Daily Prompt: In Loving Memory

Totally not connected with books. But I just saw today’s prompt and got tears in my eyes. So I had to post.

Honestly, it is so weird how today worked out. Twelve years ago, on the 3rd of March, we (me, my sister and mom – dad doesn’t count, because he’s not cat person) got our first cat. We remember the date so well, because it was 03.03.03. and we had that stupid 3Bit (a chocolate bar) TV ad around, that just talked about threes again and again (if I remember correctly, the chocolate bar was available in stores from that date and up until it arrived, there was an ad with a girl seeing three everywhere). So the date is well-set in our minds. A little more than a month ago, she passed away. And I’ve been kind of thinking of that today at some moments, but didn’t want to really post about it, because it is not particularly book-related (although, who’s gonna say anything about it, my blog, my rules :D), but then I saw that prompt and yeah… Got all emotional.

Pīnija (mom chose the name, turns out it’s stone pine (pinus pinea) in Latvian, which is actually a bit funny) wasn’t our only cat. Two years ago we got another one, in a quite an interesting way, but on that in another post probably. Can’t say they got along very well. Our younger cat, Vinkija (after Winky, the house elf, my sister read the fourth HP book at the time when we got her), is very active and silly, and most definitely saw Pīnija as a play-buddy, while Pīnija, as the older and more serious one probably thought “Oh, for goodness sake, leave me alone, you little silly one” (she most definitely had such an expression on her face from time to time when Vinkija was doing something or trying to get Pīnija to play with her). So sometimes seeing them sleeping 10 cm from one another was wondrous, we always laughed that they’ve gone mad or something at those moments.

Pīnija had always been a serious cat, she wasn’t particularly keen on being picked up and cuddled, she was kind of ok with it, but the first couple of months after we got Vinkija, she seemed to totally not like anyone. The second you picked her up, she was trying to get away. But with time it got a bit better. So they coexisted, but never really seemed friends.

She was a little cat, she did not really get much bigger then she was when we got her. She was maybe 6 months old then (can’t say how old is she in the picture, around 4, maybe). Although there was a time, when she was really round (read: fat), I think it was after we got her neutered, so that could have been the reason. And after being neutered (something tumor-like also got removed then), we had to put her in a makeshift cat jumper, because she licked her stitches. And when going to the vet for neutering, she was prepared for that, the vet didn’t have to shave the cat’s tummy, because she had licked it free of fur, that is, there was a patch of just skin on her belly, because she licked it a lot (mom thought it could have been because of the tumor-like things, we never really checked her for cancer or anything, but you could feel something there and she licked there so much, that no fur was growing there). But then she got thinner. Especially after Vinkija arrived 😀

In her last months, though, Pīnija had gotten very thin. Mainly just skin and bones. She looked pretty sad (not that she was sad, I wouldn’t know, but it was sad to look at her). Taking into account her age and looks, we kind of grew to accept the fact that her time is coming sooner rather than later (not that it decreased the sadness and crying when it did come), although I’m not sure how long each of us had thought of that. But most definitely the whole week before she passed, as the Friday before that she looked especially sad and old, and miserable that we got to thinking when have we last seen her eat, drink or use the litter box. That day I went to visit my boyfriend and he oh-so-sensitively said that she probably won’t live till Monday (which she did, Ha). But on Monday she was still not eating and all that, so we got her wet food for sensitive tummies and gave her that, so she ate a bit (and Vinkija was so unhappy, because we didn’t give the wet food to her, although she sometimes got it, because Pīnija didn’t eat all of it).

Anyways, that week we were kind of tiptoeing around, checking on her a lot, it was almost hilarious in a way. Sister comes home from school – Is Pīnija…? Mom comes from work – How is she? And so on. One morning mom had woken up with Pīnija in her bed and her ears had seemed cold and she wasn’t moving, so mom had thought that she had slept with a little corpse, but then Vinkija jumped in bed an Pīnija woke up (some sort of black humor, we kind of had it the whole week from time to time).

Then came the Friday, and Pīnija seemed to be doing better, she ate some, she even went to the litter box. But in the late evening (or more like Saturday, as it was after midnight), when I was playing something on PC, I heard this weird sound, got up and, well, … She was going. I mean, at first I was like “Granny, Granny, Granny, what is wrong with you” (we called her Granny sometimes :D), because I didn’t know what to do, then it kind of occurred to me what is happening. Mom got up and so we sat there beside Pīnija and waited while she ‘went’. It might have been 15 minutes, I don’t know, but it was a lot of crying and an awful wait. We lit a candle, then sat for a while and looked at Pīnija’s pictures on my PC.

The next days I wasn’t comfortable sitting at my PC in the evenings in that room. It felt so empty. Although we still had (and have) Vinkija, those first days after, home felt weird and empty.

Now, from time to time, I still feel the need to cry a bit, but… It is what it is, and life is life, as stupid it might be to say all those things, because who doesn’t know them.

To see what others had to say on this topic/prompt, look here .