Friday catblogging: Mrs. Kennedy, 1994?-2006

It happened very quickly: over the course of a matter of days, Mrs. Kennedy declined from being from a manic cat with the bounciness of a kitten to a depressed animal with no energy, no appetite, and no interest in doing anything but sleeping. I’d seen the same thing with my cat Andie, Cassie’s sister, who died in 1998, so I was pretty much prepared for the worst news. I took Mrs. Kennedy to the vet late Halloween night, and X-rays confirmed what I already knew. Mrs. Kennedy’s belly was riddled with large tumors.

I have never been the kind of pet owner who says, We must do everything possible to save this animal. I see no point in putting an animal through major surgery and chemotherapy in order to -- maybe -- prolong its life for a year, half of which would be endured in pain and misery with no understanding of what was going on. That amounts to torture: you cannot explain to a cat that chemo might -- might -- be worth it for a few extra months of life.

When I came home on Halloween night, Mrs. Kennedy had not, it seemed, moved from the spot on the bed in which she had been lying when I’d left that morning. When I lay down with her and started petting her, she let loose with a rumble of loud purring. She had never purred at all until perhaps within the last year or two, and even then, her purring was something you could only feel, not hear. Strange as it may sound, this loud purring scared me -- I knew she was comforting herself, as cats often do with their own purrs. The vet assured me she was not suffering, and maybe she wasn’t actually in physical pain, but I knew she was no longer enjoying her life. A little after midnight on November 1, she went to sleep for the last time.

This was taken on October 27 -- of course she must have been sick already but was hiding it:

These other photos were taken within the last month or two: