For the third year in a row, I lost another cat. The last two years, I've lost cats around April 28th. After May turned into June, I thought I would escape a loss this year, but I was wrong. On August 31st, I lost my bed buddy Princess. Princess was the last of three kittens born to a neighbor's cat next door named Dottie. She was a few days shy of 14 years old. I want to put down what I remember what I can about her now so I can read this again occasionally as the years go by to remind myself of what she was like.
Princess was the last surviving of three kittens born 14 years ago by Dottie, a neighbor's cat. Unfortunately, the neighbors ignored the kittens, so I took pity on them. I already told this part of her story in her brother's memorial so I won't repeat it here.
Princess favorite toys were anything stringy, like shoe strings or even USB cables. Back in the inkjet days, she was printer attack cat.
She had a bit of a temper, especially at meal time. She would get cranky with her brother, and he'd just take it. When Daryl died last year, she tried her temper on Lucy, my remaining cat, but not nearly as often as she did on her brother.
I kept hearing how cats like boxes, so one day I found a basket left at the recycling center. I took it home in hopes of them would adopt it. As it turns out, only Princess took an interest in it and even then only occasionally.
Anytime I laid down on the bed, even just to read, Princess would be there too within a few minutes. In the morning, she'd hear me moving around. Sometimes she'd wait for me to notice her, then she'd jump up on the bed. Other times, she'd just skip the wait and jump up. At night, she would stick around until I turned the light off. If I didn't pay enough attention, according to her, she'd give me head bumps until she got her fill.
She liked to sit on things I laid down on my furniture or dropped on the floor. Like these shopping bags I put on the chair back in January I was planning on putting in the car. She found another purpose for them:
Three years ago Princess began losing weight. Tests showed abnormal. Over the past three years, she dropped from 14 pounds to 10, to 8, to 7, to 6, then to 5lbs.
Tests ran just a few weeks ago showed her liver reading was slightly high, but within normal range, and all other readings were normal. But ultrasound a few days later showed hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver disease. She wasn't eating enough, and her body was consuming itself, and clogging the liver with fat. By this time, she was already too weak from the weight loss to run a feeding tube into her stomach. The vet was skeptical she would live much longer.
I decided to syringe feed her myself. You only get one life, and I wanted to save hers if possible. I bought the highest calorie cat food I could find, added water to it until soupy, and fed her by syringe. She didn't like being fed this way, and I didn't want to do it either, but it was her only chance.
But my efforts were for nothing. She was rapidly losing more weight, despite all the feedings I was giving her per day. When I came home on August 31st, she could barely move, and it was clear she wasn't going to get better.
I buried her next to her brother, and with a shoe string, her favorite toy. She was the last of three kittens, and I find that incredibly sad. I does make me feel a bit better to know she and her brothers had a much better life than she likely would have had if I had done nothing.
When I come home now, Princess won't be in the window. When I lay in bed, she won't be coming. When I wake up in the morning, she won't be there to greet me. I definitely miss her.
I didn't take as many photos and videos of Princess as I should have, but I what I do have I'll cherish forever.
