"Alone, even doing nothing, you do not waste your time. You do, almost always, in company. No encounter with yourself can be altogether sterile: Something necessarily emerges, even if only the hope of some day meeting yourself again." (E.M. Cioran)

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

RIP Ziggy (1996 to 2010)


Today is a very sad day. Ziggy, my partner's beloved cat, was put to sleep. After 'the injection', we both had to try to calm ourselves, so sat in the park across the road and just wept. In a mere five weeks, she had transformed from beautiful, healthy, happy and playful to a shadow of herself - almost bald and unable to walk without difficulty - suffering something mysterious (and progressively painful) that we had tried to get to the bottom of as soon as we noticed a few patches of fur missing. Three vets were not able to diagnose anything - instead assuming an allergy or infection due to fleas, which they treated her for, despite the fact that she is routinely treated for fleas. Yesterday, we left her with the vet so that an apparently "more senior and experienced" vet could look at her later on in the day. After his examination, he phoned in the news - an aggressive cancer in her pancreas and liver. So we prepared ourselves last night and made the gloomy trip back to the vet today. She screamed so bad when they were lifting her and giving her a sedative, but she purred gently as we stroked her head carefully and spoke our 'kitty-speak' goodbyes to her.
This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago when she was still able to enjoy my partner's backyard. She appeared to enjoy sitting under my sun umbrella.

2 comments:

Lust and Confused said...

Sorry for your loss... we have cats and a dog ourselves, and it's so easy to get used to their presence. They become fixtures that you don't even realise are not going to be there forever. I can't begin to imagine the day we end up losing one of them, and how that will feel. But I hope it is still a long while off.

- Arthur

Julie said...

Thank you very much for your kind words, Arthur. You understand completely. I don't have children and don't even live with my partner, but we considered Ziggy to be 'family'. Since her departure, we are seeing her everywhere. She is (and will remain) ALWAYS WITH US!
Thanks again!