We came home from our Christmas vacation to find my beloved Cheetara had died. She was a purebred and I feared she had kidney problems for a long time, but the vet said she was OK. I never felt great about that, but we weren’t in the position to deal with kitty dialysis, so I tried to hope for the best. She just ran out of best.

We got Cheetara and her sister Jem when we were in New Hampshire. I was sick and lonely and she became my best companion.

Absorbing my baby love during those long years of infertility,

Nursing me through those long years of illness

Keeping me company in the garden

And always being generous with her fuzzy, cuddly self.

She was the most affectionate cat I’ve ever seen

And gave me more than I could ever return to her.

I will miss her terribly.

Have you ever seen anything so ridiculous? Poor Cheetara. If you’re grossed out by facts of nature, you may want to stop reading here.

Over the last couple of heat cycles, Cheetara has started having, well, a period. It’s very common for in tact animals to emit drops of blood during estrus, but neither of our girls ever did until just now. We’re taking it as a sign that her breeding years are behind her and it’s time to get her fixed, but with the move and neverending heat cycles, we haven’t had a chance to do it yet.

Which means that I have a teenager having her period wandering unprotected through my house. And that is just not OK in my book. I know it’s just biology and this is how the miracle of life happens and all that, but seriously, ew.

Luckily she and Atti wear the same size.

We’ve had more sadness around here for our kitties. Lobo’s been gone for just over a month, and we were really hoping that he’d managed to get one or both of the girls pregnant before we lost him.

I discovered he was successful by looking down at Cheetara in the middle of Atti’s therapy and seeing a paw and a tail on it’s way out. I started trying to get Cheetara comfortable but she wouldn’t stay still. Every other cat I’ve ever heard of goes off somewhere privately to have their litter, but Cheetara refused to be anywhere without me, even wandering around the house with the baby mid-delivery. I think she must have known something was wrong and wanted my comfort.

Seeing the paw and tail was a bad sign. The baby was breach, so it didn’t make it, and it was the only member of the litter. We called the baby Snarf (children of the 80′s will get that one), let her take a few deep sniffs of the little body, and when her animal instinct to eat it kicked in, we took the little guy away for a proper disposal.

In the week since then, Cheetara has never left my side. She’ll climb into my lap when I’m on the sewing machine, she’ll sit at my feet when I’m on the toilet, and at night she wants to sleep so close to me I wouldn’t be surprised to wake up with fur in my mouth. Jem has suddenly started showing a lot more tenderness towards her, nuzzling up together like they haven’t since they were kittens. I know that I shouldn’t ascribe human emotions to an animal, but if I didn’t know better I’d swear she was grieving her losses.

My sweet little boy cat Lobo died today. We have no idea what happened. About two weeks ago he started losing weight but we thought that was just in hair that came off in the bath. Then he stopped eating, he grew lethargic, and last night he started having spasms and didn’t have the strength to hold up his head. It just came out of nowhere.

Lobo came to us as a kitten the month before I had Atticus. The whole time Atti was in the hospital, Lobo would let me cradle him and pretend I was holding my baby. As soon as he heard that breast pump start whooshing, little Lobi would come running to sit in my lap and be my surrogate baby boy.

As soon as Atti did come home, Lobo immediately adopted him. He played the role of big brother and best buddy, always keeping Atti company during tummy time, sniffing out any therapist that came to the house, and letting Atti endlessly pull out his whiskers and fur.

I’m one of those crazy cat people who believe that our pets have a spiritual mission of their own. They come to us to be little fuzzy helpers, to teach us lessons, to support us and give us comfort during the hardships of life.

Lobo was here to help Atti. He helped me get through that awful hospital stay, and since then he has been right by his boy every minute, even sleeping on the changing table while Atti slept in his crib. He would perch himself just out of reach, being the motivation for Atti to make his little body move. The therapists started calling him The Therapy Cat.

We’ve tried to have Atti play with some other kids his age, but it doesn’t really work. He can’t run or even sit up, he can’t defend himself while everyone is learning to share, the other kid gets bored because Atti can’t really interact, it’s just not working out yet. But Atti always had a playmate in Lobo.

I’m just wrecked over this. I know he was a cat, not a person, and this kind of thing happens, but it’s just such a loss in our family. We’re going to miss this little guy so very much. But he was just the best cat while we had him.