang to her, but it's hard to sing when you're crying.

My biggest fear had been that she would crawl off under the bed while I was somewhere else, and die alone with no-one to hold her and soothe her. I was especially worried about the week-long vacation we have planned for August. We were able to save her from that, and give her comfort and love in her last moments.

She found us at the Cat City shelter, in Seattle, on the Third of November, 2015. Or maybe I should say that we found each other -- I coaxed her out of the box on the floor that she was hiding in, gave her some skritches and pets, picked her up, and cuddled her in my lap. The shelter staff told us that she'd never allowed that from anyone else. I thought I was mostly over the untimely loss of Curio back in July, but she must have sensed that we needed each other.

They told us that her name was Morticia (though it was soon shortened for daily use), and gave us the Rudolph-the-Red-Nosed-Reindeer dog toy that had arrived with her at the shelter. From that and her affectionate personality, we could tell that her previous Person must have loved her very much. We never found out what happened to them.

In addition to petting and cuddles, I found out on the way home from the shelter that she also loved music. She had been meowing and restless, but settled right down when I put on a Heather Dale CD. She was also very fond of cellophane "crinkle balls" -- she would often carry one into whichever room I was in and set it down where I could see what a good huntress she'd been, while making a peculiar bark/growl that I called her "hunting call". In her younger days she would chase after them -- it was a reliable way of getting her into a room when we needed to.

She took over the spot on the bed that Curio had occupied. I sleep on my side, with my arm up beside my head, and that's where she loved to sit, while I scritched her tummy and waited for sleep to come. In the daytime, she spent a lot of time on Colleen's lap, getting treats and attention.

She did not get along with m's cat, Cricket. Actually that's an understatement. We never found out why. (Cricket, when asked, would only say that it was from a previous life and none of our business. A cat thing.) We had to keep them in separate rooms. But both of them were fine as long as they had their people.

She was timid with strangers, and would hide under the bed the first couple of times a new person came into her room.

I had been singing to her, and N and I both took pictures. When Stefan, the vet, came back from giving Cricket her Solensia shot I picked Ticia up and carried her to the white chair in the corner of the room -- her favorite chair -- and talked softly to her as she fell asleep, her head resting comfortably on my arm.

• The Rainbow Bridge
• Ticia's page
• Photos
• Vet@Home (site can be viewed in Dutch, English, or Spanish)
• Dierencrematorium Haaglanden/
• Aiming to double cats' lifespan by improving kidney function | The University of Tokyo