Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Shameless Self-Promotion #8: Kathy & Hal

I think you should vote for me and my fabulous cat Hal Fishman... because my cat is a superstar.

I never expected the sick tiny kitten I found would turn out to be such a fixture in my life.

He follows me everywhere... into the shower... everywhere.

He has extra toes so he has very large feet and tends to be a bit clumsy, but I wouldn't want him any other way.

He makes me laugh on a daily basis and I am so lucky to have found him.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Kathy,

Hal reminds me of my cat, Taz, who would have turned 10 on May 10th. Unfortunately, Taz didn't see his 10th birthday. He was hit by a car on October 27th, last year, and died in our driveway, just 9 days after my 14 year old Persian cat passed away from cancer.

Best wishes to you and Hal.

Sandideer said...

There once was a kitten named Hal,
Followed Kathy to every locale,
Even into the shower,
(Brave little meower!)
Proof, she's this cat's femme fatale.!

Sandideer said...

Poetic,
Sorry to hear about your cats Poetic, what a terrible loss to lose two precious pets so close to each other.Those of us who love cats know what a loss that is.They are a member of the family as much as a human member. !
I love my two cats with all my heart!

Unknown said...

Thanks, Sandideer.

It was sad. I thought that Marble, my cancer-ridden kitty, was going to die about a week before she did. I wasn't ready to let go and gave her water via a syringe every 30 minutes. At the end, she told me she'd had enough. I rubbed her head at 10 p.m. and when I came downstairs at 4:30, the next morning, she was gone.

I'd prepared myself for her loss and had said my goodbyes, several times. She had tried to go, several days over the course of a week, but each time, her little heart just kept on beating. In the end, it all became too much. Her mind kept telling her to go and try to eat, but her breathing had become such that she couldn't, physically, bend her head to the food. The inability to eat and then, refusing my efforts to feed her, finally took its toll, but she knew. There wasn't anything, besides what I tried as a last-ditched effort, that the vet or anyone else could do. She lived a good, long life.

Losing Taz was horribly unexpected and to this day, I can still see the images of my poor baby in the driveway. Taz was a kitten, originally given to a family with kids. They didn't know how to discipline him when he was mischievous and were going to send him to the shelter. We took him, instead, and after spending 12 hours calming him and removing probably 200 fleas from his tiny little body, he became a wonderful pet.

As he aged, he became dominant and fought with my other cat. We made him an outside cat, unable to deal with the constant fighting, and I'll never do that again! He lived 4 good years, as an outside cat, but he took chances with cars; ultimately, that was his demise.

Pets are like family. At times, they might frustrate; others, they bring so much joy --- just like family. Losing two cats within 9 days of each other was every bit as hard as burying a human relative.

I ended up writing poems for both deceased pets. The online support from my fan base was tremendously comforting.

Thanks for letting me vent.