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Amber: The Long Version

He was visiting the little white house and the little white haired ladies in south Georgia after his breakup with She Who Will Not Be Named. His mother - in an act of aggression or comfort - told him there were kittens under the porch of the farm down the way, and that he should go get one.

He really wasn’t sold on the idea, although Calvin had been lonely for his feline companion since the humans had parted ways. The Mc felt for the little fella, and he is nothing if not an obedient son, so he went to take a look.

When he went over to the pen where the kitties were lolling about and gazed down at all the little orange and white bits of fluff, he still wasn’t into it. And then she happened. She waltzed straight over to him and looked up with her sweet little face and it was over.

He was in love.

She was vulnerable but open and clearly somewhat adventurous and I think looking back (though I clearly wasn’t there) that those qualities are exactly what he saw and wanted to be part of.

She was home with The Mc and Calvin for a few months, tormenting her step brother and playing dare-devil kitty before he became ill very suddenly and died in The Mc’s arms on the way to the all night emergency vet across town. When Counting Crows comes on the radio with A Long December, he still turns it up and gets still. I know to be quiet, and when it’s over he’ll tell me “this reminds me of Calvin” and I try to let him tell me the whole story over again because I know it helps his healing.

Amber was the woman of the house for five years. She saw other humans once a year - if that - for the annual poker game. That is, until I showed up and ruined everything.

She didn’t welcome me, or the new house rules that came with me (like not sleeping on my pillow), but we developed a tolerance and understanding: I would move slowly and she would ignore me. On a good night, we’d share The Mc’s affection. On a bad night, she’d sleep on my pillow and give me hives.

In April of last year, we introduced Grayson to the family and I learned the way to her heart was lots of cat nip and Greenies. She didn’t stop doing her 2am wind sprints in the hall, but I learned to sleep through them.

******

The Mc and I left the kids home alone for a long weekend in June while we went to dip our toes in the ocean, sweat ourselves into near oblivion and forget about work. We’ve done it a dozen times before: leave heaps of food, enough water to fill an Olympic pool, and scotch the door to the cat crapper so no one has an excuse for a massive butt explosion in an undesirable location.

When we got home from the trip, all appeared to be normal. A pile of half eaten dried vomit on the living room floor, a mouse in the water dish, you know. The norm.

But when Sunday night rolled around, she wasn’t herself. She was overly quiet, her eyes were glassy and she wasn’t interested in (or screaming for) dinner. Monday night when I went home, she was even less herself and I noticed she wasn’t drinking water. I tweeted it and Mish suggested putting water on the tip of our fingers. I bellowed instructions over the wall to The Mc, who complied. She wasn’t interested, but she did manage a few licks.

Tuesday I went home at lunch to check on her. She was laying on the end of the bed, her eyes glassy and unfocused. I stroked her head and she closed her eyes. I kept petting and she kept letting me.

Something was gravely wrong.

I called The Mc at work and said “you have to take her to the vet now” and he did, within the hour.

Around 3pm we got a call. She was dehydrated, and they were able to get a urine sample that revealed she was diabetic. He needed to come in and talk about options.

By the time we got there at 5, they’d managed to get enough fluids in her to do more lab work and it was worse than originally thought. She had complications from the diabetes that included ketosis, where her body was trying to break down fat into sugars (I think) but the fat had gone and got itself all stuck up in her liver. Her systems were failing. She was only 6 years old.

They gave us the option of leaving her there for the night or at another clinic where someone would be with her and left us alone for a few minutes, because by then we were puddles of ooey gooey wtfdowedonow with an anxiety attack on top.

We had already talked to the doctor about what was best for her and we knew she was going to leave us. When the doctor came back in I asked if we could take her home.

We did.

The Mc sat on the floor with her and her pink bandaged leg, and we gave her all the tuna she wanted. He sat outside with her on the balcony so she could feel the clean* air and see the world. We invited her to have a catnip bender, but all she wanted to do was snuggle with her daddy…and that way okay with us.

The next morning was unbelievably hard for us - harder on me than I could have imagined it would be - and just so ruthlessly unfair for her poor, loving poppa.

We loved on her right to the end and then some.

We spent some time together afterward, but I knew The Mc needed to be alone to process, so I went in to the office and let him be.

That night, a small gathering of kind, generous, wonderful, amazing souls met us at a neighborhood spot for an impromptu wake…and the kindness rocked our souls.

Grayson still looks for her in places she’d never have been - just in case. “Hey! Are you hiding in this potted plant?? No? What about in the refrigerator?” He’s not the same since she’s been gone, and neither are we.

So that, my dear ones, is what happened. I’ve been meaning to type it all out since it happened but whether it’s just been too hard or I’ve just been too tired, I don’t know. It’s here now. Her story. Her little legacy of the Crapomatic 3000 and her vast dingleberry collection and her sentery walks around the house at bedtime.

She was a good girl.

*it was not a code red smog day

Posted in: Daily Life

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 26th, 2008 at 11:38 pm and is filed under Daily Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.