Crab Apple Kitty

Stella is in kitty cat heaven. At the vet's office, she was gently given a sedative and she walked into my lap. She relaxed, and when it was time, I laid her down onto a blanket. They injected her rear leg so that I could pet her head. I laid my face onto the table, and looked into her eyes. I told her how wonderful she was and what a good girl she was being. I watched the light go out of her eyes, and although I was sobbing, it was a relief to know that she wasn't in pain any longer.

It's amazing how quickly health can deteriorate. Yesterday was the first time I've watched life go out of a body. It was not easy. All I can hope is that when I die, I will have someone petting my head, looking me in the eyes and telling me kind things.

It wasn't just me with Stella yesterday, it was also my mom and dad. We all cried. We all loved her. I couldn't help them, I didn't have it in me, but they buried her underneath their crab apple tree. It's a befitting location since she was also known as a big B to so many. My mom always laughed that I would call her Pretty Pretty Princess. Stella was a tough, sassy, sharp clawed time bomb that was not safe around children or most adults. But to me, she was my tame little kitten.

Good-Bye Old Girl

Breakfast Soup/Smoothie

It looks gross, but I'm telling you it's delicious. Here's how you make it. Chop up one nectarine (make sure it's super ripe - very fragrant) and toss it in a blender. Once it's blended fill the blender full of spinach (stuff it in there). Add water to the thickness you desire. Add 1-2 tablespoons of flax seed oil. Blend it all together until it's thick and kind of frothy. Aaaaand, serve. It's delicious. You can't even taste the spinach. In fact, it tastes like a nutty nectarine drink. It is wonderful!

That is how I started my day. I'm trying to be good to myself because today is the day that my baby princess Stella the cat will be leaving this world. I slept on the floor with her last night in a sleeping bag. She has trouble getting onto the bed these days. I've cried and cried, and cried and then cried some more and I know that I still have hours of crying in the future.

As I told a friend in an email today, since I don't have children, this cat has been my baby for the past eight years. She was a stray that needed love, and I was fresh off of a disastrous breakup. My fiance called it off less than two months before the wedding by using the words, "I'm not attracted to you anymore." If that doesn't hurt, I don't know what does. Mark that down as possibly the worst breakup line in history. My parents helped me move from Texas to Wenatchee, Washington and that is where a sassy, headstrong cat came into my life.

Ever since we tamed her, she has followed me around like a shadow. She has been a rock in my life, a confidant, a snuggle buddy, and entertainment. She makes me laugh so hard.

The other day, while I was packing up for the big move, I found a journal. It was from several years ago. I had started writing to an unborn child, a child that I hoped I would someday have. In it, as I was writing, Stella came up and curled up on my lap. She always had a sense for when I needed love. You see, I was married before Danny (it was a few years after the bad breakup - my twenties were quite eventful). On the day after the wedding, my husband told me he no longer wanted children. We had talked about having children the whole time we were dating, and then all of a sudden, in one day, a very important after the fact disclosure happened. I should have just annulled it then, but I thought that I had a responsibility to my husband, and the ideal of marriage. Three years later, the inevitable happened. It wasn't just the child issue, it was everything, everything was wrong. My main point is that I had several very sad, very hard years. I felt isolated, unloved, and trapped. Through it all, I had Stella. She never left my side. We gardened together. We went on walks. We cleaned the house while I cursed her in jest for being so hairy. She was my baby. Even when I would go on trips, she was always waiting for me, excited to be with me, always happy or ready for a nap.

Sometimes a pet is just a pet, a fun little buddy to make you laugh or enjoy for entertainment purposes. Stella was a friend. One of my best friends. 

I know it's time to let her go. She just threw up again last night even though she has been on two different types of medicine, one of them twice a day. It's so hard to play "God" and put her to sleep. It feels wrong, but it feels even worse to make her suffer. She's in a lot of pain, and it hurts me to look in her eyes and see the sadness.