Our baby girl is at peace now. Today, our sweet Sidra went to join her brothers and sisters who predeceased her, crossing over the Rainbow Bridge. We’ve had an amazing pet family over the years, and I’d like to think there is one helluva reunion going on at The Farm right about now.
Sidra had so many nicknames.
“Worst Cat Ever”
“Big Eyes”
“Sidzilla”
“Siddy the Kitty”
How did she get the nickname Sidzilla? Well, before she started to slip a bit, she was an amazing jumper; and at Xmas time, she would manage to jump from the couch to our Xmas village (no mean feat!!) and terrorize the villagers akin to Godzilla rampaging through Tokyo.
And she really was the Worst. Cat. Ever.
Loud, defiant, obnoxious….the only cat I’ve ever had an actual conversation with.
“Sidra, get off the counter!”
“RRRRAAAAAAAWWWR”
“SIDRA! I said get down!”
“RRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWRRRR”
“SIDRA ENGEMOEN! GET OFF THE COUNTER!!!”
“RRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!”
(I believe this is ‘cat’ for “SCREW YOU, DADDY!”)
What a character.
But her little body has been giving out for a while now. We took her to the vet almost exactly a year ago for a battery of blood tests, and although they didn’t find anything at the time, we knew something was wrong. The first thing that went was her ability to jump. She went from being able to jump up to, or off of, almost anything, to being afraid to jump on anything at all. She has been slipping since then, and the fall has been precipitous over the last few weeks. When a cat loses their litter box and self-cleaning habits, you know it’s time to let them go. I hope she has not been suffering. She seemed to still be in good spirits, as talkative as ever, which made the decision to let her go even harder, but we could no longer overlook the physical issues that she was having. For the last few months we joked that she had moved into “waterfront property” because she spent most of her time laying at the water fountain, even going so far to rest her chin on the lip of the fountain, to make it easier for her to drink. And drink. And drink. And drink. No cat has ever drank that much. And ate that much. And pooped that much. You would never think that much waste could come out of such a little creature.
Tracey is going to miss her “Bath Buddy”, and we are both going to miss our Toilet Snuggles. Yes, that is pretty much what it sounds like, although it really didn’t matter what you were doing on the toilet – you could have just come out of the shower and sat down on the lid to put socks on or something – but once your butt hit that spot, if the door was open, she’d come bounding in from anywhere in the house. And even some times when the door wasn’t open, you’d sit down and suddenly hear “thump thump”, and here she was, coming out of the bathroom closet you didn’t even know she was hiding in. It was just her “thing”, and it seemed to make her so happy. What a weird cat she was 🙂 .
Siddy, thanks for keeping us laughing and showing us so much love in your 12 years with us. We mocked you and made fun of you incessantly, but we loved you so much, and I know you know how loved you were. We will miss you very much.
Our home will be a little sadder now. A little quieter. A little less fun. A little darker. But we wouldn’t trade the time we spent together for anything.
In keeping with her tendency to talk back to us, after it was over and her heart had stopped, she still managed a couple last gasps. I am sure if she had the strength it would have been one more “RRRRROOOOOOOWWWWWRRR”. How fitting.
Give your brothers and sisters a big kiss from us, and tell them we miss them all as well. Rest now, my baby girl. We love you, Sidra.
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