Mrs. Norris died yesterday...

Graphic Post Do NOT read if you are squeamish...



Pooks has some very nice pictures ofMrs. Norris on her blog. Mrs. Norris passed away Saturday night.























This is probably the worst Saturday I've had in a while, both good things and bad. Pooks took off in the morning to go to a bridal shower. While she was gone I began cleaning up around the house. We still have tons of stuff in boxes and things not in the right places. I began by completely clearing out one room moving several heavy pieces of furniture around and trying to stage everything so the stuff from the third room could be moved across the house and into the first room. It was a lot of work and even with a short break for TV watching (http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif). So the house was a complete mess when a lady came by to adopt Babykins. She is a short-tailed tiger cat and daughter to Mrs. Norris. The lady, Amy, came by with her daughter and a Vet tech to check her out. Babykins objected greatly to being picked up and so while curious about the visitors didn't let us grab her to put into the cat carrier. So they took off for lunch and pooks came home. We got Babykins crated and gave her over to her new owners. Amy's daughter looked very happy about getting a new kitten.

Pooks was upset about it, and I felt bad that we had to give her away. It was a good thing though b/c the older cats kept beating her up for being the littlest. So we did some more cleaning and laid down for a while. We settled down to watch tv and play wow. While watching tv we heard one of the cats coughing, something you hear often with 6 cats and didn't think much of it. Pooks went to go check on which-ever kittie it was that had been coughing. She immediately called for me and began crying, Mrs. Norris had fallen over and obviously was in distress. She was limp when I picked her, I began to try a Heimlich maneuver on her, thinking something was blocking her airway. I was holding her head down in my arms trying to force whatever out of her throat. She began convulsing in my arms twisting and writhing and pooping. It sounded like air was coming out of her body and I kept trying to force whatever out of her. Pooks ran and got her keys and purse and I Mrs. Norris and ran to get my wallet and we got into the car hoping to get to the emergency vet. Pooks was completely broken up and trying to drive us. I was cradling Mrs. Norris in my arms when I realized that I couldn't feel her heartbeat. I held her tightly and only felt the blood of my own arms pushing against her. It was horrible. I told Pooks that she was dead. She cried and cried. We hadn't made it more than three blocks when it happened.

I had her pull over, concerned for her trying to drive and at the same time wanting to be double sure. I listened for anything coming from her limp frame. She was quiet and didn't move or react to anything I did. Her toungue was hanging out of her mouth, and had turned blue. I was surprised and how she didn't move or even try to react to me moving her around. I expected the normal cat movements and resistance to anyone trying to get them to do anything, but she did nothing. Pooks cried and cried. Blood and drool were coming out of her mouth. We drove home. We went into the backyard and Pooks got a sheet to hold her in. I began to dig a grave for her. Roots and weeds blocked me from going deeply. My back began to tense up and strain at the extra work. I had already put it through it's paces earlier to day moving furniture and boxes. I pushed through and dug the grave. Pooks was sitting holding Mrs. Norris crying. She gave me her to put in. I placed her in the grave curled up in a ball like she did when she was sleeping. She looked peaceful and content. Both of us crying we began to cover up the grave. Pooks put the dirt back on and I pulled out a large block to cover the body up. I placed another one to be a headstone and Pooks finished pulling the dirt over the grave. We hugged cried and said a prayer thanking God for a wonderful cat.

We went back inside, Mrs. Norris had apparently coughed up a large ball of hair and food. I think that somehow it or a part of it had gotten stuck in her throat. We cleaned up the mess and then snuggled up on the couch. I comforted Pooks while she grieved. This was a double whammy b/c Mrs. Norris was the mother of Babykins. I did my best to give Pooks a chance to grieve and be sad while being comforted. I reassured her that it wasn't her fault and the there was not much we could have done. It wasn't more than five minutes between when we first heard the coughing and when we found her. Hollow words though, it is hard to comfort anyone after the loss of a loved one, I did my best to be there for her though. It was about 10pm now. I couldn't believe how early it was then. It felt like forever had been happening all day long.

We moved around with useless energy and settled in my office. Pooks slept on the bean-bag chair while I played WoW. She got up around midnight and She began posting some pictures of Mrs. Norris. We went to bed around 1am and night was strung with bad dreams of nameless things storming my subconscious.

We also had the windows open b/c it was a nice day but it turned cold over night. So we got woken up a couple of times by the dogs barking first at something in the garbage cans then at each other. We're watching Pooks' moms dog. It joined in the commotion. I got up at 5:30 made coffee and went right back to bed.

Woke up early and went to the 7am sunrise service for Easter Sunday. "Welcome Happy Morning" is one of my favorite hymns. It was hard with getting so little good sleep but at the same time I didn't want to sleep anymore b/c it had already been so unsettling. We walked up to Dave's Diner for breakfast with Mom & Dad. We came back home and planted flowers on Mrs. Norris grave.

Today I plan to do taxes (we owe) and maybe finish a little bit of cleaning. There so much stuff to do that it's distressing and after Saturday, hard to get into.