and we go on

We all miss our little cat Bailey. We keep "seeing" him places, the corner of something white catching us off guard for a moment, oh! there he is! But he isn't.

In an effort to let Boo Boo, our gray tabby, know that they love him so much, the girls are making extra sure they show him. I don't know if it's that they miss Bailey and want to hang around a cat, or if they think Boo must be lonely now that he is an "only" cat. Unfortunately, Boo doesn't particularly care for children. All those sudden movements, the unpredictable shrieking, the desire to pet a cat who does not want to be petted, meh, he'd just as soon have nothing to do with them. Plus he is 16. So he's not likely to change

Horror of horrors, they even want to pick him up. So demeaning.
To date, he has not scratched either of their faces off. I think they are quite lucky.

So, they merrily push ahead, trying hard to make friends with a cat who strongly feels he has enough friends.

Oh Boo Boo.

Really?

Thank you so much for all the kind words left on the last post comments. I keep reading them over, even though they make me teary a little. Our cats are our family. Lots of people feel the same. It's horrible to lose one but I guess it would be more awful not to have had them

I will be getting back to the previous subject in a few days to finish it out. :)

Little Bailey

The Husband and I decided to talk to the girls about our little cat. We wanted to give them the chance to say goodbye, tell him anything they want him to know, and in general get their closure going.
Both girls were surprised, which in turn surprised me. It seemed obvious Bailey was very ill but somehow, his imminent death did not make their radar.

He was laying down under a chair and we encouraged both girls to crawl on the floor to get closer to him and express their feelings.

Teena went first. She asked him to please not die. She said, Daddy will be so sad if you die Bailey, stay with us. We'll miss you so much.

Genea went next. She said, Goodbye Bailey, and she was done. She spent the next 15 minutes drawing hearts with crying eyes. She compulsively demanded I view her efforts every other minute or so.


Thank you so so very much for the lovely comments. It's nice to know so many people understand, he is not "just a cat". I appreciate it more than you can know.

 

He has always loved to sit in containers (though not anything so undignified as an actual cat bed). We set this one by his favorite window and put some cushioning in it. He had a lifelong interest in ornithology.

 

 

Bailey died yesterday. It was excruciating. His will to live was not overpowered by the systemic shutdown of his body and he lingered. In the end, we had to do the humane thing.

 

Genea sobbed and sobbed. She had to be prodded to accept comfort from her Dad and I, but she did. She is so sad. She is also determined to make every symbolic gesture of her love for him as is possible.

 

Teena is a mess. It's hard to watch her, she has never experienced anything so hard in her little life. She has no idea what to do with her big feelings and they are coming out everywhere. It's striking, this difference. Genea's years of therapy and history of traumatic events seem to have fully prepared her to handle something so difficult. Teena, not at all.

 

We had huge bowls of ice cream and talked about our memories of Bailey. We happily coated our feelings with sugar and spoke of the funny things he would do. It's happy-sad. Enjoying the memories and missing him even more strongly because of them.

 

I have simultaneous urges to never ever have another pet, and to race off and get a kitten right now.

 

Boo Boo, our other cat, is hopelessly lost. He used to give Bailey his baths, and is wandering the house looking for his baby.

 

It's hard to realize I also feel relieved that the fight is over for him. We miss him.

 

 

Bad Blogger. Good Reason.

I went ahead and wrote the last post and then a few things came up. I didn't mean to leave anyone hanging who might be interested in the outcome.

Sadly, our little cat is sick. The Husband and I got him just after we were married a hundred years ago. He has been with us longer than both of our children combined. He is about 15 years old. At Christmas we found out he has a tumor by his liver.

 

Here he is last summer.

 

Hanging out on the patio with the Barbies. Probably pretending he is on a cruise.

 

 

A few months ago The Husband brought home this enormous AFLAC duck. Bailey thought it was for him.

 

Late Wednesday, I could tell something was really wrong. By Thursday, it seemed he was probably going to pass away. But today is Saturday and he is still hanging in there. Just barely.


(You may not want to look at the picture, it is very sad)

 

 

 

 

 He is on painkillers. While we have a few other choices, we have decided to make him comfortable at home with his family and let whatever happens, happen.

 

At any rate, I will continue the story very soon.

The Search

A few months ago, Genea came home from school and was excited to tell me something big. During computer class she had searched Google Earth and found her orphanage in Ukraine!

Whoa!

She had never hinted at any interest in the subject and it startled me. A hundred questions raced around my head. How did she find it? How does she know how to use Google Earth? (I didn't!) What was she supposed to be doing in class instead?

She said, it was free time in class and she just entered "orphanage" and "Ukraine" into the search box for Google Earth and up popped an orphanage.  It looked like they were really poor, she said. Okay then.

I explained to her what she had probably done was locate AN orphanage, not likely HER orphanage. There are hundreds of orphanages in Ukraine and what she found might be similar to hers but that was probably not the exact building she spent her first year and a half of life in.

Though the interest was new, it was something I had expected would happen of course. However, just because one thinks one is prepared does not mean one is not susceptible to tumbling down the rabbit hole where wonky emotions like to hide.

I let her know I would look through her old papers and see if I could get enough information to find some pictures online. When I got the papers out, I saw that we have much more than that.

Originally, when we were in the process of the "paperwork journey" for adoption, I received several heavy packets of documents. Some in Ukrainian, some translated to English. Some started in English and were then translated the other way. When I read all of it back then ( many times over) I saw that the first and middle names of Genea's birth mother were listed. I somehow missed that her surname was written down as well.

Whoa again.

Without thinking about it, I immediately entered the name into Facebook. There are 5 or 6 women with the same name and none of them matched up. One entry however, had only a name. No picture or other identifiers. When I clicked in that entry, it was almost blank. Just one tiny line popped out at me- the date. The person who put up the profile had  done so less than 2 weeks prior to my finding it.

To be continued.