LILLY

My kitty Lilly died the same day that my night blooming cactus bloomed in its once a year showing.  Lilly loved flowers and would deeply stick her nose in them.   I felt the cactus honored her with its blooming.  It was during a long heat wave with temperatures unimaginable for several days.  The heat was just too much for her old body.  She had been struggling for awhile before this, especially since her stroke in the winter that left her right leg damaged.  She also lost her ability to meow and grunted like many people do when they have a stroke and lose their ability to speak.  Still, she was strong in spirit and determined to live her life.  When she tried jumping up on the table, sometimes her weak leg with give out and she would fall.  Undetermined by this, she would just try again and make it.  She didn’t want you to help her.  If you did, she would jump down from the table and try it again herself. 

On the worse day of the heat when the temperature hit 109, we lost power.  After waiting for a long while to see if the electric would come back on, we decided to leave a go to a hotel.  The room had the air conditioning blasting and it was set at 65 degrees.  Normally, I would be freezing from this, but we were so over heated that it felt good.  Lilly came to life.  She ate some food and then raced across the room, jumping up on the ottoman next to the bed and then onto the bed.  She settled right between my husband and I and even meowed.  She then fell asleep with us, something she hadn’t done since her stroke.  She was so happy. 

In the morning, she hopped up in the window to see where we were.  She was so full of life and chatting away to us in her old voice.  I hated to leave this place.  I gave her a gift of comfort and she gave us one back by being our full of life Lilly.  We went back to our house, but even though the electric was back on, it was still too hot.  We only had ceiling fans, like a lot of older houses.  I had a chance to install air conditioning, but chose not to in 2016.  We rarely ever had hot temperatures and certainly, never had temperatures of 109.  We packed up Lilly and found another hotel closer to our house.  She was happy to go but didn’t quite like this room as much as our other one.  Still, she slept with us and talked non-stop.  By the third day, we could cool the house enough to go home.  I came home from work that day and she was inside her travel kennel, sticking her head out as if to say, “Can we go now?”  The hotels were charging us an extra $100 a night to have her there.  It was quite expensive so we decided to stick it out a home.  A few days later, the heat rose during the night along with the humidity.  I woke up very early and decided to go check on Lilly.  She had collapsed in the corner near her water fountain.  I quickly woke up my husband so we could give her fluids under her skin to hydrate her.  Even after that she was still very weak.  Death is a tricky thing.  Lilly did rally after about 1 ½ hours.  She got up, licked her lips and wanted to eat.  I gave her salmon, her favorite food.  My husband was eating cereal and she wanted some of the cereal milk.  She jumped all the way up on the kitchen table.  We thought she was rallying.  But after that she wanted to go outside to go to the bathroom, and then she collapsed.  Lilly was content to have had her vacation finally with us and her two favorite foods.  I picked her up and brought her inside.  She was alive but very weak.  She didn’t look at me, just rested in my lap.  Her time had come.  Lilly had a beautiful life but she let me know she was done.  When I put her in the carrier this time I told her it was not to go on vacation but to go to her vet.  She just crawled in and closed her eyes.  This was the saddest time I have ever had with a pet.