Life and Death, Joy and Heartbreak

Lilli holding Bill last summer.

On 11/12/13, we lost our friend and pet Bill.  He had some sort of problem that eventually led to his death.  We buried him in the backyard next to Sadie and Buttons.  (Our first cats were Buttons and Bow.  We came home to find Buttons had been shot, and we never did find Bow.)  It was a sad time for the family, but it was not unexpected.

Bill came into our life right after we lost Buttons and Bow.  We came home and he was in our garage.  We do not know how he got there.

He was a very sickly kitten and did not act very kitty-like the first year we had him.  In fact, I thought that he wouldn't survive the first winter, but he did.  Then when Sadie came into our family, Sadie become the bossy sibling.  She would grab Bill by the tail and swing him around.  Bill tolerated Sadie, but she would try to get away from her whenever Sadie would try to play with him.

The girls loved Bill, especially Lilli.  Bill was never a cat that liked to be held.  Very few times did Bill jump on my lap and stay there while I petted him.  However, he got very used to Lilli constantly holding him as can be seen in the picture above.

Misty playing with a glow
stick on the couch.

A few weeks after Bill died, Deb was visiting a day care in Lava (she does that as part of her job with the Downey Library).  She found out that the day care owner had found some abandoned kittens and was trying to find homes for them.  Deb told her that we had just lost our cat and was looking for a replacement so we got her.  We named her Misty after the person that gave us the kitty.

Needless to say, the girls loved her.  And she loved the girls.  As soon as she would see them, she would go running to them.  She was a very feisty kitten and would chase anything that moved.  The girls loved getting her to play with them.  At times, I felt sorry for the poor kitten as she became the "baby" that needed to be taken care of.

She also loved to snuggle with Deb.  A few weeks ago, Deb had surgery.  It was an outpatient procedure, but it made Deb very weak and tired.  She spent the first week or so sleeping on the couch.  Misty would jump up on her and snuggle next to her neck and go to sleep.  At other times, Misty would lay next to Deb, but the cat made sure she was touching Deb with her paw.

On February 25 (the day before Angie's 9th birthday), Deb came home to find Misty laying on the lawn.  She could tell that something was wrong.  Misty had been run over.  Deb hurried Misty to the vet (with Grandma Bet providing support) to see how serious the injury was.  The vet found that her pelvic bone was crushed and that her internal organs had ruptured.  He said that Misty would be in a lot of pain.  After consulting with me over the phone, Deb asked the vet to put her to sleep.  It was heart-wrenching.  Even though that kitten had been in our lives a couple of months, we had all grown to love her.

Since the girls were in school when all of this happened, I came home early to help Deb break the news to the girls.  Understandably, both girls were upset.  Lilli grabbed the scratching post we had give to Misty for Christmas and just cried.  Angie started to cry and say, "She was just a little kitten."  Of course, Mom and Dad were very heartbroken and shed tears with Angie and Lilli.

We buried Misty right next to Bill.

Now, we are again looking for the pet to make our family complete.  Each day, the girls ask when we will get our next pet.