I'm up late, Lisa and Jack have gone to sleep... Well actually she's sleeping next to me but Jack is in his doggie bed on the other side of me on the floor and I can tell he's awake. :-)
But anyway, I was just in the bathroom doing all my bedtime stuff, brushing my teeth and washing my face, putting on moisturizer, etc., and of course if you read my previous blog post you know that my family's cat Gato passed away earlier tonight, so that is foremost on my mind....and I'm doing my bedtime routine much slower than I normally would, just thinking about him and how I feel about him being gone.
My loved ones and I have lost a lot of special people and pets in recent years. It's been difficult to face those times but you do realize who is really there for you and the things that really matter. You realize that life is so precious and often so short.
Gato was a good kid. Or cat. But he was more of a cross between a dog and a kid if you ask me. :-) He was originally a stray, and he was a troublemaker. He liked to roughhouse and scuffle, and it didn't matter that he was declawed (note: I do NOT advocate declawing and if I had it to do over again I wouldn't!). His paws were as soft as little pats of butter but he'd smack you with them like he was the toughest guy in the world. Lisa was definitely his favorite sparring partner. I'd always tell her the two of them had the same spirit. ;-)
Once he got out and was missing for a short time, and we didn't realize he had been bitten severely on his back by another cat. His hair was not very long, but thick, so we didn't see the bite until it was very badly infected. He ended up requiring very expensive surgery and we were afraid for his life. I was so grateful that he made it, and to think he lived maybe six or seven more years after that for a total of thirteen... Well, I wish he had lived even longer than that but I am grateful for every single day.
I think back to the first times I went to see Gato when he was living behind my grampa's house. Like I said, he was a stray. He was good friends with the dog next door and chased him back and forth at the fence. I think he picked up a lot of his "doggish" tendencies from that one. When we'd leave, Gato (at that point I had named him Douglas but that didn't stick) would lay in the driveway like a big shot, watching us drive away like he was too cool to care.
I hoped and prayed that my family would decide to bring him home, and I was so excited when they finally did. He was about six months old according to the vet. I remember having him in my room with the litter box and hoping he'd actually use it! He lived outside for so long I wasn't sure he'd adapt to the indoor life. He definitely did, but he loved sneaking outside whenever he could. Never took too long to chase that fat boy down though. <3 Actually that first night at home was when I started calling him Señor Gato, and from there, Gato just became his name.
It's so hard to believe he's gone. I guess in a way, this was his last time sneaking out. He's probably up there in heaven or wherever the afterlife may be, laying in the grass and sniffing the flowers like he loved to do. I always thought it was so funny that he acted so tough, but he looooved flowers. :-) A softie at heart.
I like to think I handle goodbyes pretty well at this point. I used to be a basketcase over a simple "see you later" but now I have experienced enough real losses to kind of consider myself a pro. I haven't cried yet. I'm deeply sad. I'm heartbroken. My "Cookie Son" (one of my nicknames for him which came from another nickname, "Oreo") is gone. I'll never walk in again and see him and say in that ridiculous voice that I only used for him, "GATO COOKIE SON!!!!" He liked for people to pet him with their feet, so I'd take off my flip flops and say, "Gato cookie son, I got toeeesss for yooouuu!!!!"
And there it is. I'm crying. Not such a pro after all. Thank God. Who wants to be a pro at goodbyes?
I'll miss that kid for as long as I live. Douglas, Señor Gato, Gato, Oreo, Cookie Son, Cat, etc... And whatever other names we knew him by! See you on the other side, kiddo.
