Saying Goodbye, Again

So, to go through the loss of your three cats that you've had for 16 to 19 years, then turn around and lose a baby kitten, no older than 3 and a half months old after only a week of knowing him, well, let's just say that it's not something I ever want to do again in my life. Losing Charmer was perhaps harder than, no, it was harder than losing any other pet I've ever lost. I barely knew him, but I loved him, dearly. He had stolen my heart in an instant, and he'll always have that chunk of it that he took.

Charmer was a bright happy kitten the day we brought him home. He was fearless and all he wanted to do was explore the house. He was so calm and didn't even seem to notice the fact that there were two squealing little boys that just wanted to jump up and down every time they saw the kitties. He had a big house to explore, and by golly, he was going to explore it. We had brought the kittens into the play room with a child gate in the doorway, to keep them in and the boys out, but Charmer decided he was having none of that and he climbed right over it! We discovered he liked to play in sinks, as you can see from a picture below.

The next day brought a different story. Charmer fell ill and we thought it was a simple cold, after all many of the kittens in the shelter had an upper respiratory virus, as Abby had, so we figured, no big deal, we'll get him some treatment and he'll be fine in a few days. How wrong we were. Within days he was deathly ill and we were fighting for his life. We did everything we could for him, sub-q fluids, assisted feedings, medication after medication, vet visit upon vet visit. Our vet said we'd done everything we possibly could, and unfortunately Charmer was resisting the heating pads and warming treatments that would warm his chilled body. My frisky little bright eyed boy aged to a fragile, weak shell of a cat within a week.

Sadly we knew that we had done all that we could and as shocking and unbelievable as the thought was, we had to let him go. It was incredibly difficult to lose one so young, so full of life, so eager to explore and so darn cute! I'll never know just why I had to lose Charmer to the calicivirus, what lesson exactly I was meant to learn; I can say it's an experience I don't ever want to have again.

I will never forget those bright eyes, that silver fur, those hugely long whiskers, or that adorable little trill that made me fall in love in an instant. I look forward to the time when I will see my Charmer again and will have an eternity to know him, to love him, and to share my love with him and all of my loved ones, both human and of the furry variety. Until then, there will be others to fill the void, but none will ever claim that little chunk of my heart that Charmer has stolen, for he was a special little cat. I wish I had known him longer.

Saying Hello

It's actually been a while since we've welcomed our new furry crew to our home, but it's somewhat difficult to write, and yes, I'll admit it, I've been busy, okay, lazy too. We adopted three beautiful kittens not too long after our beautiful old ladies passed. We decided it was time for the boys to experience kittens and the joy of watching them grow, and what little bundles of energy they could be. So, down to the local animal shelter we went. The first little kitten to catch our eye was a little white a grey, that we came to call Nandi. She is named in honor of a friend who helped me night and day through the most difficult of times, and the best of times, with Ebony's illness. She had a cat named Nandi and I always loved the name, so this is our beautiful little Nandi, and she helps me to remember everything that my friend did for me and the charity she showed. Nandi has claimed Thane as her personal human and my if she isn't a daddy's girl. Nandi is very quiet and hardly ever meow's. It's usually only when Thane leaves the house that she'll meow for a few minutes, as if to ask where her daddy went, or "hey! take me with you!"


Next was the tiniest, sickliest, most pathetic looking little kitten in the whole place. She was adorable though. But I'll admit, there was part of me that couldn't help but figure that the boys would fall in love with the most pathetic looking scrap of cat out of the bunch. We figured she had to be a runt she was so tiny, even the animal control people said she was small. We called her Abby the tiny Tabby, for her nickname, and Abby is her name. It came about because Galen kept asking what kind of cat she was and we kept telling him she was a tabby, but it kept coming out Abby instead. We thought it was rather cute, and it stuck. Here is our little runt after she fattened up with a week or so of good eating. She was so skinny when we got her home and it was adorable to watch her little belly pop out with a steady diet. She has now grown into a gorgeous cat! No longer the pathetic looking little runt. The boys still adore Abby and she is their favorite. Thankfully she is calming to their 'affections' and becoming more and more tolerant of their love. She was quite skittish when we first got her and it took about a month for her to just come out of our bedroom. If you could see how she reacted to the television! I think it took nearly 6 months before she realized it wasn't something that was going to eat her!


Then there was Charmer. He charmed his way into my heart, and into our home. I saw him in his cage, off away from the others, with a gorgeous orange cream tabby that was his brother and something about him just really caught my eye. I asked to see him and the moment I held him he just leaned into me and purred. I was probably a goner at that moment, just didn't know it. I brought him over to the boys but they didn't give him a second look - they were in love with Abby and couldn't care less about any other cat! Thane thought he was beautiful, but Abby and Nandi growled at him. I was bummed and based on the reaction I decided to put him back. We adopted Abby and Nandi and went home. Something about him though... I just couldn't get those eyes and that purr out of my head. I told Thane I thought I had to go back, so the next day I did, and I adopted my Charmer. Little did I know that I would be saying goodbye to my little boy a week later. We lost him to a severe cold that struck with a vengence. But I'll talk a bit more about that in a subsequent post.

After the difficult loss of Charmer it took a little while, but I had a gaping hole that felt needed filling, and this beautiful little Black and White kitten did the trick. Her name is DivyUmi and she's all spunk and love. She's definitely claimed mom as her human and she has taken up Ebony's old job of being mom's shadow as she goes from room to room. If you're wondering about the name, which everyone does, DivyUmi stands for "Divided - Whiskers" She is both divided in color and has a perfectly divided lip, half pink, half black, and UmiUmi in Hawaiian means "whiskers" and she has very long white whiskers, much like Charmer did. So, she is our DivyUmi, whom we often call Divy for short. She's a little huntress and loves to drag her latest catch (cat toy) to the water bowl and drop it in to wash it off, or just haul it around the house to show it off. She is quite adorable.

So, that's our new kitten crew. Part of me thinks we may still be missing one. I'm not quite sure. I'm so happy with the wonderful trio we've got, but I think I'll have to poke around Pet Integrity just to be sure. There's always enough love for four!