Her name was Luna. She was a little over ten years old. She passed before her brothers, Blackavar and Thor, both of whom are sixteen. We have a strong history of longevity amongst our animals, so this was a surprise.
I mentioned in a previous post that Luna was ill, and had visited the vet. They believed it was an anal abscess and gave her a shot of antibiotics. She seemed to be doing better for awhile, but eventually regressed. She was brought into the vet again, and it was determined that she was suffering from pretty advanced liver failure. We decided that the kindest option was to put her down.
We had adopted her, along with Thor, just before I was accepted into Canada World Youth. Initially, we wanted a cat to keep Blackavar company, since Penny, his previous companion, had passed.
To my understanding, Luna had been abandoned. After that, Thor's then-owners decided to adopt her to keep him company since they had just had a child and couldn't give him the attention he needed. But Thor and Luna didn't get along (at first) so they decided they needed to get rid of Thor, and Luna just became an additional challenge.
Luna was funny-looking. Most cats are elegant and appearance-focused. It's rare that you see an ugly cat. But Luna had a small head, with a nose and ears that seemed too large for her face. She had wide hips, dainty paws, and a little stick tail.
She was the funny-looking little screw-up cat that nobody wanted.
But I loved her.
She's the only cat I've ever known to figure out the laser pointer. She did like to chase the dot, but she would bring the pointer to someone so they could use it for her.
She made best friends with the pet rabbit. She would often groom him and sometimes they would wrestle.We often worried that she might take things too far, but Moss the rabbit would always give as much as he got and would always initiate play whenever she was around. Both of them loved broccoli and whenever we gave her some, she would carry it over to Moss and they would share it.
She was clumsy, and sometimes she would back off of surfaces and fall on her butt.
She always wanted to know what the humans were eating. Sometimes, you would know that she wouldn't like what you were having, and you would try and talk her out of it, but she would beg until you at least let her smelled it. If you were having anything with mustard, she would theatrically gag, and I remember her at least once running away terrified by a banana.
She was a grey tabby on the surface, but she had tawny brown roots, so she would frequently have little brown tufts on her coat. When she was curious, her tail would curl into a question mark, and when she was surprised, it would point out like an exclamation mark.
She would groom my beard like it was fur. Despite being the most likely to groom people, she had a harsher tongue than Thor or Blackavar. And she really liked to lick peoples' eye lids.
She didn't like to sit in someone's lap or be carried, but she loved it if she was in a bin, so we had some kind of bin that she would sit in, which she would go into to indicate that she wanted to lay on your lap or be carried.
Whenever she took catnip, she would get real feisty with the boys. Blackavar would get paranoid and Thor would become chill, but Luna was there to disturb everyone else's buzz.
Even without catnip, she would sometimes initiate play-fighting by falling on her back and batting upward at her opponents.
She was the one who inspired my "stupid cat voice" which is mostly a high-pitched baby-voice that manifests around cute cats.
Despite having developed a dynamic with her, it's just a matter of time that between my education and career goals, I was less available around the Guelph location. So she really developed a dynamic with Mom.
Whenever Mom would nap, Luna would cuddle with her. When Mom was on the computer, Luna was always in the "Co-Pilot Chair" next to her. The two really developed a dynamic.
In fact, even during the time when she wasn't feeling so good, I remember her crawling up to the couch Mom was napping on and just staring at her, not able to climb up. I picked her up, which she was receptive to, and just cuddled with Mom. Even during her last days, she was still purring and receptive to physical affection.
Goodbye my darling, my sweet pea, my little one. I will miss you more than you could ever realize
Here's a picture of her with Mom. I can't dig any deeper at the moment, or I will cry again. This is a cold Christmas season for me. I don't want to ruin anyone's holiday cheer, so maybe I will put off a post on coping until after the New Year. I wouldn't count on too many new posts from me in 2019. Maybe I will do a Christmas update, but otherwise, I just feel too consumed with the loss of our beloved Luna
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