When I lost my Siddy cat, my heart broke into a million pieces & I never thought I'd live through the pain of the empty spot behind my knees at night & the silence where his yowls & 'murphs' & purrs had always been.
I had moved to AZ from my life-long home in GA w/my ex & nothing was real to me, I was so young- I left my cats w/my parents (who spoiled them rotten), but my life is never complete w/o a cat or two. So after about a year, once we'd established ourselves & he'd gotten tired of me being so weepy w/o my kitties, he took me on a surprise trip to this little ranch out in the desert. The woman there had dogs, horses, pigs, sheep.....& a box full of Siamese kittens!
So, for $25 (a lot for us back then) my ex told me to 'pick one'
I'd already picked Sid the moment I saw him!
The woman said 'Oh no! You don't want THAT one! He'll run away as soon as you blink. He's horrible & mean & from the last litter, it's why he's so much bigger than the other kittens. Why don't you take THIS one?'
But it was too late. Love at first sight!
I rode home with my Sid in the back of our VW Bus, he was tucked into the wheel well for spare tires. When we got home he was wild & scared & had only ever been fed raw beef! Raw beef & now thrown into the home of vegetarians!
We built a little fort for him w/our dumpster-dive recliners & coaxed him out w/canned people tuna after a week. Once Siddartha came out of his recliner fort, he was my cat & I was his person. He loved me more than anything & I loved him so much more than that...
13 years passed...
I lost my human best friend. Sid was there. I left my ex in my little red VW Beetle. Sid was there. We made a new home for ourselves & adopted Mortimer the blue-point cat from my friend's ranch. Sid was there. My mother died. Sid was there. The economy tanked & I lost my fine art sculpture work. Sid was there. I went back to school. Sid was there. I got a job at a great dental lab.
Sid. Was. There.
& then the unthinkable happened.
It was such a small thing, Siddy had a swelling on his cheek. No big deal, maybe an abscess, normal enough for a tom cat of his age. Maybe a tooth needing to be pulled, senior cats have these issues. So I took him to the vet I'd been using since he was a kitten. The vet's office had changed a bit in the past few years. Different owners. Fancier cars in the parking lot....
I never should have trusted them when they gave me this $80 fancy new drug, instead of the simple pink penicillin I asked for & had always given Sid over the years when he got ill.
Long story short:
It killed him. Crashed his kidneys & even if I could've afforded it, there wasn't a place here where I could've taken him for emergency dialysis.
I lost my best friend all over again.
I was adrift,
my life in AZ had always had Siddartha as an anchor. He was my one real true thing over all the years & changes. He was such a crucial part of the way I defined myself & my personal definition of what LOVE really is.
Mortimer meowed and cried for Sid everyday. I did too. Those first few months were awful beyond measure. I knew I had to do something, anything, to stop Mortimer's crying. To stop mine.
So I decided to bring a new kitty into our lives.
I knew I didn't want a kitten. I wanted an adult or senior cat that needed us as much as we needed him/her. I began looking for Siamese cats on rescue sites, ones that needed me the most.
I stopped feeling quite so awful the more I saw the faces of kitties that needed homes & could become part of my family.
& then I saw CASSIE.
Oh, Cassie! She was purrrrfect Another stripey Siamese the same age as Mortimer at 7 1/2yrs, doomed for euthanasia if she wasn't re-homed.
So what if she was 200 miles away? It was love at first sight all over again when I saw her one little low-resolution picture
My wonderful, heart-mending Cassie!
It was a nightmare bringing her home, she cried & yowled & did her best to break out of the kennel on the two hour drive back to my place....
I was feeling like maybe I'd made a bad decision in my grief, I'd already discovered that she was older, 10yrs, not almost 8yrs, she'd also experienced some abuse.
But then we got home!
I let Cassie out of the kennel on top of my bed. The very first thing she did was rub up against my hand & purr like a little freight train & steal my heart & mend it!
The rest is history & there's much more to our story, but this has gotten really long!!!!!!!!
The whole point of this story is that life does go on & there are amazing beautiful things awaiting you & lives you can save while saving your own heart too
SO GRIEVE WHEN YOU LOSE A LOVED ONE, BUT NEVER CLOSE YOUR HEART TO NEW LOVE!
I had moved to AZ from my life-long home in GA w/my ex & nothing was real to me, I was so young- I left my cats w/my parents (who spoiled them rotten), but my life is never complete w/o a cat or two. So after about a year, once we'd established ourselves & he'd gotten tired of me being so weepy w/o my kitties, he took me on a surprise trip to this little ranch out in the desert. The woman there had dogs, horses, pigs, sheep.....& a box full of Siamese kittens!
So, for $25 (a lot for us back then) my ex told me to 'pick one'
I'd already picked Sid the moment I saw him!The woman said 'Oh no! You don't want THAT one! He'll run away as soon as you blink. He's horrible & mean & from the last litter, it's why he's so much bigger than the other kittens. Why don't you take THIS one?'
But it was too late. Love at first sight!
I rode home with my Sid in the back of our VW Bus, he was tucked into the wheel well for spare tires. When we got home he was wild & scared & had only ever been fed raw beef! Raw beef & now thrown into the home of vegetarians!
We built a little fort for him w/our dumpster-dive recliners & coaxed him out w/canned people tuna after a week. Once Siddartha came out of his recliner fort, he was my cat & I was his person. He loved me more than anything & I loved him so much more than that...
13 years passed...
I lost my human best friend. Sid was there. I left my ex in my little red VW Beetle. Sid was there. We made a new home for ourselves & adopted Mortimer the blue-point cat from my friend's ranch. Sid was there. My mother died. Sid was there. The economy tanked & I lost my fine art sculpture work. Sid was there. I went back to school. Sid was there. I got a job at a great dental lab.
Sid. Was. There.
& then the unthinkable happened.
It was such a small thing, Siddy had a swelling on his cheek. No big deal, maybe an abscess, normal enough for a tom cat of his age. Maybe a tooth needing to be pulled, senior cats have these issues. So I took him to the vet I'd been using since he was a kitten. The vet's office had changed a bit in the past few years. Different owners. Fancier cars in the parking lot....
I never should have trusted them when they gave me this $80 fancy new drug, instead of the simple pink penicillin I asked for & had always given Sid over the years when he got ill.
Long story short:
It killed him. Crashed his kidneys & even if I could've afforded it, there wasn't a place here where I could've taken him for emergency dialysis.
I lost my best friend all over again.
I was adrift,
my life in AZ had always had Siddartha as an anchor. He was my one real true thing over all the years & changes. He was such a crucial part of the way I defined myself & my personal definition of what LOVE really is.
Mortimer meowed and cried for Sid everyday. I did too. Those first few months were awful beyond measure. I knew I had to do something, anything, to stop Mortimer's crying. To stop mine.
So I decided to bring a new kitty into our lives.
I knew I didn't want a kitten. I wanted an adult or senior cat that needed us as much as we needed him/her. I began looking for Siamese cats on rescue sites, ones that needed me the most.
I stopped feeling quite so awful the more I saw the faces of kitties that needed homes & could become part of my family.
& then I saw CASSIE.
Oh, Cassie! She was purrrrfect
Another stripey Siamese the same age as Mortimer at 7 1/2yrs, doomed for euthanasia if she wasn't re-homed.So what if she was 200 miles away? It was love at first sight all over again when I saw her one little low-resolution picture
My wonderful, heart-mending Cassie!
It was a nightmare bringing her home, she cried & yowled & did her best to break out of the kennel on the two hour drive back to my place....
I was feeling like maybe I'd made a bad decision in my grief, I'd already discovered that she was older, 10yrs, not almost 8yrs, she'd also experienced some abuse.
But then we got home!
I let Cassie out of the kennel on top of my bed. The very first thing she did was rub up against my hand & purr like a little freight train & steal my heart & mend it!
The rest is history & there's much more to our story, but this has gotten really long!!!!!!!!
The whole point of this story is that life does go on & there are amazing beautiful things awaiting you & lives you can save while saving your own heart too
SO GRIEVE WHEN YOU LOSE A LOVED ONE, BUT NEVER CLOSE YOUR HEART TO NEW LOVE!
