Pets – Page 95

Psst! Hey Em! Do You Want to Know a Secret?

I think she just wants to sleep, Samwise.

The Slow Road

I always knew Scout’s death would be particularly hard for me but I didn’t expect it to be this hard. It’s been four months since she died but the road to recovery has been a slower walk than I expected. It hasn’t helped that work got unexpectedly stressful and hectic during those months, leaving me so worn out that I was often falling asleep after dinner. Rather embarrassing for a night owl like me.

They say you shouldn’t make any major changes in the wake of the loss of a loved one, and though I suppose the advice usually applies to the death of a spouse I’ve applied it here as well, for there have been a number of times the past few months I’ve felt like abandoning wildlife photography. I suppose that’s partly a reaction to the amount of time it takes to photograph the way I like and partly to the new telephotos being priced far out of my range.

It is true I haven’t been up to Ridgefield since January, partly because I haven’t felt like going, but partly because I’ve been too tired to get up at the early hours I like to visit the refuge. And I guess I did put my camera aside entirely for a few months until I started taking pictures of the pets again these past few weeks, but at least I did use my time away from Ridgefield to start expanding out the wildflower garden I started a few years ago. I’m slowly making the backyard more bird friendly, as I’ve been experimenting with shooting birds from my office window. And this fall when the birds migrate back, I’ll join them at Ridgefield.

Unfortunately I didn’t get much done on the computer since our cat Sam, who had been close to Scout and struggled too after her death, was constantly snuggled up on my lap where my computer normally resides. But coincident with the warming weather and opening of windows he has ventured further afield, so I’m making my return to blogging and hope to get caught up on email.

This picture of Scout is from January of 2007 as she sat in her heated bed in my office. Templeton was still alive then but would die at the end of the year, shortly before we adopted our cats Sam and Emma, a year before our dog Ellie. Life marches on and someday soon I’ll be able to look at pictures of Scout with all smiles and no tears, just as I can with Templeton.

I’m just not quite there yet.

Twelve

Scout would have turned twelve today.

This was my view these past twelve years as I edited nearly every image you’ve seen here, Scout in her heated bed, sitting right in front of me. Usually she’d be curled up in the bed but sometimes she’d watch me as I worked. She was a tiny little thing so if she was laying down she had to stick her head up to reach the top. It didn’t look too comfortable but it always made me laugh.

Oh Scout, you were the best, and I miss you so.

The Eyes of Ellie

We speak a different language, she and I, but her big brown eyes stare deeply into mine and ask what words cannot.

“Can I have a piece of your pizza?”

Sam & Emma

A shot from last fall of Sam and Emma.

The two are friendly but don’t often cuddle up like this, which is unfortunate since in the six weeks since Scout passed away, the ever-snuggly Sam has been on constant lookout to replace her affections. A lot of the time the two spent together they spent with me, so it’s not so much that he’s spending more time with me but rather that he wants to be up close rather than out on my legs, a favorite Sam spot since he was a wee kitten.

I don’t know if we’ll ever adopt another kitten in the hopes that the two will become close friends, just as he and Scout did five years ago, but in the meantime we’ve tried some commercially available Scout substitutes, such as

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Scout
Skout
Kiss Me I’m Scouttish

but so far none have worked.

For such a tiny little cat, she left a big hole to fill.

A Slow Recovery

Hard as it is for me to believe, it’s been almost five weeks since Scout passed away. Her loss has been particularly hard on little Sam but he’s been making a slow recovery and is now nearly back to normal, or perhaps has reached the new normal. Sam loves snuggling on my legs (shown here a few years ago), to the point that if life were a cartoon I’d have permanent Sam-shaped divots on my legs. But after Scout died he’d only sit in my lap tucked up tight against my chest, as though he was huddling against the cold. After a couple of weeks he relaxed a bit and while still in my lap moved a few inches away, and then a few inches more, but he still stays so close that I can’t really work on my laptop.

I don’t know if he’ll return to sleeping on my legs or if I’ll have to adapt to his new position on my lap. Sometimes he’ll walk down to where he used to sleep but he’ll turn around and come back, so perhaps it’s just going to take a bit more time. He did go all the way down to my feet the other day, but not unaided. Our dog Ellie was snuggling up next to me as well and suddenly sat up and began licking him in the face. He put up with the indignity for a little while but when it was clear she wasn’t going to stop, he moved down to my feet until the coast was clear when she fell back asleep, and then he came back.

His purr has finally returned. It didn’t completely disappear after Scout died, but it got very quiet and hard to come by and didn’t last long. Just in the past few days he’s purred loud and long when we climb into bed at night, so he is definitely recovering.

So too am I.

Scout was my near and constant companion so when I’m at home even now her absence is clearly felt. After getting past that initial wall of grief in the days after she died, a shadow of sadness lurks and at unpredictable times I feel her loss most acutely. But that is at it should be, she was one of the best parts of my life.

With Sam snuggling too close for me to do much typing on my laptop, I’ve been catching up on a lot of old classic movies and British mysteries, usually with Sam on my lap, Ellie tucked up beside me on my right, with our other cat Emma a few feet to my left in her heated bed. Scout’s heated bed lies empty, and that in and of itself is surprising. Sam loved sleeping in her bed and I assumed after she died he’d take it over as his. But right after she died he’d only occasionally get in, then for a few weeks actively avoided it. Now he’s back to occasionally sleeping in it, but mostly it lies empty.

He has been sleeping in Ellie’s beds quite a bit, but that’s not unusual, he’s always done that. Emma has started doing it too, and I had to laugh the other day when both of Ellie’s beds near my office were full of cats and Ellie was scrunched up over on the floor beside them.

What a blessing they are, these little ones.

Treasures

We weren’t sure how Templeton would react to having another cat in the house when we brought Scout home in May of 2001, but thankfully he accepted her quickly. She idolized him and snuggled with him every chance she got, and he’d often lick her head and sometimes give her an entire bath. The two friends have been reunited again. As we did with Templeton, we had Scout cremated and my wife picked up her remains on Saturday. Scout’s ashes now join Templeton’s up on the mantle.

I took this picture of Templeton and Scout snuggling in the window seat of our old house in November of 2001. Nearly everything in the picture has changed since then. Both Templeton and Scout have since passed away. We moved half a year after the picture was taken and I no longer have that wonderful window seat where the cats and I so often snuggled. The pad that lined the seat, just visible in the lower left corner, was made by my mother-in-law who passed away a few years ago.

The blanket though, made by my wife for me years ago, remains. Time has taken its toll and there are tears in the fabric, but it remains the blanket I use every day in my office. It links all the pets together, as all past and present spent many hours sleeping and snuggling on it. I took it into the bedroom when Scout and I stayed there at the end of her life, she spent her last day on it as she slept on my chest.

There are more valuable blankets, but none more treasured.

Reaching for the Light

A picture of Sam from the fall of 2009 that I just got around to editing. My office received a makeover last year and a requirement of the new layout was that I still have a place for the three heated cat beds, as the pets frequently hang out in my office. I ended up putting a couch where his bed was in this picture and a low table beside the couch for the heated beds. He is sleeping in one of the beds now, but it is the one that Scout considered to be her own rather than this one. He and Emma both preferred Scout’s over the other two, and if they were in it when she wanted it, she’d come to me and ask me to evict them.

All three beds are from the same company but were bought at different times and are each slightly different. Scout’s bed is an older design that we bought when Templeton was still alive, I think its the best design of the three and the cats apparently agree. We’ve searched in vain to find a couple more but have only been able to find the newer models. Now that Scout has passed away, as long as Sam and Emma each seem happy in the other two beds, I’ll remove this little one even though it made for more interesting pictures, as because of its smaller size they were more likely to have their legs and feet sticking out of it.

Ending As It Began

This picture is from the first batch I took of Scout after we brought her home as a kitten in May of 2001. I don’t think I’ve put it online before, I suppose because she looks upset, but as I was looking at it I was struck by how her life with us began and ended in a similar fashion. We kept her isolated from Templeton when we first brought her home but she hated being on her own and was only comforted if one of us went in with her. I’d lie at times on the hard linoleum floor and let her sleep under my chin.

Not unlike her last day when she was isolated from the others to avoid any stress as her life ebbed away, and she was only comforted when I went in with her and let her sleep on my chest. I learned from those early days with her and this time isolated her in our bedroom where I could lie down in comfort.

I can’t look at the picture without thinking of the day we brought her home, so full of hope, and of how far this little one exceeded those hopes. What a blessing she was!

Respect for the Queen

Part of my morning ritual after I made my breakfast was to give the pets a little something to eat. Sam and Emma got a bit of wet food, Scout got some freeze-dried salmon or chicken, and Ellie got a bone-shaped treat. They got fed in that order so that peace would prevail, Sam and Emma first so that Scout could eat without Sam stealing her food, with Ellie waiting patiently on the far side of the room for her treat after the cats had been fed.

Occasionally Scout wouldn’t eat a few small morsels of her food, perhaps there was something in the taste or texture she didn’t care for, so I’d motion for Ellie to come over and clean up. Ellie is zealous about food and normally would have bounded over at full speed, but to avoid spooking Scout she would slink in slowly and quietly and then lick up the remaining tidbits.

Sometimes I’d hope Scout would leave a little bit just so I could see Ellie sneak over, it always made me smile to see her approach so respectfully, she’s never done it with any of the other pets (or us). I don’t know why Ellie decided that Scout was worthy of such respect, but it was always touching to see.