Our younger kitty, Ally, passed away at home the night of January 31. Barry found her the morning of February 1. We both looked for her the night before and didn’t find her. She had renal failure and the previous 2 weeks had seen some major changes in her eating and elimination processes, so we were not surprised.
We got her from the SPCA in the fall of 2017 as part of a team. She and her bestie met at the SPCA and we were looking for a pair of cats that loved each other. We neglected to make sure that we got cats that would tolerate us as well. Her whole life with us was one of uncertainty and worry. Catching her to take her to the vet was an act of betrayal — and very hard as she was a fast cat. Admittedly, one of the first things that the vets did was pull all of her teeth as they were resorbing into her gums in a most painful way.
She came to us with the name of Ashes. That seemed a little gloomy, so we renamed her Ashly. Eventually I realized that the “sh” sound in the middle of her name sounded like a hiss and that scared her more, so we dropped the “sh” and she became Ally. When she was happy and we approached her in the way she preferred, she would love being stroked and having her ears rubbed. Any hint of picking her up, moving her somewhere, or a slightly too hard pet and she would be gone, likely under the bed.
They were always together. Ellen is bereft. We are giving her extra attention and lots of catnip (to drown her sorrows in drugs. . . ). We will miss our scared little girl, she was a kind and gentle cat. We won’t miss the regular vomit moments, taking out keyboards and a laptop as well as many spots elsewhere. We got her ashes back last week and added them to the pet mausoleum. In the end, her ashes will probably rest with mine.
