Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
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.
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
but so far none have worked.
For such a tiny little cat, she left a big hole to fill.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Another picture of Scout at five months old in 2001. Even as a kitten Scout often wanted to nap near me, which in general I found adorable, but when I was working at the computer she would sit directly on my right hand and try to sleep, meaning I couldn’t so much as move my hand without waking her. We hadn’t yet discovered the wonder of heated cat beds, but I came up with a compromise that she accepted: I kept a pillow beside my keyboard that she could sleep on.
Templeton started using it as well, but once the cats got hooked on the heated beds, there was no more need for the pillow. I did keep the beds right beside me though, right up through today, and part of remodeling my office meant making sure there was space for three heated beds near my desk and couch.
Scout at 5 months old in 2001, she had been with us for a few months at this point. She sat and slept in very tidy positions, a big change compared to our other cat Templeton.
These are some of the last pictures I took of Scout, taken around noon on the day she died. At this point she had already regressed quite a bit from the energetic cat I brought home after her blood transfusion, but we were still a couple of hours away from getting the news that she most likely had cancer of the spleen and would not recover. At times she seemed fine, just quiet, but I knew her so well that even then I knew she was slowly fading. Other times, as in the second picture, she even looked miserable and was only comforted when I set her on top of me.
For the rest of the afternoon, I put my camera and laptop away and just lay on my back and let her sleep on my chest, listening to her breathing and purring to try to determine when it was time to say goodbye. Whenever I got up to go the bathroom or check on the other pets, I lost my composure and broke down in tears. But when I was back in the room with her, a complete calm came over me, which kept my breathing nice and gentle as she relaxed on my chest, rising and falling with each breath I took.
If I could have been guaranteed she would die peacefully, I would have kept her there to the end. But I was afraid she’d die a painful death, or worse that she would suffer a painful seizure or organ failure and still be alive and in pain. I wanted the pain to be mine, not hers, and wanted her to be euthanized.
The only question was when.
When the specialist vet called with the news that Scout likely wouldn’t recover, she said that she shouldn’t have lost that much energy that quickly after her transfusion if it had been any of the treatable causes of anemia. Scout was still eating which she thought was a good sign, she thought she’d stop as she got weaker and agreed that would be a good sign it was time to euthanize her.
But Scout, bless her heart, kept eating right up until the end. She couldn’t eat much at once, I suppose the effort must have tired her, so I kept the bowl beside me and fed her a piece at a time as she relaxed on me. She wasn’t as eager to drink which worried me more, but then I remembered that throughout her life she had tried to drink out of my water glass even when there was water in her bowl, so I brought up a full glass and she drank from that.
I thought Scout would let me know it was time by finding a place to hide, much like she had when she first fell ill, and like our cat Templeton did when it was his time. Since we were isolated in the bedroom I thought she’d hide under the bed, or at least under the covers, but as the afternoon wore on I realized she wanted to stay with me until the end. If I had to get up she went to the spot she had chosen as her spot, the place where I lay my head when I sleep every night.
So close was our bond.
Late in the afternoon when she snuggled up to my face and began purring, she was so close I couldn’t see anything but her face, hear nothing but her purrs, and wanted that moment to last forever. But I could see how pale her nose was getting, a sign the oxygen levels in her blood were dropping low. My wife soon called when she got off work and we agreed to meet at our local vet which was not only close by but also where we were most comfortable and knew the staff, and they knew Scout.
It was time.
It broke my heart to break up that moment, Scout purring so happily in my face, as I knew it would be our last happy moment together. But I didn’t want to risk waiting too long, so I gently eased her off my chest and set her on the bed. Her cat carrier was stashed just outside the bedroom and in the time it took me to take a few steps to the door and turn around again, she had eaten a few bites and was back in her spot at my pillow.
She looked so miserable, I knew it was time.
When she didn’t fight me going in the carrier, I knew it then too. After the short ride to the vet, she perked up a bit at first when we were in the private room, but she stayed quiet, and soon just tried to bury her head in my chest. Our vet came in and gave her a shot with both a painkiller and sedative and Scout soon fell asleep awkwardly on my lap. I couldn’t see her face but we knew she was asleep because she was snoring. Scout was a quiet and small cat, and when she snored sometimes as she slept, her snore was quiet and small too. It always brought a smile to my face, and there she was, about to die, making me smile through my tears.
The vet took her away to insert a catheter, saying it usually took about five minutes, but it took a little longer with Scout because her blood pressure was so low from her anemia. I didn’t have any doubts that we were doing the right thing, but I was thankful we hadn’t waited any longer.
She brought Scout back in sound asleep and curled up in a padded wicker basket, a lovely gesture as I could set her in my lap and still have her look as peaceful as if she had been curled up in her beloved heated bed. The vet gave her two quick injections through the catheter and almost immediately Scout breathed her last.
They were willing to let us stay as long as we wanted, and I would have thought I’d want to stay for a little while. But when I saw her stop breathing, I just stroked her lovely soft fur a few times — she kept herself groomed right up to the end — and I was ready for them to take her. Scout had prepared me to say goodbye all day long and now that she was gone, I let her go.
It was time.
About twelve years ago, a feral cat had a litter of kittens underneath the house of a friend of ours. The mother disappeared not long after so our friend hand-raised the kittens. When they were old enough to be adopted out, we were offered an adorable little black-and-white kitten.
We named her Scout.
As we left their house my wife drove while I sat in the back seat beside Scout in her cat carrier, but she kept mewing and mewing so I let her out into my lap. She promptly started climbing up my shirt and I discovered that being little doesn’t mean kitten claws aren’t sharp. When we got home, at first we kept her in a bathroom so she and our cat Templeton could gradually get to know one another. Scout hated being isolated in there, so to comfort her I’d lay on the hard floor and she’d curl up under my chin and fall asleep.
Even after being released into the house at large, she’d curl up under my chin at night. She soon grew too large to sleep around my neck and moved to my chest, where she’s slept every night for the last twelve years, usually with her face pointing towards my legs and her tail wrapped around my face.
A special bond formed between us that lasted throughout her life.
Earlier this week she didn’t come up to sleep on me, and when it happened the second night in a row, I knew something was wrong. She kept trying to hide places, like she was looking for a place to die, so we took her into our local vet who started a bunch of tests and determined she had a severe case of anemia, but didn’t know why.
To try and find the cause, she was transferred to another vet with round-the-clock care and more equipment for testing. Most of the early tests were encouraging in that she looked healthy apart from the anemia, but discouraging in that they couldn’t find the cause. The oxygen levels in her blood crashed to dangerous levels so she was given an emergency blood transfusion and thankfully it was successful and she recovered nicely. So nicely in fact that after they did a test for cancer in the spleen she was allowed to come home and spend the night with us. We were to give her medicines for the treatable causes of anemia since we still didn’t know the cause, while we waited on the results from her spleen test.
We got her home early yesterday evening and set her up in our bedroom, where she and I spent the next day together. At first she was back to her old self courtesy of the transfusion, which was remarkable to me since she had nearly died that morning. She snuggled up with me throughout the evening and then took her normal place on my chest throughout the night.
By morning the effects of the transfusion seemed to be wearing off and she tired more easily so I decided to give her some quiet time so she could sleep. But she wouldn’t sleep unless I lay there with her, so I climbed into bed and she curled up on my chest and we napped for a couple of hours. I got more and more worried as the day went along, as she seemed to get weaker and weaker.
In mid-afternoon the vet called with test results: she almost certainly had cancer of the spleen. They would need a second opinion from another specialist to be absolutely certain, which was going to take a couple of days, but it explained why Scout had been fading so quickly after the transfusion and why she wasn’t responding to any of the medicines she was taking.
By this point she didn’t want to move around much, so I just lay on the bed and let her sleep on my chest. I could feel her fading as time passed, even her purrs were getting weaker, softer, and harder to come by, as I stroked her soft fur as she slept. Late in the afternoon, she turned and crawled up to my face, hers right next to mine, and just purred and purred and purred. It was such a sweet and charming moment that it almost gave me second thoughts about what needed to be done.
While Scout was still purring against my face, my wife called when she was about to get off work. I let her know how weak Scout was and that I thought it was time, so she called our local vet to see if we could come in. We could, so I packed Scout into her carrier, without so much as a protest on her part, and met my wife there. We were led into a quiet, private room where Scout was euthanized.
She passed peacefully in my arms.
It was almost exactly a day from the time I brought her home after her transfusion to the time she passed away. In a strange way, my last day with Scout was also one of my favorites. I got to see her so full of life at first, just like her old self, then see her fade until we both knew it was time to say goodbye. But it was also a day full of snuggling, just the two of us, where she purred and purred and let me know how much she loved me. And I scratched her head and stroked her back and let her know how much I loved her.
And there was that last beautiful moment where we were face to face and she purred so happily. It was a great comfort to me to know what I comfort I was to her, and that even as she knew she was dying, she was where she wanted to be.
Oh Scout, how I loved you, and how I will miss you.
Boolie 