Stripes, 1995? - 2010

We had to put our dear kitty, Stripes, to sleep last Wednesday, September 18.

She fell down around 9:15 pm, and could not get up again. Both hind legs seemed paralyzed. She was panting and crying, and could not hold up her head. Whatever happened must have been very painful and frightening. I carried her downstairs and felt as if she wanted to use her litterbox, which she did. But then she fell down again. All we could think of to do was rush her to the local animal emergency medical care facility.

There, they could not give us hopeful news. They gave Stripes a massive dose of pain killers in order to examine her. They said the blood glucose in her hind legs was around 100, and double that in the front legs, which seemed to indicate lack of blood flow to the hind legs. They thought that meant a blood clot had lodged in her aorta and cut off blood to the second hind leg. Her heartbeat was also irregular. They thought it was a stroke or a heart attack.

We felt that Stripes's time had come. We wanted her to be jealed and whole, but did not want the cure to be more painful than the illness. We felt the time had come to release her from this life without Maris.

We told her over and over how much we loved her, and how grateful we were that she had come to live with us. We thanked her for all the love she gave to Maris over the years. We called on Bast and Great Mystery to look after her in the Spirit World.

We were with her to the very end. I feel sure Maris was there to meet Stripes on The Other Side.

We carried her home and buried her under the cherry tree in our back yard, with other members of our animal family.

We will always love you, Stripes. You are the best, most beautiful cat who ever lived.

Stripes

Stripes loved Maris. He was her favorite human. She sat on his lap for hours when he played computer games, and she liked to sleep on top of him.

Stripes is not feeling well. She has been limping.

Something happened to her leg during a time when I was not with her.

Was it an injury, or was it a disease? was it due to my neglect? was it something I could have prevented?

whatever is happening to Stripes is similar to what happened to Maris insofar as I am finding myself asking the same questions: was this something I could have prevented? did I cause it to happen?

Stripes has retained her sweet and loving disposition. She is a strong and brave cat.

Her vet, Dr. Currigan, says catss' behavior reflects "Survival of the fittest." when they don't feel well, they hide, so that they survive.

Stripes has been stoical, just like Maris.

Here is the latest from her vet:
"We do not have all of Stripes’ laboratory results in yet, but we do have most results back. On her blood and urine tests, the only significant finding was an elevated white blood cell count. An increased white blood cell count is consistent with either infection or inflammation (and sometimes with cancer as well – usually because of the associated inflammation of the cancer). Everything else on her blood work looks fine (kidneys, liver, thyroid, protein level, etc.). Her blood potassium was slightly low, but that may have just been due to stress. Stripes’ urine was well concentrated (or not watery) – which means her kidney function is good. We may want to put Stripes on an antibiotic for the high white blood cell count, but I would like to hold off on that until we get all the test results back.

On the radiologist report, he, too, is concerned about the masses in the lungs - with cancer, or infection (fungal, bacterial), parasites (less likely) being possibilities.

We do not yet have back they results of the aspirate of the leg swelling, but hopefully I will have those back by Friday and will call you then."

Eventually we will get a fuller idea of what 's up with Stripes.

But she has missed maris very much.

She sits outside his room when the door is closed. We brought her upstairs, away from the other cats who might bother her, in an attempt to help her get some rest and relaxation.

She has taken up residence in Maris's room. So her food, water, and litter tray are there too, so that Stripes does not have to use her sore leg to get up and down the stairs.

When she is there, I think she communes with maris. Maybe she feels safe there, where she was always happiest.

I think she really wants to be with Maris.

Gray Cat

Here is a picture of Maris with our cat, Stormy.

Demetria told us she had a spiritual message from Maris that she could not interpret. The message was: "Pet the gray cat."

We have a gray cat. Actually, she is a pastel tortoise shell cat. her fur has all the colors of a strong storm--gray, orange, white. She is storm-colored, so I named her "Stormy."

Stormy is irritating. But it is not her fault. She was taken away from her mother too soon, and it may have addled her brains a bit. Maybe she is even depressed.

Our little neighbors from down the street rang our door bell back in 1993, with a box of kittens who needed homes. They said their mother threatened to drown the kittens in the river if the girls did not find homes for them; so they were motivated.

I picked Stormy up because I liked her fur. I had been hoping to find a brindle cat because I had heard that witches used to own brindle cats. Well, Stormy is not exactly a brindle cat.
and i am not even sure from where that tradition stems. But when I put Stormy back in the box, she immediately began meowing loudly, and tried to claw her way back to me. The girls said, "Aawww....she is already used to you!" So we kept her.

She had teeth, but was very tiny. Do kittens' mothers stop nursing them when their teeth come in? We tried feeding Stormy from baby bottles but she chewed up all the nipples. She did not seem to know how to eat solid food or drink milk from a saucer. We were afraid she would starve. We fed her from the bottles for a few days, and went through lots of nipples until we felt she had figured out how to eat solid food.

The food seemed to have a bad effect on her insides, and she was so tiny she could barely reach the edge of the litter box. She used to race for it as fast as she could, but then she had to heave herself up over the side of it, which was very hard to do, if there was no one around to help her into the litter box. So she had many accidents in spite of her best efforts, and unfortunately she git used to having accidents. This did not make her very popular around here.

Stormy routinely used a corn plant as a litter box. Why? had she developed an aversion to the litter box because of all her negative experiences with it? Ray was convinced Stormy was just too lazy to use the litter box. Pretty soon we began keeping Stormy in the basement as much as we could. If she had accidents in the basement, it was not as troublesome as having them in the living room.

This was a very dysfunctional arrangem,ent. But we could not figure out another solution that would not somehow involve expensive treatments or euthanasia.

Stormy experiences neglect and misunderstanding because of her unsavory habits. She has beautiful green eyes, and is extremely affectionate. So when Demetria said something about petting the gray cat, the message resonated with me.

The gray cat did not refer to Stripes, who is a spotted tabby. Styripes used to sit on Maris's lap for hours on end, and sleep on him at night. She sits outside of his room now and waits forever for him to open the door.

The gray cat is the neglected one, the misunderstood one, who falls constantly through the cracks, who fell in love with me when I picked her out of a box of kittens destined for the Chicago River, who waits patiently for attention, who makes no demands and has no expectations, who has a sweet and gentle disposition and who has some accidents now and then. Her heart is breaking with loneliness but shhe sits at the top of the basement stairs hoping today we will let her come up.

Maris's spirit surely identifies with Stormy's sorrow, and he wants us to be kind to her. He wants us not to punish or judge her for something she may have no control over, whether it is genetic, or the result of early and unfortunate experiences. He wants us to heal Stormy, and he wants Stormy to heal us. He wants us to expeprience the giving of unconditional love to a creature who is completely ordinary and deserving of love. It will make us better, kinder people to pet Stormy. It will make our planet a better place if we can heal Stormy's heart.

I have to admit I can never trust Stormy. We recently allowed her to come up, and sure enough she still has her bad habits. But she is what she is, and she needs to be loved, so I hold and pet the gray cat every chance I get and I think of Maris and I start to cry.