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Tigger's gone now, too.
Michelle has already posted the news, so call this some mourning of my own.
Those of you who have been to the house know Tigger because if you sat still long enough, he'd tap your elbow with his paw, begging to be picked up and held.
After Nafoill died back in April, I didn't figure it would be very long before Tigger declined as well. Hell, at sixteen years old, he'd be about ready, wouldn't he?
Michelle took him to the vet this morning. After a consultation with the doctor, she and the vet decided that a cortisone shot to make him feel better was just prolonging what wasn't going to be a long, or good, life. I couldn't be there - the current climate at work makes skipping a day for any reason unwise, let alone troubles with a "pet" - so Michelle handled it. She called me on the phone to tell me it was done. She IM'd me later to say she held him.
In a way, I'm grateful for that. I held Nafoill as the anesthesia was administered, and as poetic as I wrote it at the time, it was a horrible experience that I still don't want to really write about. In Tigger's case, as Michelle and I discussed it last night, I was totally immobilized by indecision. As I think back over our last several hours, and though we tabled the decision until a consult with the vet, I think we both knew what the ultimate decision would be. I knew that as I scritched his chin before leaving for work that it would be the last time.
He was the sweetest cat I've ever known, not an ounce in him of that choatic meaness that so many cats possess. We got him a month after we married ('93, to spare you the math), a teacup sized kitten, feral and terrified, that grew into a fifteen pound, loving, loaf of a feline. Call him our firstborn, if you like.
I'll pick up his remains on the way home from work and we'll bury him near Nafoill under the maple tree in the front yard. That'll make at least a half-dozen animals under there since my childhood.
I will miss him. God, I will.
Those of you who have been to the house know Tigger because if you sat still long enough, he'd tap your elbow with his paw, begging to be picked up and held.
After Nafoill died back in April, I didn't figure it would be very long before Tigger declined as well. Hell, at sixteen years old, he'd be about ready, wouldn't he?
Michelle took him to the vet this morning. After a consultation with the doctor, she and the vet decided that a cortisone shot to make him feel better was just prolonging what wasn't going to be a long, or good, life. I couldn't be there - the current climate at work makes skipping a day for any reason unwise, let alone troubles with a "pet" - so Michelle handled it. She called me on the phone to tell me it was done. She IM'd me later to say she held him.
In a way, I'm grateful for that. I held Nafoill as the anesthesia was administered, and as poetic as I wrote it at the time, it was a horrible experience that I still don't want to really write about. In Tigger's case, as Michelle and I discussed it last night, I was totally immobilized by indecision. As I think back over our last several hours, and though we tabled the decision until a consult with the vet, I think we both knew what the ultimate decision would be. I knew that as I scritched his chin before leaving for work that it would be the last time.
He was the sweetest cat I've ever known, not an ounce in him of that choatic meaness that so many cats possess. We got him a month after we married ('93, to spare you the math), a teacup sized kitten, feral and terrified, that grew into a fifteen pound, loving, loaf of a feline. Call him our firstborn, if you like.
I'll pick up his remains on the way home from work and we'll bury him near Nafoill under the maple tree in the front yard. That'll make at least a half-dozen animals under there since my childhood.
I will miss him. God, I will.
*hugs*
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This sort of thing is never easy and always painful. *sad* Love to your whole family.
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*hugs*
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I am SO sorry
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I'm just getting to the computer and your post is the first one for me.
I think we've known over here that something was up as we've talked about you and the family several times in just the last few days. Know that we've been fiercely loving you even if we didn't know why...
S~
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It's an absurd sort of way to add my "I understand...you have my deep condolences" -- but there it is.