Goodbye Ginger

It was over two decades ago during my first year of vet school that I lost my childhood cat, Blackie, and found myself going with a mentor to select two new cats to adopt from the colony that lived at his farm. It was with a heavy and reluctant heart I looked over the crowd, drawn by their dinner of cat food spread in a wide dish in the center of the barn floor. I didn't want another cat, I was still grieving the loss of Blackie, but we lived in an old country house and mice were a very real issue out there.

These are not the droids you are looking for.

From the many cats of varying ages, colours and sizes one that I picked was a small orange-and-white female who we named Ginger. I chose her because she was one of the last cats still eating at the communal food bowl after everyone else had dispersed, I figured a good appetite and persistence meant she was probably robust and healthy. I was right. Today, at just shy of 23 years of age, we said goodbye to Ginger. 

In those first years in Prince Edward Island she learned to hunt, and what a hunter she was! While we lived in the old house she kept the mouse population in check. When we later moved to Saskatchewan her hunting options were greatly reduced but that was fine by her, she was just as happy to sit in the sun. 

However, once in a while she would catch something, but instead of making a gift to us of a dead mouse or bird she would give it to Michael (the lovely but dumb-as-a-post three-legged cat). He would toss his 'prey' in the air proud as punch as she sat somewhere nearby grooming her paws and watching him smugly.

Vomit on me one more time Michael...

On one of our numerous cross-country (and inter-country) moves she even sat with Michael in the back of the car. At least until his motion sickness got the better of him and he vomited on her head., at which point Michael was banished and it was several days before he made it back into Ginger's good graces again. 

Ginger was an old soul. Never really excitable, she loved to get affection, she loved to sit in the sun and contemplate life, she loved to take a little walk about the yard and nibble some grass and most of all she loved her food....

She was heathy most of her life, except for a mild rhinitis that flared up from time to time. She developed thyroid issues in the past few years and, as is common for old cats, some mild kidney issues. Over the past months though her health had started to deteriorate with a few low points followed by a rally when we made changes to her treatment.

Boop!

We've said goodbye to many (many) pets over the years and one thing we've observed is that if you are paying attention they usually will tell you when it's time. She had significantly declined in the past week and this morning she just looked spent and was having trouble walking. True to her nature she still ate a bit for us when we brought her a fresh can of Friskies, but you could see in her eyes how tired she was. We knew that today it was time. 

We sat in the warm Caribbean sun on our back patio. She had some food and water and then just slept while I stroked her. Placing the catheter barely bothered her. When we had said our goodbyes and started to inject the barbiturate she sighed once and left us.

It's strange. 

We are sad, of course. It is the sorrow of loss. It is the empty space she has left in our household. 

But at the same time it's hard to feel too sad when we think about her life. She was happy and healthy for close to twenty-three years. She has lived in many places; from the east coast of Canada to the broad prairies, from the suburbs of Chicago to a remote town six thousand feet up in the Colorado mountains, from the freezing cold of Saskatchewan to the tropical heat of St. Kitts. She was an elegant old lady and lived a long and full life. 

So we are sad, but at the same time we are happy for a good life, well lived. 

Tonight we raise a glass to Ginger!

Farewell Dear Heart....

October has been a bit of a wipe for me.... I'll just say, up front, that I'm behind on my Desktoppers, I have not filled the sketchbook, and my other artwork has been mostly on hold.

Earlier in the month we were visiting family 1500 miles away when our old doggie (who had been very chronically 'going downhill' but doing well when we left) decided to take a sudden turn. We had to make the heartbreaking decision to let her go without seeing her - we felt it wouldn't have been fair to her to make her wait the 18 hours it would have taken to get the soonest flight home.

Emma was my husband's dog initially, she and he were buddies for many years before I came along. Over the last 8 years though we'd all melded together as a big, happy (mostly four-legged) family. Emma was a wonderful soul - a street dog from Detroit she had a survivor's soul, but at her core she was sunshine incarnate. She knew about rules and mostly followed them... unless a higher calling (such as having some fun) beckoned.


She was almost 15, and in the last year and a bit she'd been going downhill. Heart issues and kidney issues, and mostly just old age. Like old Laurich she would dip low and we'd have 'the talk' then we'd change her treatment and she'd rally and we'd know it wasn't yet time.

Despite knowing 'it was coming', we'd stalled the trip for months and finally booked it when it seemed that she was stable and might decide to live another year. Whether it was the stress of us being gone or just bad timing - whatever the reason she chose that week to take the big downturn. My greatest regret is that my husband couldn't be with her to say goodbye.



Even being veterinarians, even knowing that it was coming, it is still hard. The first thing your mind does is construct the worst-case scenario and try to dwell on it. No matter how many people I've counseled when losing their pets it took my good friend to remind me "You didn't cause this to happen. I know you know that, but you have to ACCEPT that too." Knowing and accepting are two very different things aren't they?

Emma was our last dog - this is the first time we've been dogless in 15 years. The cats are more than happy to fill the gap and get more love and attention, but every night I still feel like there's something I should be doing (carrying the skinny dog downstairs to go potty because for the last month or two she couldn't navigate the stairs on her own). When we drop a piece of toast on the floor we have to toss it out because there's no dog to 'take care of it' (I won't mention the occasional cat vomit that we can't rely on Emma to 'take care of' either :D).



The sadness fades over time. We'll get used to our new situation. And sometime, when the time is right, we'll open our hearts to another homeless doggie. Until then we'll remember Emma's many good years - when she'd play chase with Nadia, cutting through the garden because that was the one spot Nadia wouldn't go. When she'd run Laurich ragged, then dive-bomb him in great, looping circles. The look on her face when she'd see horses 'What the heck are those big dogs doing?'. The way she'd keep one eye on you while you were eating but the other on the floor, because smart dogs know when the food drops the one watching the floor will get to it first. That her nose almost never left the ground on a walk. The fact that she lived in more places than me, from the heat of Texas to the chill of Saskatchewan winters, and everything in between. And mostly the look of sheer enjoyment that graced her face most all of the time.

So here's to Emma (and Laurich, and Rosie, and Scout, and Ty, and Ellie)! Here's to all the cats and dogs that leave such holes in our hearts when they pass, but who make our life so much more fulfilling while they are here and forever afterward.