A tough good-bye.

We were looking for two new kitties for our home. After Rosie died last year, we needed to wait until our Alaskan cruise was finished in early July. Two days after we got home, we hit the humane society. Our mission was clear.

We walked into a double room with four cats. One of them came right up to me. “Hello! Pick me!” While we hung around for a couple of hours, coaxing the others away from their shelves and boxes where they napped, she stayed with us. She sat in both of our laps, seemed to be basking in the petting and attention. She was alert the whole time. She knew she had us at Hello.

Her name was Moosie. We decided to keep it. Some of you know I have a thing for cows, and this one had all the markings of a Holstein.

We did finally manage to coax another cat from her sleeping box, and once she was down, she was amenable to humans and their laps. That was a requirement for us.

POPPY.

We did look around the building for other cats that we could fall in love with it, but, honestly, it was already too late. This, despite the knowledge that all four of these cats in this double space, were two-year-olds who had been born with FEL-V, the female leukemia virus. We knew what we were getting into, but we dove in anyway. Kits with this virus can live completely normal ones, if not generally shorter ones. (Three of our five cats over the years lived long lives, to nearly or over twenty years old.) Their virus does not affect humans or other cats with the virus. We would not want to adopt or even host a cat without the virus.

And so we brought home Moosie and Poppy. (We renamed Poppy, after the flower. Her other name was Curly. Huh? She wasn’t. But she does have a vivid brown streak down her nose.) And for five months, they played with each other, slept with each other, chased each other, and generally had a great time discovering this house with all of its corners and chairs and places. They discovered catnip together. They both loved belly rubs. And the couch. Boy, did they love the couch.

Moosie especially liked windows. She sat in the front window looking for neighbors and the back window looking for birds. I suppose. Who knows?

bookends

And then one day we noticed Moosie was not greeting us in the morning as usual. She was not playing with Poppy. Instead she was curled up in a chair all day, hardly moving. And the next day. And the next. We took her to the vet and our worst fears were confirmed. Her blood count was very low; she was anemic. It’s what happens with this virus, which attacks the immune system. He gave her a shot of cortisone which did perk her up for a week. So glad to have you back, Moosie.

Moosie perked up enough to sit around the clothes that matched her style. And, yes, our ridiculous bathtub holds canvases and paintings instead.

But it didn’t last and, once again, we saw our previously curious and animated cat, lose weight, eat little, and hardly move off her sleeping place. Once in awhile, she moved to a cozy place under the tree. We were assured she was not in pain, but the pain we felt for watching this was finally enough to accept the inevitable. We said good-bye this past Wednesday.

Poppy is still looking for her.

We knew her for only five months, but she stole our hearts. That’s the trouble with loving a pet, as all pet owners already know. For all the pleasure they give us, they leave us with an ache that takes awhile to go away and memories that stay forever.