Goodbye, Angel

The part of Angel's story I know started when a lady near Rolla. MO was driving down the road and saw the car in front of her slow down on the shoulder. The window went down, a cat was tossed out, and the car drove on.

She (I never knew her name) stopped to rescue the young, snow-white, pregnant cat, tended her injuries, and took her and her eventual kitten into her home. She named the mama cat Angel, her son, Monster. (Neither name fit the cat's character, but they stuck.) But then she went into a nursing home, and the cats needed a new home. Eventually, via my son's friend's girlfriend's friend, they wended their way into his care. When Joe moved home for a time after college, the cats came with him. With the exception of the year after Joe married, they have stayed with me ever since, and that was almost ten years ago. 

To the other household animals, Angel was a brat kitty, ruling the house with a velvet-clad, iron paw. To me, she showed only her sweet side, jumping up on my lap to purr at me any time I settled down. 

Having the cats helped to save my sanity during the pandemic. During the cold and dark days after Joe and Rita moved out, and there was not yet a vaccine, I spent too many afternoons alone. I curled up on the sofa beneath a blanket and just stared at the quiet my life had suddenly become. Inevitably, shortly after I lay down, I would have a purring white companion (or two). They turned my pity parties into cuddle sessions, were a critical part of helping me to stay grounded.

I've been keeping a close eye on Angel for the last couple of months. It was clear arthritis was settling in. No longer did she easily vault to the countertops - instead she always stopped on the chairs on the way up, and at times, even that jump was beyond her. 

Then, with the hottest weather this year, she abandoned even the sofa, preferring to spend her time curled up in a corner of the living room, clearly in some pain. I had a couple of stern talks with her. She was sixteen-ish, didn't she know my cats all live to be nineteen or twenty?

She purred just a bit, just enough to let me know she had heard, but didn't move. 

She was a sad corner kitty.

I wanted to put off making the vet appointment; I knew what they were going to say, and I didn't want to hear it. With a heavy heart, I took her on in anyways, and after drawing some blood so we could figure out what was going on with her, the vet gave me some pain meds to ease her hips.

The pain meds helped a lot, but it was clear Angel still did NOT feel good. I got the test results the next day - all the numbers were askew. She wasn't going to get better.

I made one last appointment for her, just a few days later. I was grateful for those days, a chance to say goodbye. I gave her extra love and lots of formerly forbidden bits of people food until the hour came to leave. 

I put her into the carrier one last time, then drove to the vet even though my heart was screaming, "NO!" But I couldn't leave her hurting in her corner any longer. She depended on me to do right by her, and so I did. Her last moments were peaceful. I was petting her as she relaxed in my lap; she never even noticed when the vet gave her first the one shot, then the second. I kept petting her, telling her how much light and love she'd brought into my life, long after the vet said she'd crossed over the bridge, then quietly left the room to leave me to cry.

Goodbye, Angel. I like to believe I will see you again one day. That I will walk into the room, and as you used to do after I'd been gone for a bit, you will oh-so-nonchalantly stroll over the moment I sit down, hop into my lap and give me a longed-for kitty hug. 

Until then, Rest in Peace.