(Family: Mom - Betty, Dad - Tom, Melodie and Brenda)
Although she passed away years ago, I put this story in because hopefully the ending will give others hope. I am still suffering through the loss of Kasha, and always will. I hurt over Cuddles for over 20 years, and although the pain of Kasha's death is still so new and lays heavy in my heart, Cuddles will always be there too.
When I was about 5 years old and we were living in Onoway, my Dad brought a kitten home he found in a trash pile outside of an old man named 'Charlie' whose house is across from where I went to Elementary (which is now a museum)
Cuddles lived up to her name, she was such a loving kitty, and just loved to cuddle with us. It seemed her purring was going 24 hours a day, and just was so full of unconditional love.
And she always knew when one of us was down. She would come up and snuggle with us, purring our troubles away.
When I was a preteen going into my teens, I was a very emotional and confused child. I didn't really fit in with the kids at school (because I was more artistic minded), and was going through the regular growing pains kids that age go through. Sure I had friends, but they were the type that would drop you as soon as someone better would come along.
I kept everything inside, and kept in my room most of the time. I would put my teenage 'angst' into writing songs and painting. And beside me the whole time, was Cuddles.
Cuddles slept with me all the time after that. She would snuggle under the covers and lay in my outstretched arm around her. Even in the most troubling times, her purring was so soothing and I would fall asleep quickly.
When she was around 14, I noticed she had a lump on one of her nipples. I took her into the vet and he just gave me a pill to give her, and then told me how to drain it – she had mastitis. It didn't get any better, and I was fearing the worst. When we went to the same vet place, a different vet saw her, and she said that she would have to have a mastectomy.
We were preparing for the worst, but she thankfully came out of it with flying colors
The vet who preformed the operation couldn't believe how much fight and life she had in her. We took her home and showered her with love and affection.
A few years later I had eventually moved out to live with my sister and her husband in Edmonton to get a job, but when I phoned home and talked to Mom, you could hear Cuddles meowing in the background as if to say hi. The living arrangement didn't work out, so I had to move back with Mom and Dad
One night I noticed she was getting lethargic and loosing energy. We took her back into the vet, and unfortunately the vet that preformed the operation was not there, but the original vet that gave her the pills. I asked where the female vet was, he said he didn't know, she went somewhere else. He then gave me more pills to give her, and we took her home.
She was having trouble getting up to the bed, and was walking across the couch one day and fell, we took her in again to this idiot, and he did the same thing.
When
she wasn't drinking, we took her into another Vet's office, and he
took one look at her and said her kidneys are going into failure, and
if we would have caught it
two
weeks ago, we could have saved her (the same time we took her to the
idiot vet)., he said we might have to put her down – this horrified
me, I didn't want us to have to make that decision. So basically the
original vet misdiagnosed her, and in my mind, by his actions,
sentenced her to a death sentence. This other vet gave her a water
intravenous treatment, and we went home. She seemed to perk up a
bit after that, but the light was very dim in her usually bright
shining green/yellow eyes.
One morning Mom in the living room reading her books, when something caught her eye in the window looking in at her. It was a gray bird about the size of a robin, just staring in at her.
Mom is an avid bird watcher, and in the 15 years they lived out there, she had never seen this bird before. She picked up her book about birds and found it – it was called a Cat Bird.
That night around 2am, she was in my bed and had an 'accident'. I ran upstairs and woke up mom and dad and said I thinks she is dying we have to get her in. Dad and Mom rushed to get ready to go and I wrapped Cuddles in a blue towel . Dad phoned that last Vet and said we were bringing her in.
We arrived and she was just laying, barely breathing. My heart was breaking so bad, but I had hope. He gave her a water treatment, and said she didn't have long left, but to take her home. We got into the car and I was cradling her in her towel.
As Dad started to drive away, her little head picked up and she looked at me, then she dug her claws into my shirt and she lifted herself up so her eyes were even with mine. For a moment, her eyes were shining again, and you could see the love, and then, it was like she smiled at me, then she closed them and slumped down.
I screamed at dad to turn the car around. We caught the vet and ran back in. I laid her on the table, and her back leg started kicking. Mom said isn't that a good sign? But I knew it , she was gone, and it was her body going through the final stages. It was July 17th, 1990 at 3:17am, we lost our precious Cuddles.
We wrapped her back in the towel, the vet put her in a cat carrier, and we took her home. I couldn't barely breath myself, I couldn't stop crying. Mom, Dad and I hugged in the kitchen, and I remember
Mom saying it was like loosing 'one of their own' meaning like loosing a kid.
I crawled up onto a couch in the living room, I just couldn't go back to my bedroom without her. As the tears rolled down my face, I looked up to the living room window, and in the light of the coming dawn sitting on the sill, was a gray bird. It tweeted, and it was joined by another gray bird. It looked in at me and seemed to stay there for quite a while. I found myself talking to it about her and how much I would miss her. It then tweeted at me, tilted its head then flew away with its partner.
That day when the light came out, Dad built a coffin for her, and we buried her just behind the house, against the wall of my bedroom, so she would always be close.
Later that afternoon, Mom was in the picnic area, and a gray bird flew up to her, it was the cat bird. It was not afraid of her, and it stayed with her for quite a while before it flew away.
When I finally was able to sleep back in my bed, every now and then I could almost feel her walking up to cuddle, sometimes I could still hear her purr. Even after I moved out and I would stay over night at their house, it was like you could still feel she was there.
They eventually did get a couple other cats, TC and Fluery, but there was always her presence in the house.
I never knew about the original Cat Bird sighting that mom had, not until I told her about what I saw the night she died. Mom and Dad lived in that house another 20 years, and never again did anyone see another Cat Bird, only that one bird that Mom saw, and the second that joined it which I witnessed.
Even today as I type this, and Mom relayed her story to me over the phone, the both of us cannot help but have tears in our eyes and choke up.
Mom and Dad had to eventually sell the house and move, but Dad went to where cuddles was put to rest, dug up her remains, and had her cremated. She is now with her family again, as she always will be.
It still is a bit painful to this day, because when a precious furry family member gives you such unconditional love, there is a bond that is created, and in my mind, that bond can never be broken, even in death.
