Dear fellow travelers,
This past month of our lives has been dominated by two things, one sad and sudden, one mostly happy.
Last Thursday, March 9th, Hanna and I said goodbye to our nine-year-old kitty Geraldine who had been diagnosed with an inoperable, cancerous tumor at the back of her throat. She passed away the same day my mother arrived to help us move to our new home in Roslindale. I am writing this newsletter from our new living room while Teazle explores all the new spaces and Mom and Hanna sit on the couch. Gerry is a very present absence in our lives and we are still grief-stricken at the sudden loss.
Geraldine joined our household in October 2010 from the local foster organization Black Cat Rescue. She had been found in a cardboard box on the street with a litter of three kittens, whom she cared for at their foster home until the kittens were old enough to be adopted. Then she came home with us.
She lived with us almost seven years, and filled our home with her very vocal, crotchety, loving personality. She loved open windows, sunshine, deep-fried mushrooms, the electric space heater, and to be involved in whatever her two humans were doing. Teazle, her younger sister -- adopted in June 2012 -- was a wrestling playmate and the one who taught her about the magic of human laps. Gerry always knew when Hanna, particularly, was having a rough day and would herd her to bed and cuddle with her until Hanna began to feel better.
In the final months of her life, she spent most of her time either in front of the space heater or curled up as close to us as she could get. It was hard for her kitty mommies to listen to her increasingly-labored breathing as we tried to figure out what was causing the difficulty, but she continued to play with Teazle and be a cuddlebug right to the end.
The final evening we spent with her, she continued to snuggle with us and treated us to some increasingly-rare purring. When I took her to the vet on Thursday morning she was alert and curious, and let me hold her in the waiting room before the nurse came to do her intake paperwork for the CT scan that revealed the tumor. When the surgeon called us mid-morning with the results of the scan, Hanna and I both agreed with him that risking a respiratory crisis to bring her out of the anesthesia for life-extending (but not life-enhancing) care was not what Gerry needed. We were able to drive to the Angell Animal Medical Center to be with her in a private family room while the vet administered the euthanasia. We miss her, but are glad she was able to die peacefully.
Teazle has been a stressed little kitty the past week, although it is impossible to untangle what is moving stress and what is the absence of Gerry. Once she forgave us for the indignities of being shut in a closet while the movers emptied the old apartment, and transport to the new apartment, she has been exploring non-stop until she falls asleep exhausted at the end of the day -- usually on the bed, preferably with us in the bed.
This morning she found a magical puddle of sunshine.
This move felt much harder than our last, from Allston to Jamaica Plain, in 2014. Partly because it was a forced move (as our landlord is selling), partly because the timing meant it happened right as Gerry was dying, and partly because we're just too old for this shit. We are hopeful that this is a place where we three can thrive for years to come, perhaps with the addition of a little sister-kitten for Teazle later this year.
The ten-cent tour of our new place can be taken here. I promise more photos and stories next month.
In friendship,
Anna
This past month of our lives has been dominated by two things, one sad and sudden, one mostly happy.
Last Thursday, March 9th, Hanna and I said goodbye to our nine-year-old kitty Geraldine who had been diagnosed with an inoperable, cancerous tumor at the back of her throat. She passed away the same day my mother arrived to help us move to our new home in Roslindale. I am writing this newsletter from our new living room while Teazle explores all the new spaces and Mom and Hanna sit on the couch. Gerry is a very present absence in our lives and we are still grief-stricken at the sudden loss.
Geraldine joined our household in October 2010 from the local foster organization Black Cat Rescue. She had been found in a cardboard box on the street with a litter of three kittens, whom she cared for at their foster home until the kittens were old enough to be adopted. Then she came home with us. She lived with us almost seven years, and filled our home with her very vocal, crotchety, loving personality. She loved open windows, sunshine, deep-fried mushrooms, the electric space heater, and to be involved in whatever her two humans were doing. Teazle, her younger sister -- adopted in June 2012 -- was a wrestling playmate and the one who taught her about the magic of human laps. Gerry always knew when Hanna, particularly, was having a rough day and would herd her to bed and cuddle with her until Hanna began to feel better.In the final months of her life, she spent most of her time either in front of the space heater or curled up as close to us as she could get. It was hard for her kitty mommies to listen to her increasingly-labored breathing as we tried to figure out what was causing the difficulty, but she continued to play with Teazle and be a cuddlebug right to the end.The final evening we spent with her, she continued to snuggle with us and treated us to some increasingly-rare purring. When I took her to the vet on Thursday morning she was alert and curious, and let me hold her in the waiting room before the nurse came to do her intake paperwork for the CT scan that revealed the tumor. When the surgeon called us mid-morning with the results of the scan, Hanna and I both agreed with him that risking a respiratory crisis to bring her out of the anesthesia for life-extending (but not life-enhancing) care was not what Gerry needed. We were able to drive to the Angell Animal Medical Center to be with her in a private family room while the vet administered the euthanasia. We miss her, but are glad she was able to die peacefully.
Teazle has been a stressed little kitty the past week, although it is impossible to untangle what is moving stress and what is the absence of Gerry. Once she forgave us for the indignities of being shut in a closet while the movers emptied the old apartment, and transport to the new apartment, she has been exploring non-stop until she falls asleep exhausted at the end of the day -- usually on the bed, preferably with us in the bed.This morning she found a magical puddle of sunshine.This move felt much harder than our last, from Allston to Jamaica Plain, in 2014. Partly because it was a forced move (as our landlord is selling), partly because the timing meant it happened right as Gerry was dying, and partly because we're just too old for this shit. We are hopeful that this is a place where we three can thrive for years to come, perhaps with the addition of a little sister-kitten for Teazle later this year.The ten-cent tour of our new place can be taken here. I promise more photos and stories next month.
In friendship,
Anna