Terrible and Wonderful

I experienced something today that was both terrible and wonderful. It's kind of a long story so please bear with me.

Monday night, about 11:30, I was lying on the couch watching television. One of our kittens, Izzy, (the runt and therefore my favorite:)) climbed onto the couch and sat on my hip. I noticed that she was shaking and it scared me. I thought maybe she was sick and so of course I looked up "trembling kitten" on Google. And the best I got was maybe something had scared her. So, I wrapped her up in a blanket remnant I have, warmed her up, loved her up and after a few minutes she stopped shaking and went on to sleep.

The next day,(Tuesday) she looked a little tired but otherwise fine. She was eating and drinking and sleeping a lot, kind of like her brothers and sister, like any other cat on the face of the earth.:) She looked no worse for the wear and so everything was back to normal. But I still kept a close eye on her. Like I said, she's the runt so she's my baby.

Wednesday passed and Thursday was in full swing. Izzy was having a blast. She was running and playing and rolling and bouncing and trying to catch a fly (and almost did!) and climbing the curtains and beating up the dog.....just another day in the life of a well-loved kitten. Later that evening, I noticed she was missing from the group. See, her and her sister and brothers all hang together a lot and when they sleep they normally jump on a kitchen chair together. I saw them but not her. So I went to looking for her. (Little kittens can hide in a whole bunch of places you know.) I found her asleep under the couch. I picked her up and loved on her and when I laid her down on the couch, she cried for a second. She was breathing funny and acting like she was in pain. Our vet doesn't open until 8 in the morning so I settled in for a long and difficult night. I put some cloths in a little shoebox and she slept in there for the night with me in the livingroom.

Grover took her to the vet this morning and then he had to go to work. Dr. McCurdy, our vet called me about 10 a.m. and told me that she was really bad off....he had run some tests and couldn't tell what was wrong with her....she was anemic with petechial hemmorhages all over her body....all over. (A petechial hemmorhage is one that looks like tiny dots.) He said that he could possibly do a blood transfusion but that he didn't think that it would do any good because he didn't know what was causing the problem. He said that she was NOT in pain but that she WAS going to die. And that if we could come down there to sign the papers for euthanasia but she might not even make it until we could get down there. He also wanted to check the other 3 kittens. So I got in touch with Grover on the job site, told him what was going on and waited.......and waited.....and waited. It took him almost 2 hours to finally get off the site he was on...he came home and we went straight to the vet.

Dr. McCurdy checked the other kittens and they were all fine. He then began talking to us about Izzy and he said, "Here let me go get her and I'll show you what I'm talking about." He brought her into the room (in that same little Spiderman shoebox....I will never forget that) and we were looking at her while he was explaining the tests he had run and so on. Up until that point neither Grover or myself had said anything. When he put her back down on the cloths in the box, I said "Bless her heart", Grover said "Poor thing". We said it at the same time. Right after we said that, the doctor told us "She's going now." And so she did. She was in no pain, and she just slipped away.

On the ride home, we were both in tears. For different reasons. Grover was crying because this wonderful creature had just departed from our lives and he was heartbroken.

I was crying because my heart was hurting as well but I was also crying because I was thankful. I was thankful that I had experienced her life with her. Three months ago, I stroked her mother's head while she gave birth to Izzy. And today, I shared her last moments with her. She waited for us to get there. She waited until she heard our voices before she went Home. She waited....Say what you want, I know that she was waiting for US. And that is a gift I will be forever grateful for....that she knew we were there with her and that we loved her. I think maybe it made it easier for her....I hope it did anyway.

I know that being able to say good-bye made it a little easier for me. And it was something I can look at and say "That was a moment of wonderful" in a terrible day.

Love ya Iz. Your brothers and sister and momma send their love. And I've got a shoestring with your name on it:)

Peace allllllllllllllllllll................