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My obituary for our cat

Terabith

By Terabith,
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Terabith

Terabith

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Scout's story starts in the fall of 2006, when a Siamese cat and her kitten were seen wandering our San Antonio neighborhood. Both were very friendly, and we thought they must have belonged to a neighbor. They were both incredibly friendly and allowed toddler Catherine and not quite 3 year old Lyr pet them. They disappeared and we thought little of it, figuring they'd gone back to the neighbor who owned them.
 
But then, on Christmas Eve, Mommy Kitty showed up on our doorstep, emaciated and desperate to come inside. It was unseasonably cold, and you could count every rib. So we let her in and fed her, and after the holidays took her to the vet to get her spayed. But she was pregnant.
 
So, we took her back home. Our awesome open concept home was not good for keeping resident cats Ursula and Trinity separate from Mommy Kitty, and it seemed she'd learned to be aggressive and territorial living on the street. She was sweet as pie to all the people, but meaner than a banshee to Ursula and Trinity, who were frankly terrified of her.
 
Scout and her siblings, a gray tabby and three little black kittens, were born in the middle of our bed in early March 2007. I'm not going to say that they were the brightest kittens ever to have exist. At least one of the black kittens was clearly brain damaged, maybe from the starvation Mommy Kitty had been enduring before making her way to our house. Scout was the bravest and boldest of the kittens, an early explorer both out of the weaning box and over the baby gate separating the kittens in the bathroom from the toddlers on the other side. That's how she earned her name. She fit in one toddler hand.
 
I was still nursing Catherine, and Scout would crawl under the covers while we were sleeping and latch onto my boob to drink my milk. That's how I knew right away that the person who claimed to breastfeed the cat on the airplane was making it up. Between the sharp little kitten teeth and the rough tongue, there is little that will wake you up faster than a kitten nursing from you!
 
We found homes for the other kittens and Mommy Kitty by early summer, which was good, because we were moving to Virginia. (After we spayed Mommy Kitty.) But we kept Scout.
 
My kids have no memory of a life without her in it.
 
She flew to Greensboro in a carrier under the seat in front of me, carried through the airport when we needed to change planes. Juggling two toddlers and a kitten made for an exciting moving adventure. I was very grateful that Grandma and Grandpa flew with us, since Mike had already started work in Virginia. And I was very grateful to my dad, for driving the U-Haul. (I think it about killed him.) And that our friend picked us up in his van.
Scout joined Ursula and Trinity, who had driven cross country with my husband, at Kendel's trailer, where she stayed with them until we got our house. I went up several times a week to visit with the cats and change the litter and make sure they had fresh food and water.
 
She had her mother's Siamese meow.
 
She was a good kitty. She loved to knead and lick my hair after I washed it with Suave rosemary and mint shampoo. She slept on my pillow with me at night. She tolerated Obama the kitten when we brought him home and tried to play with him.
 
On her last day, we fed her Blackie's special prescription food that she was always so desperate to eat. We let her go outside and sniff things and hang out in a sunbeam on the deck. She laid on my chest and I petted her for hours. She curled up on my pillow, and Lyr fed her turkey. We took her to the vet, and she explored every inch of the exam room, purring loudly, alert and interested until the end. We fed her a squeeze treat, and the vet put in the catheter to sedate her, and I held her and sang her a lullaby and gave her a kiss and told her that she'd been the best little scoutlet, the best kitty girl. She was a Scout till the end.
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Terabith

Terabith

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She was a very sweet cat.  I feel guilty because I am not sure we always did the best for her.  It was hard knowing what the right thing to do was, with the stomatitis, because there was such a disconnect between the way she acted and the damage it was causing.  

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fraidycat

fraidycat

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1 hour ago, Terabith said:

She was a very sweet cat.  I feel guilty because I am not sure we always did the best for her.  It was hard knowing what the right thing to do was, with the stomatitis, because there was such a disconnect between the way she acted and the damage it was causing.  

It's always so hard because they can't speak for themselves, but I have no doubt that whatever you did or didn't do, you did it all out of love and she felt that love. I hope that you will be able to let go of the guilt soon. Hugs.

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