On December 30, 2007, my kitten Cledus died from complications due to feline leukemia. Today is such a sad day for me, because a year later, I am still finding it hard to deal with my grief. I know that many people will look at my situation and think that Cledus was "just a cat", but to me he was so much more. I've had pets my whole life, but cats are still a fairly new thing for me. I grew up with rabbits and had many rabbits die over the years, but none of those deaths affected me as much as the death of a small, 8 month old kitten. My rabbits always lived outdoors, so perhaps it was their proximity to me that caused me to not be as attached to them as I am to my cats that live by my side 24 hours a day.
In June of 2007, I was still living in Corpus Christi. I was working as a full time nanny for a family in town. The family owned a large parcel of land and were in the process of relocating a community of barn cats to that land. The barn cats were already wild, hence the reason they were going to continue to be barn cats. In the midst of the barn cat relocation, the lady I worked for came home one day and asked me if I would be interested in a small kitten. The vet she was working with had someone come in with a very tiny, very sick, little kitten and he needed a home. If he didn't find a home, the little guy would have been euthanized. I said "yes", of course, and on my way home I stopped by the vet's office to see the kitten. I was directed to a woman's house (the woman who had found him) and when I walked in to her house I met the sweetest, most loving animal I had ever seen. He was a little gray ball of fur, only half the size of my hand. The woman handed him to me and he started purring instantly, and sucking on my finger (we later realized that he had never been weaned properly. He was much too young to be without his mother when I took him home). His eyes were caked with nasty goo, and he seemed to be having a tough time breathing. The woman told me that she found him in a bush, all alone. She had gone to neighbors to see if he belonged to anyone and he didn't. No one had ever seen him, or his missing mother. She had taken him to the vet and gotten him started on some antibiotics to clear up his respiratory infection that he was suffering from. She handed the medicine off to me, said goodbye to her little friend and we drove on home.
I remember the car ride home like it was yesterday. Cledus (who still had no name at the time) snuggled himself between my legs on the seat of the car, rolled onto his back, started purring and put his paw in my hand. I rubbed his paw and he fell asleep within seconds. Once home I sent Mr. V a text message asking him if we could have a 3rd cat. I already had my own cat, and Mr. V had "claimed" a stray that we found together at a brewery in San Antonio. He sent me back a text saying "no". I sent one back saying "Please don't kill me." He never responded to that one. He told me later that he was too annoyed to respond. However, I was convinced that once he saw this little guy, he would fall in love with him. I was right. When Mr. V got home that evening, he walked in prepared to yell at me and demand that I find the kitten another home. Instead, he took one look at the little gray ball stumbling around on the floor and fell in love like I had hoped. Cledus had spent the entire afternoon exploring the apartment and snuggling next to me on the couch. He was so young that he could barely walk straight. He was horribly sick, but he was so curious that he didn't seem to care that he was sick. He didn't seem to care that his legs would barely support him. He was just full of life and energy.
From that moment on, Cledus became a part of our family. He recovered from his respiratory infection and grew into a larger kitten, capable of walking and running without falling. He played constantly and then instantly passed out asleep when he tired himself out. He snuggled with us whenever he could. He sat on Mr. V's shoulders and on his head, while at the computer. He slept snuggled between us every single night, purring all night long. He annoyed us and amused us both. I can't even count the number of times he took a flying leap from the kitchen counter onto my back, digging his nails into my skin in the process. I can't tell you how many bloody cuts and scratches I had from him. He ran, jumped, played, leaped, and climbed 24/7. He seemed to like climbing up our bodies which was the cause of the majority of my cuts. The other cuts and scratches were a direct result of his flying leaps through the air when he landed on my back. He hung on to me using his nails.
I had never seen an animal that was so full of life and love. He trusted us instantly and never left our sides. I really don't know what it was about him, but he became our favorite pet. A year later, I still don't know what it was about him, but I have come to believe that he entered our lives for a reason.
Last Christmas, Mr. V and I went to my childhood home in New Jersey. We packed up the 3 cats, and my 3 rabbits and drove off. Everything was fine until a few days after Christmas. The cats were all playful and excited to be exploring a new house. Then we noticed that Cledus didn't seem to be himself. He was hiding and not purring. He always purred so that concerned me. I noticed a large bleeding scratch on his head and assumed that one of my dad's cats attacked him. I convinced myself that this was the reason for his odd behavior. The next day, we saw him eating kitty litter straight out of the little box. We thought this was odd, but not necessarily bad. I'm glad I decided to Google it though. I typed in "Why is my kitten eating litter?" and the answer popped right up. Anemia. Its apparently very common for cats to eat litter when they are anemic. I then Googled "feline anemia" and was shocked to learn that it is very different from human anemia. In cats, the anemia is usually the result of some more serious disease. A sure sign to test for anemia is to look at the cat's gums. If they are pink, it could be anything. If the gums are white, its 99.99% likely that the cat is anemic. We looked at Cledus' gums. They were whiter than I ever could have possibly imagined.
We rushed off to the 24 hour emergency vet convinced that whatever was wrong with him could be cured. He had been tested for FIV and Feline Leukemia when he was brought into the vet as a young kitten. He tested negative for both diseases so I was confident that wasn't the problem. Imagine my shock when the emergency vet told us that he tested positive for feline leukemia. I didn't believe her at first, and Mr. V and I asked tons of questions to make sure that his diagnosis was correct. Unfortunately, a kitten that tests negative for FeLv at 1 month, needs to be retested again at 6 months, which no one had ever told me. It never even crossed my mind that his original test results could be wrong.
The horrible thing about FeLv is that it hits fast and sudden. A cat can go from being healthy one day, to dead the next. Not only were we hit with the shock of his FeLv but we were also hit with the shock that he wasn't just sick, he was dying right there in front of us. Once a cat becomes anemic due to FeLv there isn't much that can be done. We were offered a $2000 blood transfusion, and while many people would find us crazy, we would have paid it if it meant that he could live a longer and happier life. Unfortunately, a blood transfusion would have only given him a few more days of life. It took us hours to make the hard decision to put him to sleep. I can't even remember how much time passed in that room. I only remember crying my eyes out, saying over and over "he's just a baby" and Mr. V crying with me. He called my mother who showed up to give me some support. Eventually, we could see poor Cledus getting weaker and weaker as we struggled with the decision. I really believe that he was telling us that he was ready to die. Mr. V stayed with him until the very end, while my mom sat with me in the waiting room. I just couldn't bring myself to stay with him, which upsets me to this day, but at least one of us was there until the very end. Mr. V rubbed his paw until he took his last breath. Just like the day I brought him home, we quickly learned that rubbing a paw, would relax Cledus in an instant, so it seemed appropriate to rub his paw at the very end of his life.
I was a wreck. I never realized that it was possible to go through the stages of grief when an animal dies, but I went through them all. I didn't believe that it really happened. I felt guilty for not knowing that he was sick. I was upset that we didn't have any of his toys with us to bury with him. I even cried about the fact that he might not have people around him in cat heaven. He loved being around people so that thought was horrifying to me. I pretty much became inconsolable for several days. The only comfort I had was that he was buried in my childhood backyard with the rest of my childhood pets.
His death ruined my Christmas. This year, the holiday season has been hard for me because I associated it with his death. Its been especially hard today because I wish I could have seen him all grown up. I wish that I could have seen him as a cat. He was a Maine Coon mix and they get quite large. I am sitting here with another Maine Coon on my lap and its sad to me that I never got to see Cledus grow up.
Mr. V and I have decided that Cledus is our Christmas angel. His death was tragic and sudden, but it did bring some good into our lives. The day we left New Jersey last year, I broke down crying hysterically and prayed. Before that moment I can't even remember the last time I prayed. I was reaching for anything that could possibly make me feel better and take the hurt away from me. I prayed that I would see a sign that would show me that Cledus was all right. In the midst of my hysteria, I was still able to see logically and I knew that my crying and pleading was getting me nowhere. I knew he wasn't coming back. I just couldn't accept that fact. That evening though, my miracle happened. While we were packing up our car to head back to our apartment in Jacksonville, Florida, we smelled something strange in the house. It was a flowery smell, and I thought it was my stepmother's perfume or something like that. I didn't give it a second thought until my stepmother asked me if I smelled it too. We searched the house to find the source of the smell and neither one of us could believe what we found. My parents have had a cane type plant in their house since I was born. Its been cut and trimmed and planted into new pots, but the plant itself never changed. That evening we saw that the plant had bloomed flowers. The plant NEVER bloomed flowers before. We are both certain that the flowers hadn't been there the day before, and I called my dad, who was away on a business trip, and my mom to verify that there had never been flowers on that plant in all 30 years of its life. When we noticed that Cledus had been acting strange, he was hiding underneath that plant. I am not a person who tends to believe in miracles. I need to be shown cold, hard facts to accept something. But that day, I truly believe that those flowers were a sign to show me that Cledus was ok. There hasn't been a single flower on the plant since that day.
The good that has come out of this is the zoo that is at my house today. I was devastated by his death and went on a research kick where I read everything I could about FeLv. In felines, its not a cancer. Instead, its a virus that can be transmitted to other cats. After frantically testing my 2 cats that had been exposed to him (both have tested negative twice since then), I set out to save the cats of the world from leukemia. Cats that are spayed and neutered are less likely to catch the disease, so I got involved in a Trap, Neuter, Return program. Mr. V and I trapped a few feral cats around our apartment complex and took them to get spayed/neutered. We socialized them, found 2 of them homes, and kept the others. A giant chain reaction occurred through all of this. When we returned to Jacksonville after Christmas, I saw an ad for an 8 month old Maine Coon mix, which was exactly what Cledus was, and it was the age he was when he died. While I realized I could never replace him, I felt like I needed to have something in his place. I contacted the lady, and I now have my beautiful 1 year, 8 month old Moses. I truly believe I was meant to have Moses. This lady had about 50 people respond to her ad, but she picked me. She also does TNR and Moses was one of her rescues that she was seeking a home for. A few weeks after welcoming Moses into our lives, he ran away from us. I was devastated again. I cried my eyes out for days and thought that maybe I just wasn't meant to have a Maine Coon. He was missing for 3 months when someone found him and returned him to us.
The night that Moses ran away, we set out one of our TNR traps in the hopes that we could lure him into it if he came back home. Instead of catching Moses, we caught Velvet, who was a kitten herself and she was pregnant. Velvet gave birth to one kitten - Meepers. She tried to abandon him the moment he was born. I know now that if we never had Cledus, I would have never found the ad for Moses. If Cledus hadn't died, we never would have gotten into TNR. If we didn't have the trap, we never would have put it outside for Moses. If Velvet hadn't wandered into the trap, Meepers would have been born in a Florida swamp, abandoned instantly and he wouldn't have survived a day out there on his own. When I think of Cledus, I look at Meepers, who is our 9 month old kitten full of life and energy. I realize that Meepers wouldn't be alive if it wasn't for Cledus and for that, I am thankful.
I truly believe that Cledus came into our lives for a reason. We never would have started trapping cats. We never would have rescued as many cats as we have if we had never known Cledus. Many people think I'm crazy, but I feel like cat rescue is something that I was meant to do. One day I hope to have my own non-profit rescue so that I can do what I am doing now on a much larger scale. I want to rescue cats that have FeLv because many shelters euthanize them instantly. Cledus may have had a short life, but I know that he was happy and healthy until the end. Before him, I would have agreed with euthanizing any cat that tested positive for leukemia. Now I understand why there are a few rescues out there that only take FeLv and FIV (feline AIDS) kitties. They deserve a chance at life too. One of my grieving thoughts after his death, was that I wish I knew he was sick originally. I would have euthanized him then, instead of going through the pain of knowing him, and then killing him. I felt like I was killing him when we were in the ER vet because I felt bad for not knowing he was sick in the first place. Looking back, my thoughts at that moment weren't exactly clear or coherent. It took some time for me to calm down and understand that if I had put him to sleep when we first got him, that would have been killing him. Putting him to sleep when he was suffering was nothing but helping him. It took a lot of talks from my mother and Mr. V before I finally accepted that I didn't kill him, and I didn't allow him to suffer either. I saved him from being killed. If he hadn't been found in that bush, he probably would have died anyway - alone. If I hadn't taken him home with me, the vet was going to euthanize him anyway. 8 months is a short life, but he had a happy life until the end. I just hope that he knew he was loved.
A few months after his death, my mom made me a beautiful collage of Cledus' pictures with a lovely poem in the center of it. Many people say that when a beloved pet dies, they cross the Rainbow Bridge (there is a different version of the poem on that website, but it is a great site). I'll leave you with the Rainbow Bridge poem. Maybe one day I'll get to see my angel again and thank him for the joy he brought in to my life.
By the edge of a woods, at the foot of a hill,
Is a lush, green meadow where time stands still.
Where the friends of man and woman do run,
When their time on earth is over and done.
For here, between this world and the next,
Is a place where each beloved creature finds rest.
On this golden land, they wait and they play,
Till the Rainbow Bridge they cross over one day.
No more do they suffer, in pain or in sadness,
For here they are whole, their lives filled with gladness.
Their limbs are restored, their health renewed,
Their bodies have healed, with strength imbued.
They romp through the grass, without even a care,
Until one day they start, and sniff at the air.
All ears prick forward, eyes dart front and back,
Then all of a sudden, one breaks from the pack.
For just at that instant, their eyes have met;
Together again, both person and pet.
So they run to each other, these friends from long past,
The time of their parting is over at last.
The sadness they felt while they were apart,
Has turned into joy once more in each heart.
They embrace with a love that will last forever,
And then, side-by-side, they cross the Rainbow Bridge together.
(baby Cledus reading Harry Potter with me)
(baby Cledus with his favorite toy - he's only slightly bigger than Mr. V's hand in this picture)
(baby Cledus)
(At the vet on the last day - he was purring very faintly in this picture, the last time I ever heard him purr. I'm not crying yet because we haven't heard the diagnosis yet. He just clung to me this day. I hope that his faint purring meant that he knew I was taking care of him until the very end :'-(.)
(Christmas day 2007)
(my little buddy - RIP May 2007 - December 30, 2007)
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