Miss You Wiley!

Amity and Wiley - about 1997

On December 10^th my oldest cat, Wiley, died while lying on my chest in bed.  His health sure was deteriorating, but he didn’t seem to be suffering.  Old age, but he still purred while lying on my chest.  On the evening of the 9^th he jumped off the couch and his legs gave way.  He just plopped to the floor.  I picked him up and placed him in front of his food bowl, but when I set him down he just dropped like a bag of rags.  I knew it was only time before he would go.  I had scheduled to have him put to sleep on the 12^th, because I knew if he made it that long it was too long.

 

When I went to bed he was lying in the living room on the floor next to the chair I sit in.  At 3:00am I got up to go to the bathroom.  He was lying on the floor in front of the bedroom door.  He must have mustered up as much strength as he could to try and crawl into the room to be with me.  He was still alive…barely, so I picked him up and had him laid on my chest.  I was up for three hours petting and kissing him.  At about 7:15 am I could tell his body became lifeless.  He was gone.  I was sad, but had a sense of relief that he was no longer weak and frail. 

 

I didn’t cry.  I didn’t even tear up.  He had been with me for 19 years and I knew he had such a wonderful life.  All the way from Royal Oak, to the purchase of our condo in Douglas (he and his sister were named after the cross-streets in Douglas, Wiley and Amity), on to the Kirby House and then the “after Kirby House” life.  I was glad he had a couple years post-Kirby as he would be up in the apartment at Kirby all day with no human contact.  He was happy, but he would have preferred to be around Ray and me most of the day.  The last two years he has been able to be so much more a part of my daily life as I didn’t have to separate him from “the rest of the house.”

 

Yesterday was a different story.  I started thinking about him and how much I missed him!  I cried twice yesterday.  It’s been quite a while since I’ve cried but I guess I needed to get the emotions of missing him released.  Mondo and Harley seemed to sense something was wrong and came on the bed with me and put their faces up to mine as if to say “what’s wrong?” 

 

Our home is a bit quieter now.  Moscow died in July and now Wiley.  This just means that Mondo and Harley will get all that much more love attention from us!

 

I’m pretty much all ready for Christmas.  Just have a few gifts to wrap.  I have off Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and then I don’t come into work until 1:45pm on Friday!  I’m looking forward to a nice, quiet Christmas. 

 

No recipe today -Merry Christmas

-Jimmy